“No or Bad Signal”

This evening, I went with a friend of mine to watch the football game between Realmadrid and AcMilan. At first, we went to different coffee shops around in Gaza city but they all were already packed with football fans. Eventually, we found this coffee shop with enough room inside for both of us, we were happy at last although we didn’t get to be outside with the “crazy” fans. Jamil and I were excited just like all the people around us; and one could feel the spirit and the excitement around the place. A lot of young people in Gaza enjoy watching football and cheering for their favorite teams; I believe it is a way for them to let all the stress out and enjoy their time for a little. However, it started becoming more obvious that it is defiantly not our night. Thanks to the Israeli reconnaissance aircraft that buzzed overhead throughout the whole night, the T.V. signal was quite bad during almost the whole game. The signal starts fading out until the alert message “No or Bad Signal” came up on the screen. The Israeli army uses the reconnaissance aircrafts to monitor activities in the Gaza strip, they are also used for bombing and shelling targets in different places all over the Gaza strip. The aircraft affects negatively the satellite TV receivers by jamming the T.V. signals. The fact that does really matter at the end is that whether used for operations or for only monitoring, reconnaissance aircrafts are devastating Palestinians’ life.

Despite the terrible situations people have been living under the siege in Gaza since 2007 and despite the continuous Israeli invasions, airstrikes and land operations, some residents of Gaza are still trying to enjoy any moments of life they could live as a normal life; like going to the beach on the weekends or even just watching football games on the T.V. While Palestinians are trying to endure the painful life, political leaders feel rather disappointed at the failure of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations; however they are not disappointed with the sufferings of the innocent people. In fact, they are not even considering any movements towards improving the life of those people in any way. The question here is are these football fans, who are Palestinians living under the Israeli occupation, more concerned with the unproductive Palestinian-Israeli negotiations or with stopping the Israeli army attacks against them so that they can, at least, peacefully enjoy watching a football game?

What interested me the most is that in spite of the terrible signal, the fans of both teams stayed until the last minute of the game, they were one example of the Palestinian who never abandoned his land despite Israeli aggression and violations of international law and human rights? From Gaza, I would like to say congratulation for Realmadrid’s fan and hard luck Ac Milan’s!