Suheir Zaqoot (right) and Riham Abu-Sha'ban work on dresses of their own design in a vocational training program with MCC partner NECCCRW.
Like almost all women in Gaza, Suheir Zaqoot wears a head scarf and a shapeless dress in conformity to local standards of modesty. But behind her on the wall of the sewing shop, a poster covered with magazine cut-outs of high-fashion models in glamorous gowns provides inspiration. In Gaza’s climate of conflict, between the rock of the Israeli military blockade and the hard place of the Hamas government, Suheir’s options, especially as a woman, are limited. But despite such limitations, Suheir refuses to acquiesce and is creating a something beautiful–a dress of her own design, patiently sewn for herself, by herself.
Suheir personifies the spirit we observed again and again during a brief two-day visit: In the midst of an impossible situation, Palestinians find ways to endure and express creativity and ingenuity. With the skills Shueir is learning through a vocational training program with MCC partner Near East Council of Churches, she can both save money by making clothes for herself and her family, and generate personal income by sewing garments for sale.
It’s hard to guess where such dresses would be worn–probably only among women at private parties or gender-segregated wedding festivities. The Palestinian government in Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which won elections in 2006. Since then, Gaza’s already conservative climate has further constricted. Headlines this summer described such absurdities as arresting women for smoking arguileh–traditional Middle Eastern water pipes.
Yet in spite of its typically inflammatory rhetoric and history of firing rockets into Israel, the Hamas government in Gaza has upheld a cease-fire since the Israeli offensive two years ago that killed 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. Though other militant groups in Gaza still occasionally launch rockets into Israeli territory, most of them fall harmlessly in unpopulated areas. According to the BBC, in the last year, one Thai foreign worker in Israel was killed by such a rocket fired from Gaza. In the same time, Israel has made frequent air strikes into Gaza to assassinate suspected militants, often in heavily populated areas, killing 55 Palestinians–22 of them civilians.
In addition to military attacks, the Israeli government enforces a punishing blockade as “economic warfare” against Hamas, controlling Gaza’s borders, airspace, and coastline. British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed the description used by many of Gaza’s residents when he called it “an open-air prison.” After Israeli commandos killed nine activists participating in an aid flotilla attempting to reach Gaza by sea last summer, heightened international pressure resulted in Israel promising to ease some restrictions. But recent reports by humanitarian agencies demonstrate that Gaza’s humanitarian needs still far outstrip the trickle of items allowed to enter. Gaza’s agriculture-based economy is further crippled by bans on all exports except for flowers and strawberries.
Palestinian laborers gather crushed stone aggregate from underneath destroyed roads near the 900-meter "no-go zone" inside the Gaza border enforced by the Israeli military. Palestinians who enter the zone risk being shot by Israeli soldiers.
And so people like Suheir must be creative to make ends meet. Examples of such resourcefulness were unavoidable in Gaza. Upon our entry, even before we had finished passing through the 900-meter-long caged terminal that crosses the “no-go zone” inside Gaza’s border with Israel, we observed Palestinians excavating crushed stone aggregate from underneath war-torn asphalt roads. Such stone is scarce because Israel’s blockade on construction materials makes it nearly impossible to rebuild after the war’s destruction. Building supplies must either be recycled from within Gaza or smuggled through tunnels under the Egyptian border.
Even so, the risks of recovering such materials can be great: The day after we returned from Gaza, we learned that Palestinans doing similar work in another location near the Gaza border were shot by Israeli soldiers.
The second day of our visit, I took a short morning walk along Gaza’s Mediterranean shore and met Khaled, Mohammed, and Ibrahim. They were one of several teams of workers recovering iron reinforcement bars from a bombed-out building. First chunks of concrete had to be knocked from the metal rods using sledge hammers. Then each iron rod–wildly twisted in the rubble created by Israeli bombs–had to be manually straightened using a rig of levers and pivots.
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As I humbly accepted these workers’ offer of a few bites of their pita and falafel breakfast, I couldn’t help but reflect on the fact that the damage these men were so painstakingly undoing had likely been caused by bombs and planes supplied by my country. The same country that is now promising more planes and bombs to Israel as “motivation” to continue the peace process, and to stop building settlements on Palestinian land. For 90 days only. Except East Jerusalem. (….As defined by Israel, which includes huge settlements on West Bank land that Israel unilaterally considers part of “Greater Jerusalem.”)
In Gaza, in the lives of people like Suheir, Khaled, Mohammed, and Ibrahim, we witnessed great patience, generosity, endurance, and creativity. Because of the challenges imposed on them, their lives depend on these qualities–inspiring because of their inventiveness and sobering because of their necessity. If only the leaders culpable for creating such insufferable conditions displayed such traits–which seem all the more painfully lacking in their inability to negotiate a just peace.
