GAZA, (PIC)
In one of the neighborhoods of the war-weary Gaza City, Um Khalil sits in front of a small wood stove, blowing on the embers as if she is trying with her determination to revive life from the rubble.
Gas has been cut off for several weeks, and electricity has completely vanished, not even visiting homes for a moment.
Firewood? It’s expensive; she can barely afford it, but Um Khalil insists on cooking what remains of lentils or some stale bread to keep her children alive in their suffering.
“There’s no gas, no electricity, no food at all… but we have to live,” says Um Khalil, wiping the smoke from her face, her eyes fixed on her seven children who surround her like olives around the root, waiting for a morsel to convince their stomachs that something called life exists.
In the Gaza Strip, everything is done by hand: lighting is with candles if available, laundry is scrubbed on stones, and cooking is done over fires ignited with wood, cardboard, and pieces of rubble from the war.
The sounds of disputes over bathrooms, over a piece of bread, over a liter of clean water… have become part of the daily life in the besieged city.
Even the children have learned not to ask about electricity or “what’s for lunch today”; the only question has become: “When will the war end?”
People here do not dream of luxury, but rather of a little light, a gas cylinder, a pot that boils, and an open window that isn’t filled with the smell of shelling or wood smoke.
The Gaza inhabitants used to cook despite all the sieges; now, they cook over wood—if it can be found—and burn what remains of their dignity on the fire of necessity.
The smoke from the homes doesn’t just rise to the sky, but reaches the slumbering human conscience.
In the Gaza Strip, there is no fire in the homes… except for the fire of the siege.
