Gazan Youth Journals From The Warzone: Wishing That The Clock Could Turn Back

Freelance journalist Safa Joudeh lives in Gaza City and in the past two weeks her home has become a warzone. She has been keeping a journal since the first day of the war.

December 27th, 2008

It was just before noon when I heard the first explosion. I rushed to my window and barely did I get there and look out when I was pushed back by the force and air-pressure from another explosion.

What followed seems pretty much surreal.

Outside my home, which is close to the two largest universities in Gaza, a missile fell on a large group of young men. We've all been warned not to stand in groups as it makes for an easy target, but they were waiting for buses to take them home. Seven were killed, four college students and three young men.

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Comments

[Beantownbadboy]

If we had any brains, we'd pull out of the Middle East sand trap and let the Israelis handle things. Give them whatever support they need, but stay out! They know how to deal with these people, we don't.

[LITNUP]

maybe if the clock were turned back to BEFORE YOU VOTED IN HAMAS and before they dropped 5000 rockets on Israel

[Blutus]

Next time they see a bunch of guys in masks setting up rockets in
back-yards, the "Gazans" should do something about it.

Just a thought.

[LolaP]

List of the United States vetoes of U.N resolutions since 1973; http://www.krysstal.com/democracy_whyusa03.html

[mergina]

IN THE NAME OF LOVE, STOP KILLING ONE ANOTHER before love comes to kill you.

[slarabee]

Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of deaths construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!

Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor

Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait till their judgement day comes, yeah!

Now in darkness, world stops turning
As the war machine keeps burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgment, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan, laughing, spreads his wings
All right now!

Ozzy Osbourne 1970

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

What an amazingly brave and eloquent young woman.

Another generation either scarred or slaughtered.

Cease Fire Now!

Peace Now!

[sarale23]

Tell this to Hamas, my friend.

[slarabee]

Stop it. You have not earned the right to justify the mass killings of people so flippantly . If just one person was killed in front of you you would cower like a child and beg for the violence to stop. Do not use your freedom to express your opinion so lightly on something that runs so deep. Death and hatred are not just some TV show. Those people are real, they have hopes and dreams and fears and feel pain just like you and your children. May God be merciful when he questions you about these matters.

[murphy80]

it reads as if they were waiting for the bus when the missile struck.

[sarale23]

It was a flying bus... arriving per schedule.

[Pete Ross]

How many times have Palestinian suicide bombers climbed on Israeli buses full of children and women and detonated their bombs?

“ZARQA, Jordan - 07/05/2001 — The Hotaris are preparing for a party to celebrate the killing of 21 Israelis this month by their son, a suicide bomber. Neighbors hang pictures on their trees of Saeed Hotari holding seven sticks of dynamite. They spray-paint graffiti reading "21 and counting" on their stone walls. And they arrange flowers in the shapes of a heart and a bomb to display on their front doors. "I am very happy and proud of what my son did and, frankly, am a bit jealous," says Hassan Hotari, 54, father of the young man who carried out the attack June 1 outside a disco in Tel Aviv. It was Israel's worst suicide bombing in nearly four years. "I wish I had done (the bombing). My son has fulfilled the Prophet's wishes. He has become a hero! Tell me, what more could a father ask?"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/june01/2001-06-26-suicide-usat.htm

The Attitudes and actions of the Palestinian people must change before anyone in right mind could blame Israel for anything they do in retaliation for the continuous attacks upon Israel since since 1948 perpetrated by the Palestinians.
If the Palestinians had wanted peace (and their own country) any time in the recent past all they would have had to have done is to stop attacking Israel.