One year later

THE hardest-hit neighbourhoods in Gaza became something of a tourist attraction at the start of Ramadan in mid-June this year. Television cameras and aid workers descended on Shuja'iya and Khuza'a, places that have become synonymous with Palestinian misery, to join residents for iftar, the evening meal that breaks the daily Ramadan fast. After a few days, though, the visitors lost interest. 'People come to talk to us every month,' said Khaled al-Mahmoum, a resident who lost 13 relatives and his house to an Israeli airstrike in August. 'They talk, and they leave, and nothing ever changes.'On July 8th, 2014, Israel launched Operation Protective Edge, involving concentrated airstrikes followed by a land invasion of the Gaza Strip, as a response to a blizzard of rocket attacks from Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic organisation that runs Gaza, and from Islamic Jihad. Hamas called the rockets a response to Israeli air attacks that themselves followed the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers, which Palestinians have in turn described as a response to Israel's earlier shooting of two Palestinian youths. The fighting raged for more...Continue reading
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