As a teen within the Nineteen Eighties, I watched the development of the intricately designed Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Heart in Gaza Metropolis, named after one among Gaza’s best public figures, and its theater, grand corridor, public library, printing press and cultural salon.
College students and researchers, students and artists from throughout the Gaza Strip came over it, and so did President Invoice Clinton in 1998. The middle was the gem of Gaza Metropolis. Watching it being constructed impressed me to develop into an engineer, which led to a profession as a professor and, within the footsteps of al-Shawa, as mayor of Gaza Metropolis.
Now that gem is rubble. It was destroyed by Israeli bombardment.
The Israeli invasion has brought on the deaths of greater than 20,000 folks, in accordance with the Gaza Well being Ministry, and destroyed or broken about half the buildings within the territory. The Israelis have additionally pulverized one thing else: Gaza Metropolis’s cultural riches and municipal establishments.
The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its lovely seafront, its libraries and archives and no matter financial prosperity it had — has damaged my coronary heart.
The Gaza Zoo has been destroyed, with lots of its animals killed or starved to death, together with wolves, hyenas, birds and uncommon foxes. Different casualties embrace the town’s major public library, the Youngsters’s Happiness Heart, the municipal constructing and its archive, and the seventh-century Nice Omari Mosque. Israeli forces have additionally broken or destroyed streets, squares, mosques, church buildings and parks.
Certainly one of my main objectives after the Hamas administration appointed me mayor in 2019 was to enhance the town’s seafront and foster the opening of small companies alongside it to create jobs. It took us 4 years to complete the undertaking, which included a promenade, recreation areas and areas for these companies. It took Israel solely weeks to destroy it. Niveen, a divorced girl I do know, was alleged to open a small restaurant in November however her dream is gone. Mohammed, a disabled Palestinian, misplaced his small cafe.
Why did the Israeli tanks destroy so many timber, electrical energy poles, vehicles and water mains? Why would Israel hit a U.N. school? The obliteration of our lifestyle in Gaza is indescribable. I nonetheless really feel I’m in a nightmare as a result of I can’t think about how any sane individual may have interaction in such a horrific marketing campaign of destruction and demise.
The fashionable municipality of Gaza was established in 1893 and is among the oldest within the Center East. It served about 800,000 folks, among the many largest congregations of Palestinians on this planet. Even after Israel forcibly displaced a couple of million Palestinians from northern Gaza after the conflict started, a lot of the inhabitants within the metropolis remained.
When Israel started its conflict on Gaza in response to the lethal assault by Hamas, I used to be overseas. I reduce my tour quick to return to assist our folks. I head an emergency committee of municipal staff and volunteers, who’ve been making an attempt to repair water pipes, open roads and clear disease-causing sewage and rubbish. A minimum of 14 members of our municipal workers have died. Nearly everybody on the committee has misplaced a house or relative.
I, too, have misplaced a beloved one. With out warning, a direct hit to my home on Oct. 22 killed my eldest son, Roshdi, a photojournalist and filmmaker. He thought he can be safer at his mother and father’ house. It made me marvel if I may have been the goal. We are going to by no means know. I buried Roshdi and shortly returned to work with the emergency committee.
Israel, which started its blockade of Gaza greater than 16 years in the past and has maintained what the United Nations and human rights groups call an ongoing occupation for much longer, is destroying life right here. An unnamed Israeli defense official promised to turn Gaza right into a metropolis of tents and Israel has forcibly displaced its inhabitants. For as soon as, Israel is maintaining a promise its officers made to the Palestinians.
I name on the world’s municipalities — everybody — to stress world leaders to cease this senseless destruction.
Why can’t Palestinians be handled equally, like Israelis and all different peoples on this planet? Why can’t we stay in peace and have open borders and free commerce? Palestinians should be free and have self-determination. Gaza’s emblem is the phoenix, which rises from the ashes. It insists on life.
Yahya R. Sarraj is the mayor of Gaza Metropolis and a former rector of the College Faculty of Utilized Sciences there.
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