the middle of the night. Because my family is all in Jabalya, and my wife’s family is from Egypt, there is nowhere else for us to go – nowhere safe to protect my wife and children from what might happen. We have slept some nights in my car on the street in Gaza City, in these streets near your apartment – because this is the safest place in Gaza. Can you imagine the feeling of knowing you can’t even protect your own children? It is like being eaten by fear.’
That evening, after Mounir has gone, holding onto the banister so he doesn’t topple down the dark stairs, I sit alone on my couch as the candle burns down, picturing a man spending a night in a car with five cold children, his wife too scared to cry as explosions rock the streets around them. I stub out my cigarette, thinking how darkness takes many different forms.
Towards the end of winter, a Palestinian blows himself up in a shopping centre in the Israeli city of Dimona, dismembering an elderly woman as she is making her way to her local bank. This is the first Palestinian suicide attack inside Israel for more than a year and it really rattles me because I do not hear a word of pity for the dead woman from anyone. I do not hear people rejoicing at her killing or celebrating the death of a Palestinian
shahid
, or ‘martyr’; I just hear them hoping the suicide bomber is not from Gaza. Because if he is, then God help us, they say: Israel will make everyone here inside Gaza pay for it. During our next lesson, I blurt out my agitated confusion to
Ustaz
Mounir.
‘All killing is wrong,’ he says, ‘including killing Israelis. This was not a good Muslim.’
He is the only person I hear condemn the suicide bombing.
With three hours tuition a week, and so many lessons devoted to conversation, my Arabic does really start to improve. And so does my confidence about walking the streets and interacting with people I meet along the way. I greet people easily and get to know many of the local shopkeepers by name. At the Centre my colleagues notice the difference too. I can banter with them in Arabic a little – and even answer them back. Every day I learn a few new words. It is like having another sense begin to fully awaken.
On my way back home from work one afternoon, carrying a bag of fresh warm pitta breads from the bakery just down the street, I pass by a posse of
shabab
. I’ve seen this lot before, but this time I can hear them egging each other on until one shouts, ‘Nice arse!’ The others start braying like the local donkeys and soon they join in too: ‘Nice-arse-nice-arse-nice-arse …!’
I stop dead in the street. Turning on my heels, I remove my sunglasses and stare them down. Then I launch into a slow, loud tirade of Arabic.
‘Is this how you speak to women in Gaza – with no respect at all?
Haram
! Shame on you! If only your mothers – and your fathers – could hear you now …’
I’m really quite enjoying myself. But the posse are staring at me, bug-eyed, their feet glued to the pavement. I take a slow, deliberate step towards them.
‘Now listen to me – don’t you ever dare speak to a woman like this again.
Igliboh
!’
Their jaws hit the ground. And to a boy they all apologise for being so rude.
even the foreigners are escaping!
One morning at the end of January, Hamas blows up the southern Gaza border with Egypt. The operation is well planned, brilliantly executed. Sections of the 12-metre-high fence are detonated one after another until it lies in a concertina stretching for more than three and a half miles. By the time I get to work, just after 8.30 in the morning, thousands of Gazans have already poured across the border into northern Egypt. My colleagues are hanging out in reception, smirking like teenage joyriders.
Shadi struts across reception, beaming about the busted border.
‘You heard the news? Six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six
mabrouk
(congratulations) to Gaza! Hamas has suddenly broken the prison
That evening, after Mounir has gone, holding onto the banister so he doesn’t topple down the dark stairs, I sit alone on my couch as the candle burns down, picturing a man spending a night in a car with five cold children, his wife too scared to cry as explosions rock the streets around them. I stub out my cigarette, thinking how darkness takes many different forms.
Towards the end of winter, a Palestinian blows himself up in a shopping centre in the Israeli city of Dimona, dismembering an elderly woman as she is making her way to her local bank. This is the first Palestinian suicide attack inside Israel for more than a year and it really rattles me because I do not hear a word of pity for the dead woman from anyone. I do not hear people rejoicing at her killing or celebrating the death of a Palestinian
shahid
, or ‘martyr’; I just hear them hoping the suicide bomber is not from Gaza. Because if he is, then God help us, they say: Israel will make everyone here inside Gaza pay for it. During our next lesson, I blurt out my agitated confusion to
Ustaz
Mounir.
‘All killing is wrong,’ he says, ‘including killing Israelis. This was not a good Muslim.’
He is the only person I hear condemn the suicide bombing.
With three hours tuition a week, and so many lessons devoted to conversation, my Arabic does really start to improve. And so does my confidence about walking the streets and interacting with people I meet along the way. I greet people easily and get to know many of the local shopkeepers by name. At the Centre my colleagues notice the difference too. I can banter with them in Arabic a little – and even answer them back. Every day I learn a few new words. It is like having another sense begin to fully awaken.
On my way back home from work one afternoon, carrying a bag of fresh warm pitta breads from the bakery just down the street, I pass by a posse of
shabab
. I’ve seen this lot before, but this time I can hear them egging each other on until one shouts, ‘Nice arse!’ The others start braying like the local donkeys and soon they join in too: ‘Nice-arse-nice-arse-nice-arse …!’
I stop dead in the street. Turning on my heels, I remove my sunglasses and stare them down. Then I launch into a slow, loud tirade of Arabic.
‘Is this how you speak to women in Gaza – with no respect at all?
Haram
! Shame on you! If only your mothers – and your fathers – could hear you now …’
I’m really quite enjoying myself. But the posse are staring at me, bug-eyed, their feet glued to the pavement. I take a slow, deliberate step towards them.
‘Now listen to me – don’t you ever dare speak to a woman like this again.
Igliboh
!’
Their jaws hit the ground. And to a boy they all apologise for being so rude.
even the foreigners are escaping!
One morning at the end of January, Hamas blows up the southern Gaza border with Egypt. The operation is well planned, brilliantly executed. Sections of the 12-metre-high fence are detonated one after another until it lies in a concertina stretching for more than three and a half miles. By the time I get to work, just after 8.30 in the morning, thousands of Gazans have already poured across the border into northern Egypt. My colleagues are hanging out in reception, smirking like teenage joyriders.
Shadi struts across reception, beaming about the busted border.
‘You heard the news? Six thousand, six hundred and sixty-six
mabrouk
(congratulations) to Gaza! Hamas has suddenly broken the prison
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