For most of us Monday isn’t our favourite day. We protest, in subtle ways, the loss of the past two days of freedom that allow us to be who we really are.
Be it getting out of bed a little later or standing under the hot shower to savour a precious extra 30 seconds (because the rest of the week is for saving water), Mondays require some effort.
Many are the little ways in which we show our displeasure at being thrown back into the grind of the real world.
For eight-month-old Layla Ghandour, for paramedic Musa Abunassanin, for Dr Tarek Loubani, Monday May 14 wasn’t a day like that at all.
Layla allegedly died from the effects of inhaling tear gas.
Abunassanin was shot in the chest (and died) by a sniper’s bullet while tending to someone.
This an hour after coming to the aid of his colleague, Loubani, who had been shot in both legs despite wearing his Canadian hospital greens.
On Monday May 14, Israeli Defence Force (IDF) snipers killed 60 protesting Gaza residents and wounded 1 359 others.
Over the protest period of 45 days, IDF soldiers were responsible for killing 111 people and shooting 3 569 people with live ammunition.
Of those bullet wounds, 563 were to the head and neck, 237 to the upper torso (back and chest), 811 to arms, 276 to the abdomen/pelvis and 3 502 to the legs.
The impact of a sniper bullet (especially the “butterfly” type allegedly in use) on human flesh is devastating. Designed for maximum damage, it destroys human tissue and if it doesn’t kill, it’s likely to maim a person for life.
Some 488 women, 1 129 teens (under 18), 228 medics and 124 journalists are among the dead and injured.
The Palestinian “Great March of Return” protest began on March 30, on what Palestinians call “Land Day” (to mark the killing of six Palestinians in 1976 by Israeli security forces for protesting the expropriation of Arab land in northern Israel) and was originally intended to end on “Nakba Day” (the day of the “Catastrophe”, which marks the forced eviction of some 750 000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and the destruction of more than 500 villages).
However, with the opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem, timed to coincide with Israel’s Independence Day (May 14), organisers of the protests (across all the Palestinian territories) bumped the final protest up by a day to capitalise on the accompanying media hype.
As a consequence, 40 000 Palestinians gathered close to the fence that separates Israel from Gaza on that fateful Monday.
After prayers, ordinary Gaza citizens were encouraged by clerics and others, led by Hamas – the (Sunni) Islamist political organisation that has run the Gaza Strip since Israel’s withdrawal in 2005, as well as its own subsequent election in 2006 and violent breakaway from the Palestinian Authority – to go to the fence and for women to be in the front because the IDF would not shoot them.
Claiming that the fence had been breached and that the Israelis were fleeing, mosque loudspeakers urged people into the (300m to 500m-wide) buffer zone.
Tyres were lit to create smoke cover; some youngsters armed themselves with stones, some with “katties” or slingshots, some with Molotov cocktails, some flew kites with petrol bombs attached and emblazoned with swastikas. The vast majority of protestors were unarmed.
Hamas had made known through social media in the lead-up to the final protest that its aim was to breach the fence and go to kidnap (or kill) Israelis. No Israelis were hurt in this round of protests.
The Gaza Strip is a 41km-long, 6km to 12km-wide piece of land on the Mediterranean that is bordered by Egypt in the south, and Israel in the north and east.Often referred to as the “world’s largest open-air prison”, in total its land mass equals 365km² (Nelson Mandela Bay at 1 959km² is five times its size).
It has been ruled by just about every major power that has swept through the Middle East – the Ottomans, the British, the Egyptians and, most recently, Israel (whom the UN considers the occupying power). It houses some two million Palestinians (Nelson Mandela Bay by comparison has 1.1 million residents), of which it’s estimated some 1.3 million are refugees.
It is the third most densely populated place on the planet.
Israel, specifically the IDF, blockades air and sea access (fishing boats from Gaza can go out to six nautical miles), and has thrown a fence around the interior bit with only two operational “crossings” – Erez, for pedestrians alone, and Kerem Shalom, for goods and people.
Israel decides what goods come in and out of Gaza. Items deemed “dual purpose” (civil and military use), such as Portland cement, construction steel and fertilisers, must first be requested and then approved by Israeli authorities.
Hamas (which has also fought a civil war with its secular Palestinian rival, Fatah, which in turn leads the Palestinian Authority that rules the West Bank) regularly targets the Kerem Shalom crossing.
As it stands, all infrastructure on the Gaza side has been destroyed, exacerbating the already slow trickle of goods in and out.
Medical supplies and foodstuffs are all at critical levels.
Daily 20-hour electricity blackouts are the norm.
Only 10.5% of Gaza citizens have access to safe drinking water via public waterworks.
The UN estimates 2020 as the year that Gaza will become “unliveable”. Many argue that this is already the case. Israel is accused of deliberately starving Gaza to ensure compliance, as well as Hamas’s failure.
Hamas is accused of stealing humanitarian aid, diverting electricity, taxes and other items to build palaces for the leaders and dig the myriad smuggling tunnels that are used to circumvent the blockade.
Israel justified the use of snipers and live ammunition, claiming it had tried non-lethal means (drones firing tear gas) to no avail; that its duty was to protect its border and citizens from terrorists.
Hamas, up until very recently, didn’t believe Israel had a right to exist (it moderated that position slightly, but prior to this latest round of killings) and pays families compensation for those martyred in resisting Israel. Ordinary Palestinians just want to go back to their original homes and a sense of normality.
Whether you choose either the binary of (Hamas) terrorists or (IDF) war criminals, a border or a concentration camp, a protest or an attack, whether you view stones and kites as weapons or as props, whether an eight-month- old baby’s death is due to the IDF or irresponsible parents, the fact remains that 60 people died on that Monday.
They will never experience another “blue” Monday again.
The Palestinian-Israel death calendar now has another day added to it.
Another future opportunity for the hawks within Israel and Gaza to kill, to maim, to abuse and to keep the fires of hate burning.
On current course, Israel and Gaza are literally in a death spiral, having lost sight of the one fundamental: we are all human. It has no happy ending. May South Africans heed the warning!