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Wafaa Abo Zarifa is a Palestinian woman who came to Luxembourg six years ago after having grown up and working in Gaza as a journalist. Her family still lives there. We discuss what life in Gaza was like, how she lived through those eleven days in May, and if she still has hope that lasting peace can be achieved.
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The Israeli-Palestinian ‘conflict’ has culminated in a new crisis: what started as protests over evictions of Palestinian families in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem escalated into riots and the eventual storming of the al-Aqsa compound, Islam’s third holiest site, by Israeli security forces. Protests and counter-protests soon spread to various cities inside Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The al-Aqsa incident became the trigger for terrorist-group Hamas to start firing thousands of rockets into Israel from the Gaza Strip. This triggered a military response by Israel over eleven days in May, resulting in the deaths of at least 13 Israelis and 256 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip alone. Thousands got injured and were rendered homeless, and recovery work is ongoing under expectations of a possible new war.
Even if most of the thousands of rockets shot from Gaza were intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defence system, their unprecedented range struck terror into places usually farther removed from the realities of the occupation. Both sides have been accused of potential war crimes for the use of indiscriminate rockets and the disproportionate use of force against civil infrastructure and lives. Next to the lasting trauma for Israelis and Palestinians, and the slow violence of the blockade of Gaza rendering life in it near unbearable, a political solution remains elusive. The underlying tensions around the evictions from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood continue unresolved, as do most negotiations between parties, and the lack of progress on a two-State solution. Hardliners on both sides continue provocations that may cause new bouts of violence.
In an attempt to understand the human side and cost to these events, we spoke to Wafaa, a Palestinian refugee from Gaza in Luxembourg, and Faran, an Israeli-Luxembourgish woman living in Israel. Both are engaged in grassroots peace-building by bringing Palestinians and Israelis together to overcome their differences, and their life stories reveal much about what the ‘conflict’ looks like beyond abstract statistics of death and suffering.
Lëtzebuerger Journal: Are you frustrated that you get an interview request only now when things have escalated to the point of warfare – even if the conflict and build-up to the current crisis has been going on for months, if not to speak of years?
Wafaa Abo Zarifa: Of course it is very frustrating. I feel like the media doesn’t transfer what is happening on the ground. They only send the messages that the politicians want to see. Why do I say this? When I watch TV or read an article here in Europe, they all report the same statements by politicians and military spokespeople. Some people even make fun of me because they say they can’t understand why we are fighting over land. But put yourself in our shoes: What would you think if someone came to attack your home, your family, take away your land, your memories, your life, your future, your present, your past? What are you going to do? This time, it was a little bit different because [Palestinian journalists and activists] on social media got a lot of attention before and during the 11-day war.
"To see my mother and my children running, struggling, and my uncle dying next to us. And when afterwards you return to your area, your home is not there anymore."
Wafaa Abo Zarifa
I want to get back to the role social media played in all this in a minute, but first; can you tell us more about yourself? You’ve been living in Luxembourg for five years and a half. What brought you here?
The Israeli occupation forced me to become a refugee. The last war that I experienced was in the Gaza Strip in 2014. In that moment I said to myself: I will never put my children into this situation again. Enough is enough. I have three children who were 14, 10 and 11 back then. It was so hard for me to think about the possibility that we would die together or that I couldn’t save one of them. Most victims of airstrikes in Gaza are civilians. So I applied to a job at an organisation for an international project outside of Palestine. I got the job and one week after the end of the war I was asked to leave Gaza to join the project.
But I couldn’t just leave. If you want to leave Gaza, you have to ask permission from Israeli authorities who control all access to and from Gaza. You almost need one more briefcase for all the permissions from different governments and institutions all over the world just to get on a flight. At that point I asked myself: Why can’t I travel and work like everyone else? Everyone can apply, join and go work for this project but I can’t just because I am a Palestinian from Gaza. Why don’t I have the same rights as them? In the end, and after a lot of work, I somehow managed to get the permissions and left.
The Gaza Strip
You left for Greece but were denied a return to Gaza …
After I finished my work in Greece, I again needed new permissions just to be allowed to re-enter Gaza. But I didn’t get them. I was stuck in Greece for seven or eight months trying to get back to my children who were still in Gaza. I missed them. I worried about them. In the end, the only option I had to get back with them was to apply somewhere as asylum seeker. If you get the status of refugee, you can ask to be reunited with your children and family. The whole process took me one year and a half. I was separated from my children for four years until they came to Luxembourg just two years ago. This is the hardest thing that I ever went through. And this is one – not even a very heavy – story of what hardship Palestinian people face daily inside and outside Gaza. We face barriers everywhere we turn. By now, I and all of my children have the Luxembourgish nationality.
Since arriving, you started supporting other refugees with integrating into Luxembourgish society?
Yes. I work on this together with two other women, one of whom is also from Palestine and one from Luxembourg. We started meeting with women from different backgrounds and we found out that we all encounter similar issues. So why not help each other, share what we learned, and have cultural exchanges? We created an association by which we want to integrate people in Luxembourgish society. We started the “Wafaa’s Women Café” where we have informal meetings to exchange stories and learn from each other. Because to integrate and accept each other, you have to first understand each other.
You told me you lived in Gaza seven years ago. What was your life like?
It wasn’t easy. Imagine yourself in a room and someone locks the door on you. You have dreams and aspirations but you are not able to realise them. And you don’t know why. The hardest part as a young person is that you want to travel, to enjoy life. I wasn’t able to do that because in Gaza I had no right to travel outside, no right or place to direct my complaints, no right to have the education that I wished for… On top of that I had to simply accept whatever decisions were taken that limited what I wanted and could do. Because as soon as you raise your voice as a Palestinian in Gaza, you become a terrorist and target. It is unfair.
Naqba and the 1947-49 war
I have heard that we shouldn’t use the word conflict in this discussion. Why is that and how would you describe the situation in Gaza?
Many people don’t pay attention to the terms that they use. They are not aware of the impact that words can have on us or how the world thinks about Gaza and Palestinians. Describing Gaza in this or that way always expresses a political and religious position. Many people just repeat what they hear in their media without looking deeper into what is behind the problem.
So why exactly is the word conflict problematic?
To call it a conflict doesn’t do justice to what is happening in Gaza and outside of it. If you see what’s going on in Palestine, you can officially stop calling it conflict – or clash, as they sometimes say. Conflict implies that there is a sort of symmetry of power between Palestinians and Israelis. But there is no equality in power. It is illegal Israeli occupation, illegal settlements and soldiers driving us from our homes and lands and destroying our fields; it is oppression of Palestinians. It is stripping Palestinians of their human rights. It is ethnic cleansing. And I am only talking about the eleven days that have passed. All the footage I have been watching of what has happened in Gaza, in Sheikh Jarrah, in Al-Aqsa Mosque: is it not enough? Who has the guns and bombs, who has the army? I don’t support anyone. I only support every human being standing up for their rights and having them respected. All of this is a political and economic issue out of the control of ordinary people. And those delivering and using weapons are all also responsible for all the suffering.
Cultural and religious sites subject to deep divisions
Can you explain why it is important not to hold Jews or Muslims responsible of the decisions of Israeli/Palestinian leaders?
We clearly don’t have any conflict between religions. It is about politics. It is occupation. Finish the occupation and we will be the most peaceful people. There are 6.5 million Palestinians around the world. We are the largest and the oldest group of refugees worldwide. And we always try to improve the places that we live in. The only thing that we want is our freedom.
The conflict between Israel and Palestine has been going on for over 50 years or even longer depending on how counts. Your family has been dealing with it for generations. How did that affect you growing up?
The occupation goes back almost 73 years. I think I am the third generation that is witnessing occupation. My grandmother and my grandfather, my mother and my father raised us to love our country and our culture. And to always defend our rights. The most important thing that Palestinian people have is dignity. When the massacres started and people were forced to run away [in 1948 and subsequent ] and leave their homes, our grandparents ran away with the keys of their houses. Until today we have the keys. They passed them on from generation to generation. They would always say: “Maybe one day you will come back.” They describe to us what our houses looked like, how many rooms there were, what tree stands in front of our house. The memories are passed from one generation to the next, just like the keys.
Did you yourself have to leave your house with your family?
Oh yes. The last time was in 2014 during Ramadan because they always try to attack us during the holiest month. They choose the time when it hurts the most. Me and my mother always make fun saying “It is not enough to be Palestinian, it is not enough to be from Gaza. We also live on the border.” So we are very near to army posts. When they start their bombings, they start with us.
We were just sitting there eating when suddenly the table started shaking from the bombing. It came from everywhere. You couldn’t even recognize where it came from. I regrouped with my children, my brothers, their wives and their children in my father’s house because it is a little bit further from the border.
Occupants start by cutting the electricity. We were in one room, each mother in front of her children trying to smile and make jokes so the children feel better. Then the bombing started to become very intense and all the furniture and everything in the house was falling over and flying around. We told my father that we had to leave the house, even if it is very dangerous. If you cross the street, you don’t know if you’re going to stay alive. But you try to get to the safest place possible. My father told us: “If you want to go, go but I will not leave.” We had to think about who is going first. One of my brothers decided to do it and call us. And each mother was saying to their children: “Look, we are going to run. Don’t care about what is going on around you. If your grandmother falls down, don’t worry, she is going to follow us later. Just keep running. If I fall down, don’t worry. We are going to follow you.”
Have you heard about these stories before? How do you want me, as a human, to accept this reality and fear for my family? To see my mother and my children running, struggling, and my uncle dying next to us. And when afterwards you return to your area, your home is not there anymore. You don’t recognise it. Your house looks like a doll house – you know the ones without walls where you see everything that is going on inside.
You became a journalist. Did that have anything to do with how you grew up?
It was always my dream to become a journalist because I wanted to be the voice of my people. Also, I liked to write and share stories. We have a university in Palestine that I went to. It wasn’t easy to finance my studies and I had to get good grades to get a scholarship, but I did it. Working as a journalist in Palestine is one of the hardest jobs because you put yourself under risk. You are covering crimes against your people and at the same time you are one of them. It is very emotional. It impacted me a lot – sometimes in a positive, sometimes in a negative way. I struggled with my mental health for a long time.
Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza
Do you have an example of a situation where you put yourself in a dangerous situation?
I remember one day I was talking to my manager about having to go home. I was worried about my little daughter. I was scared to lose her and had to go see her. But it was about to be dark outside, and it was very dangerous to take the highway because the army is waiting for a car to pass just to show at them or throw bombs. You find few taxies who work – some need the money and they take the risk. So I found one. The driver was very fast and out of the blue bombs started to explode all around us. It felt like a movie. While we were trying to get out of this, there was a guy on the side of the road asking for help. The driver decided to stop for him. It was a very hard moment. Everyone was confused. But we survived it—I don’t know how—and I got to my daughter in one piece.
Is there a story you covered as a journalist in Gaza that has impacted you in particular?
Yes, I had a very unreal experience one day. I saw a Facebook post from my friend who wrote that a common friend had died. But then I slowly realised that I had covered a story of a man who died the day before, and that that man had actually been this friend. When you report about all this, you sometimes don’t feel like you’re part of it. On that day I had to finish the article on his death. So, what was I going to write? That he was a nice guy, that he had a dream? That he was working in a food program for people who had to flee from their homes? This really impacted me. It took me a while to process all these emotions. Ultimately, it made me strong, a fighter. I don’t feel like anything is impossible anymore.
Do you have another story you wish to share?
There are loads of stories that no one talks about. For example, this six-year-old daughter who tells her mother at night that she is scared to go to the toilet. But why? Because of bombings and losing her mother. She insists her mother comes with her. On the toilet the girl says she is not scared anymore. The mother moves four or five steps away and a bomb falls down onto the house, killing her daughter. The little one dies, and the mother stays alive. How will this women survive? I bet she would have preferred to have died with her daughter. Whether you survive or not can depend on a few meters. A lot of stories in Gaza are about people standing just next to each other and one of them is killed by a bomb. My manager once asked me to write an article about this, but I said I couldn’t. I asked who will listen to us? We have written about this for years but who listened? What has changed? Nothing.
"It took me a while to process all these emotions. Ultimately, it made me strong, a fighter. I don’t feel like anything is impossible anymore."
Wafaa Abo Zarifa
What role does social media play in all of this?
This time social media played a big role in showing people what is really going on in Palestine. And I think the world starts to be fed up with hearing the same things every time there is war in Gaza and those hiding the reality on the ground. No one can accept to see children die like this and buildings being destroyed again and again. If you do, you cannot identify yourself as a human being. In the past people usually only heard one side of the story. And this time, thanks to social media, what was going on couldn’t be hidden anymore. What is happening is live on social media. No one is embellishing anything, you can just follow what is happening. That’s why you see this big response and support for Palestinians from all over the world. Why do we as people from everywhere allow this to happen anywhere in this world? Facebook and Twitter etc, they tried to block and delete stuff but there are a lot of young Palestinians who use these platforms to share information and make people understand what is happening in Palestine.
Some of your family still live in Gaza. How did you experience the last weeks?
All of my family lives in Gaza. It is just my kids and myself in Luxembourg. It was very hard. I didn’t sleep. I was constantly watching TV or calling my family. I don’t like to hear my mother scared… (Wafaa starts crying) I remember when I was with her, my mother always pretended that she is strong. Of course she was scared but she never showed it to me. And now, maybe because I am far away or because she starts being old, she shows it. She was telling me that she is praying, and she is tired from not sleeping. “If I stay alive that’s ok but if I don’t, I can’t do anything about it. It is what it is”, she said.
It was very hard. And when I watch the news… it is really unfair. I don’t I know what I can do. I try to talk about it and share things on Facebook but people look at you like you are stupid. They see all of this as a conflict between people who are fighting because of land. We are not fighting because of land. We are fighting because of a lot of things. Because of the unfairness of expulsions and the occupation and the blockade and so many other things that we are experiencing. Because you see your mother dying and you cannot do anything about it. Because parents see their child loose his eyes or his legs during an attack for no reason.
A cease-fire has now been implemented. What does this mean on the ground? It also seems like the fighting could resume at any time, or can people in Gaza take a breath now?
I was proud and sad and very disappointed – a mix of feelings towards what is going on there. But I don’t believe in cease-fires because they never last. They kill thousands, they injure thousands and then they say “oh, we need a cease-fire”. I don’t want a cease-fire; I want a solution. A real solution to stop this forever. I am waiting. I hope they are doing something.
What solution would be acceptable to you to bring an end to all this? In the past there have been talks about a two-state solution. Could this be implemented? How?
They are talking about two-states since forever. We gave up some of our rights to our land to [Israeli settlers] to get other land back. But they didn’t want to leave peacefully. They want all the land. When we were facing the [Israeli] soldiers back in Palestine, they never called us Palestinians. They always called us Arabs as if we were from somewhere else. If they wanted a two-state solution, it would have happened a long time ago. I don’t think it is a solution anymore. There are now six million refugees from the war who had to flee their lands. Where would they go under a two-state solution?
The past and future of a Palestinian state
Do you see an an alterlative solution?
Yes. End the occupation. This is Palestine and we are going to welcome every single human being – Christian, Jewish, Japanese, Chinese… everyone is welcome in my country. But they will not end it. So let’s say we don’t want to make it difficult and go for the two-state solution. We can do this but only if every single soldier in the army is put in front of a court. At least be fair and bring justice to innocent people that have been killed by them. Say the truth, don’t hide it or try to embellish it. Recognise Palestine as a country. Give Palestinian prisoners in Israel back their freedom. At least give us our right to control our borders, to travel, health facilities, electricity, rebuild the airport like everyone else in the world has.
So, there could be peaceful coexistence?
Palestinians miss living in peace. If they apply what I said before, do you think anyone would say no? If you have your rights, you have your freedom. Would anyone say no to that? It is ridiculous even to think about that. But I don’t think they are going to do that.
So you don’t have hope anymore?
It’s hard. But I am sure with social media more and more people all over the world learning about what is happening they will start to understand our reality. [The Israelis] will stop if the whole world stands up and says stop.
What role can Luxembourg play in this?
They could recognise Palestine as a country. This is what I would like from Luxembourg. Currently, they don’t. If they do that, I would be very happy. I know Luxembourg is a very peaceful country. And I don’t know what they are waiting for …
