Gaza's children see a brighter future after Israeli pullout
AFP
Date: 08-28-05
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AFP) - Hisham is 12 and he wants to be a pilot. Like many youngsters in the impoverished Gaza Strip, he is starting to envision a better future now that the long-awaited dream of Israel leaving Gaza has finally become a reality.
"I dream of becoming a pilot. I want to fly over the West Bank, over Egypt. I want to see other skies," says this youngster from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
"I also want to rebuild my school which was damaged by an Israeli rocket and the stadium so my friends can play football," says Hisham who lives in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp which lies close to the recently-evacuated Jewish settlement of Kfar Darom.
"We spend most of our time demonstrating. When there is an Israeli raid and when the martyrs fall, we demonstrate. And when the army carries out a raid, we go into the street," he says, explaining his life in a place which has seen countless clashes between militants and the Israeli army over the last five years.
"Even if the war is over, we will always have demonstrations -- that's just the way our life is," he shrugs.
But Asra al-Housh, 13, hates the fact that children have spent so much of their lives protesting in the streets.
"We have had enough of demonstrations. We mustn't waste time, we must stay at school," she says pointedly.
Her dream is to become a lawyer. "I want to defend children and their right to play, to participate in debates and to express their opinions," she says.
Her friend Jamila Dohan says she would love to study medicine and dreams of curing the ills of this over-crowded area which is home to thousands of Palestinians whose lives have been choked by the countless Israeli restrictions imposed since the start of the intifada.
Official Palestinian statistics show that more than half of Gaza's 1.3 million residents are living below the poverty line and unemployment is running at 45 percent.
"I just want to visit my aunt in Khan Yunis whom I haven't seen for two years," sighs 13-year-old Ibrahim Khriss summing up his plans for life after the Israeli withdrawal.
"I also want to be a football player," he adds hastily, perhaps realising the dream to visit his aunt who lives just a kilometre down the road doesn't sound quite lofty enough.
Last week, Israel completed its historic evacuation of all 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip. Although Israeli troops are still stationed in the territory, they are expected to have left by mid September.
Not everyone is quite so excited about the future. Hamza Ashur, 14, says he is afraid Gaza will become just one large prison. "They want to keep control over the borders," he says.
As they wait for the departure of the last Israeli soldier, more than 200 children aged nine to 12 head for Gaza's beaches to unwind at a summer camp organised by Jawal, the Palestinian mobile phone operator.
"Our objective is to let the children relax and let them get away from the atmosphere of war and imprisonment," the organisers said.
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