Banners hanging in the trees in Akko showing the picture of Gilad Shalit. An Israeli soldier captured June 2006 by the Hamas, and has been held captured in the Gaza Strip ever since.
Gilad Shalit
The TV are fixed on Gaza at all the wake hours of the day.
The reactions here on the recent escalations in Gaza is as anyone would expect rage and sorrow. Where ever you go there is a TV tuned into Al Jazeera. My local barber, that I usually go to when my beard gets to full who usually watches soaps, have also tuned in. At my aunts house the TV are fixed on Gaza at all the wake hours of the day. All the radio stations talk about Gaza, or Gazzah’ as they say here, the music stations resort to fund raising through jingles in every commercial break.
I myself have been watching a lot of Al Jazeera English. Being the only news channel on the spot it leaves no other options. The uncensored pictures they send out leaves little doubt in my mind that Israel once again have over engaged a weak community of civilians.
Gaza is one of the worlds most populated place on the earth. The high density of people will give any shell that is fired into the city a very little chance of not hitting civilians. So how is Israel going to go through the mission, removing Hamas while not killing civilians? That is purely up to Israel. If they engage, they must carry the responsibility as well. Leaflets dropped from planes tells the people of Gaza to flee from possible targets. So if a person living in Gaza reads a leaflet does that give the opposing army a carte blanche to bombard the area? The whole situation is a mess. And while the EU decides what to do, the pictures on Al Jazeera keeps rolling.
The picture above show a silent protest down town Damascus.
War in Gaza cancels new years eve, but not all of it…
For new years we went to a restaurant close to our house. As so many other places they had booked live music for the night. As soon as the war broke out in Gaza a wave of cancellations rolled over the Arab world. It’s nice to see how this part of the world, though how chaotic it can seam at times, can find pillars to stand together by.
The dinner did happen, but instead of the live music they held an auction in favor of the people in Gaza. One gentleman won a bid of 20.000 Syrian Pounds (about 300 Euros) on a water pipe.
The live music was canceled but that didn’t mean they couldn’t book a DJ for the night. At first I was in the notion that the restaurants had been a part of the decision to tone down the party activates throughout the whole region, but it seemed I was wrong. In some countries it had been decided at a governmental level but in Syria it was the community of musicians that was the decider. Not that it matters a whole lot, but I must say it fell apart when they just played loud music anyway.
In a time of war, business will be business. Above is a couple letting loose to an Arabic classic.