GAZA 5 – Working under the scopes

Working under the scopes aka. The invisible war.

Just take some newspaper or a magazine in your hands and you’ll see, nothing much is again reported from Gaza. Of course – the war has ended a month ago, no more interesting bloody and smokey front page images. This is what I call a war-porn.

But is it really so? Definitely not. The war is far away from finished. It has just returned into a silence.

It was some day in November, when my friend Mohammed R. took me for a lunch in a small, modest fish restaurant in Gaza city. Smell of the fresh fish, grilled to become a lunch, posters of the various fish on the walls. Nice ambient. I’m aware of the situation regarding the siege on Gaza. But the moment of clarity got to me, when I had the fish on my plate, just looking at it and realizing. This fish’s value is much more than the price of it – about 30 Shekels.

The real value of the fish, it was a fishermen’s life. Fishermen in Gaza cannot sail more than 3-6 nautical miles into the sea. If they cross this line, they come under fire from Israeli warships. Brave fishermen have to risk their lives, in order to catch some of that delicious food.

The same applies to the farmers.

Imagine risking getting shot, just because you want to grow some bread or vegetables on your farmland.

Palestinians in Gaza, living in poverty, are pushed into extreme working conditions in order to survive and support their families. Farmers and collectors of materials left behind by the Israeli settlements in Beitlahia, Gaza, have to work in the “buffer zone”, a no-go zone in a border area between Gaza and Israel. There they work under the scopes of Israeli soldiers, who occasionally shoot at them.

Following photos and multimedia piece, should present you a small piece of their daily working situation.

You’re welcome to watch it in fullscreen-thanks!

Worker driving his cart back to the village with materials he gathered from the buffer-zone.

Workers taking their materials in the buffer-zone bordering the Gaza-Israel.

Woman working on her land.

Farmers planting the seeds at the farmland.

Workers collecting the potatos on the farmland in the buffer-zone.

A farmer spreadiing hay on his farmland under direct vicinity of the Israeli army watch tower.

Israeli soldier observing the activity in the buffer zone.

Beduins digging up a water pipe – a left-over from Israeli settlement.

Worker showing his leg in which he got shot at while working on the field.

Beduins digging up a water pipe – a left-over from Israeli settlement.

A donkey with a cart is seen through a hole in a destroyed buliding.

Donkey carts are left in a low spots, so animals don’t get excited and flee due to gunshots.

No-go area bordering Gaza – Israel.

Donkey carts are left in a low spots, so animals don’t get excited and flee due to gunshots.

Empty cart awaits the materials to be taken back to the village.

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