A Perspective From Gaza: Every Blast Reminds Me of the Injustice

I write in bursts, between the blasts. The bombs fall, on average, every four to five minutes, round the clock. We brace ourselves. The rule, we know, is this: If you hear it, you're still alive.
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ISRAEL/GAZA BORDER, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 20: (ISRAEL OUT) Israeli soldiers stand next to artillery guns as the conflict between Palestine and Gaza enters its seventh day on November 20, 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants and Israel are continuing talks aimed at a ceasefire as the death toll in Gaza reaches over 100 with three Israelis also having been killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)
ISRAEL/GAZA BORDER, ISRAEL - NOVEMBER 20: (ISRAEL OUT) Israeli soldiers stand next to artillery guns as the conflict between Palestine and Gaza enters its seventh day on November 20, 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants and Israel are continuing talks aimed at a ceasefire as the death toll in Gaza reaches over 100 with three Israelis also having been killed by rockets fired by Palestinian militants. (Photo by Uriel Sinai/Getty Images)

I write in bursts, between the blasts. The bombs fall, on average,every four to five minutes, round the clock. We brace ourselves. Therule, we know, is this: If you hear it, you're still alive.

Someone described the sound as like a heavy door slammed shut on acavernous room. I wonder if that someone was inside. I wonder if thedoor stayed shut, as it does for all of us here.

We can't leave. Even if we could, why bother? We're already refugees.

My grandparents taught me about the Palestinian villages in what isnow called Israel -- villages that four-fifths of Gaza still calls home.More than 500 were leveled, renamed and stolen by Jewish terroristsduring Israel's creation.

I'm 21, and that was long ago. But every blast this week has remindedme of the injustice. And I will never forget.

I record my own grandchildren's future memories between the blasts.They come in intervals measured in steps. Steps to the bottom of thisfive-story building. Steps sprinted by my mother, sisters and brotherin tow, to join the other families in a huddle.

Me, I stay behind. I'm a filmmaker. I want to see where the smokerises. I want to gauge the distance. I know the ones that leave yourears ringing, they're maybe a quarter-mile away. But the ones thatmake your ribs rattle, they're the ones that make you pray.

I pray that my friends in the next building over are safe. I wantdesperately to check on them, but I can't go outside. No one can.Still, we stay connected -- meters apart -- through phone or Twitter, insimple messages that report what we're seeing and trying not to hear.

I hear people in the West Bank -- Palestinians like me -- are protesting.But I don't know them. I have never been. The West Bank is a two-hourdrive, but Israel denied me a permit to go.

I want to know who issues permits for the F-16s that just shook theearth, that have dropped a thousand bombs on my Gaza? Who gave theorder to slaughter eight members of the Al Dalou family and two neighbors this week,leveling their home with U.S.-funded weapons -- weapons that tore through theflesh of four children?

If I want to know, then surely the outside world does, too.

But no. Mere hours before the Al Dalou family massacre, I saw BarackObama lecture the world about Israel's right "to defend itself." Heseemed timid, almost embarrassed, as if he knew that in the four yearspreceding this onslaught, 1,711 of my people had been killed byAmerican-funded weapons -- a figure representing nearly 99 percent of allcasualties on both sides.

That's right: We Palestinians are the 99 percent.

The most scary point in Gaza is when we are all waiting for the unknown.When you come into your room and hear the loud massive bombing of the Israeli warships as they shake the field of vision around you and you don't know where they're bombing now. All you can hear is people screaming and ambulances' sirens around.This scene has been videotaped from the window of my room in the north of Gaza City while I was facing death.

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