Local residents respond to Gaza conflict

Columbians from Gaza strip weigh causes of violence.

By Will Guldin

Published Jan. 30, 2009

Gaza Strip is almost 6,500 miles from Columbia, but for many residents the recent incidents between Hamas and Israel strikes closer to home.

The conflict began when Hamas, the ruling party of the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian settlement within Israel, began firing rockets into Israel. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at killing members of Hamas and destroying tunnels between Egypt and Gaza used to transport the rockets.

But Fadi Siyam, a Palestinian who is a resident physician at University Hospital, said the 18-month Israeli lockdown of the Gaza Strip has led to a shortage of many essential goods, making tunnels a popular option to move goods in to Gaza.

"The only means by which the Gaza citizens have survived until now is the smuggling tunnels between them and Egypt." Siyam said. "Perhaps they do smuggle arms, I won't deny that, but the proportion of arms to food and everyday things, I would say is 20 percent weapons to 80 percent food."

Throughout the conflict, hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed or injured, while only three Israeli civilians died. But some Israelis saw this military action as necessary.

"I think it's the right thing to do, the war," said Yaniv Shnaider, an MU freshman and an international student from Jerusalem. "I'm not in favor of killing civilians, no one is in favor of that. I know they need to do whatever it takes to stop the bombings in Israel, because they keep on doing that for the past three years, they bomb Israel. Every day something happens, so I think they have to stop it."

In Jerusalem, Shnaider was physically removed from the war zone, but other towns were located well within the range of the Hamas missiles.

Yossi Feintuch, a rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom said his brother, who works in the coastal city of Ashdod in Israel, had to work without his co-workers because of attacks on the city.

"They were too afraid to drive their cars to work because of the danger that it might have been hit by a missile," he said.

Despite the attacks from Hamas, many Palestinians saw the Israeli response as extreme.

Siyam said, while the rocket attacks came from Gaza, the size of Israel's bombardment is disproportionate in comparison.

"How can you compare manually, locally made rockets, which, in fact, almost do nothing, to the size of the bombs that were used in Gaza?" he said.

Feintuch said that the response was not extreme since Hamas had launched rockets at Israel. He also said civilian casualties were unavoidable since Hamas was often using civilian houses to conduct military exercises.

Many on both sides of the conflict see a solution as unlikely, if not impossible.

Michal Linder, a member of Congregation Beth Shalom, said Muslim society must change how it educates its younger generation to foster peace.

"One should start an education process that incorporates learning and development rather than hatred and despair," she said.

Shnaider said that while he wants peace, his past experiences growing up in Israel have led him to believe that a peaceful solution is impossible.

"It always gets worse, all the time," he said. "I don't personally think it's going to stop, they want something we can't give them, and we want something they wont accept."

Despite the differing views, Taraq Zaza, a physician at University Hospital from Syria, remains optimistic about the future.

"What I'd like to see is that we can learn from all the violence that happened over the years, that violence and counter-violence does not resolve it, we should learn from history, if we are more grown up we can live in peace together," Zaza said. "But peace doesn't come without justice."