Hope crumbles in Rafah as homes are ground to dust

[Aidoneus]

Hope crumbles in Rafah as homes are ground to dust

Chris McGreal in Rafah, Gaza
Wednesday March 10, 2004
The Guardian

Just a few months ago Zakia Abu Alouf's flat, built with her life's savings from teaching in Saudi Arabia, stood in the middle of her street. The end of the row was marked by the towering metal wall the Israeli army built where the Rafah refugee camp in Gaza runs up against the Egyptian border. Between the Israeli gunposts and Mrs Abu Alouf's finely decorated home stood about a dozen houses and low-rise apartment blocks with tobacco stores and workshops.

But that was until the Israeli army turned its attention to the area of Rafah known as Block J.

"There was a three-storey building right there," said Mrs Abu Alouf, pointing at a mound of pulverised brick and cement a few metres from her home. "There's nothing left but that little pile. Next to it, that other pile - that was a two-storey building. That twisted metal over there was a Coca-Cola store. The bulldozers pushed it all the way up the road. There were shops and a carpentry workshop. It's all gone bit by bit."

--snip--

Mrs Abu Alouf has still got her flat but most of her side of the street has vanished, with the exception of a couple of battered, abandoned buildings and a six-storey block of flats pancaked by an Israeli demolition squad. The bulldozers returned to grind to dust many of the wrecked homes. Now, Mrs Abu Alouf's flat is the frontline, facing the Israeli watchtowers 200 metres away.

"That's what makes me afraid. Mine is the last home in the street now and it's everything we have. I have begged them not to destroy it. They know there are no tunnels here, but I don't think it is about that at all. Do they really believe that every house in my street had a tunnel under the border?" she said.

Mrs Abu Alouf's four children no longer sleep in their bedrooms because Israeli bullets periodically crash through the windows. The entire family is confined to a single inner room at night and has built an inner wall right next to the toilet after one child was nearly shot while sitting on it. Her 12-year-old daughter has taken to sucking her thumb again.

--snip--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1165834,00.html

[jmcgowanjm]

1. One day the US will have to send the oil tanker to another nation

at that point the world will change in the Middle East.

[Jim Sagle]

2. How about a Guardian story on surviving family members of a bus bombing in

Israel? Just asking.

[PsychoDad]

3. That's not a bad Idea Jim.

A good contrast could be made in the article between the economic and humanitarian similarities and differences. The numbers of bombing victims along side the victims of Israeli military actions. The day to day fears and pressures of each family.

It could make for a very good investigative article.
Know any reporters?