Palestinians to the world: Make peacebuilding and justice daily practices!

Rasha is a Gazan humanitarian worker with expertise in human rights, youth and women empowerment, and rehabilitation of violence survivors.

Even before the 2007 siege, in a “collective punishment” that was documented by the UN, Israel destroyed 244 wells in the Gaza Strip between 2000 and 2006 and demolished the main electrical power plant in 2006. Rasha had to study on primitive gas lamps.

Due to the land, sea and air blockades in 2007, she lost a British university fellowship. It took her a year to be able to leave and continue her studies. She managed to go abroad during the 2008-2009 Israeli aggression that killed 1400 Palestinians. Upon her return, she witnessed the inhumane ongoing siege, the 2012 assault, the “horrible” 2014 war as she describes it “because of systematic destruction of whole neighbourhoods”, and the 2021 attack.

Rasha pauses while talking to me because “it is hard keeping track of the Israeli aggressions, including one in May 2019 that damaged our home.” She takes another moment of silence as she recalls “the smell of burned flesh all around” after 7 October 2023. One week later, her family members split, some stayed behind and others went south. She moved to a school turned into a shelter in Khan Younis then to Rafah before leaving to Egypt. They had to pay big sums to cross the borders in what she calls “an exploitation depriving people from their last pennies to escape death”, only to face layers of insecurities in Egypt.

Sadly, Rasha’s brother and 50 relatives are among the 41,467 civilians killed by Israel as of 24 September 2024. Moreover, because of the dismemberment of Gaza, she has no idea where he is buried. Heartbroken, Rasha is experiencing first-hand the agony of people she worked to support in 2014, and is more attached to “the just cause of my people”.

Palestinians bid farewell to relatives killed after Israeli airstrike on Rafah city, who were taken to Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis city, southern Gaza Strip, on September 19, 2024. Anas Mohammed.

The West Bank: “Mini Gaza”

Lucy Talgieh, city council member of Bethlehem municipality and local peacebuilder working on gender and justice, tells me on multiple occasions that the West Bank is “a prison” and a “mini Gaza”. The Israeli roadblocks have essentially created ghettoes that “humiliate the population”. She spent three hours at a checkpoint on Bethlehem’s entrance the day before we spoke. Angry settlers invaded her neighbourhood in a "scary attack" a week before the publication of this article.

Ethnic cleansing in the West Bank has many faces: illegal annexation of Palestinian land and properties, deliberate torching of agricultural groves as well as drastic rise in armed settlers attacks and massive imprisonment of more than 10000 civilians since 7 October.

Israel is exploiting the global focus on Gaza to destroy the already weakened West Bank economy, making the locals more vulnerable, and women and children at increasing risk of domestic violence, Lucy says. She describes the living conditions as “bad on all levels”, diminishing peacebuilders’ ability to perform as they struggle with shrinking funds affecting their already small salaries amid “rigid stipulations from international partners supporting Israel”, that direct whatever they have into humanitarian assistance.

Bethlehem, Occupied Palestinian territories - AUGUST 17: Palestinian women pass through the Bethlehem checkpoint on the last Friday of Ramadan, West Bank, August 17, 2012. By Ryan Rodrick Beiler.

Refugees watching the genocide

Zainab Jomaa is a Palestinian peacebuilder in Lebanon. She descends from Al-Khalisa Palestinian village which was occupied by the Haganah Zionist militia in May 1948.

She tells me refugees are under enormous agony, watching their fellow Palestinians exterminated from afar. She adds: “The harsh conditions we face in Lebanon put us in a very uncomfortable position. The borders are closed and we are forbidden from crossing back home, or demonstrating in solidarity. Although Palestinians here earn peanut payments at the informal labour market, they managed to transfer donations to Gaza”.

Peacebuilding: Accountability and Rehabilitation

Rasha believes that international judicial pressure on Tel Aviv via the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court (ICC) “must lead to something, but it should be political and not ignoring the cause of the current catastrophe, the Israeli colonial occupation.” She adds confidently: “Eventually every occupation ceases to exist. It might take another generation, but the settler colonial occupation will end.”

Rasha believes there is no post-genocide peacebuilding if the international community doesn’t pressure Israel to lift the illegal blockade and occupation altogether, and enforce accountability mechanisms to terminate the longstanding Israeli impunity. The reconstruction of the strip must be comprehensive, transparent and tailored to the survivors’ needs. This means physical and mental health care, holistic psychological rehabilitation, proper education and a clean environment. The social fabric needs restoration to re-establish the rule of law, empower women who have become sole breadwinners of families, and protect orphaned children from abuse and human trafficking. This should be a joint endeavour between international and local actors, designed solely by Palestinians.

Peacebuilding beyond terminologies

Like Rasha, Lucy affirms that no peacebuilding is meaningful under the Israeli colonialism. In her context, the word itself is increasingly problematic because it is mistakenly confused with normalizing the occupation. She explains that programs to empower youth on negotiations skills and non-violent communication are implemented as non-curricular activities without being labelled as peacebuilding. So, the concept is practiced but the terminology is dropped.

Lucy asks bitterly: “Was it not possible for humanity to acknowledge us as equals without the tragic loss of more than 40,000 Gazans?” She calls fellow peacebuilders worldwide to realize that they can change the course of history: “Small acts lead to big impacts hurting the perpetrators and ending their impunity.” She elaborates: “Your daily routines matter; what you eat or drink can support the genocide or stop it. Boycotting is a peacebuilding act. Elections in your countries impact foreign policies. Vote for justice and accountability.”

Zainab has become critical of “peacebuilding”. She says: “It is just a word wrongly used by foreigners supporting Palestine’s colonial occupation. Some honest Westerners advocating for Palestine’s liberation realized that too.”

Named “peacebuilding” or not, Zainab thinks, like Rasha, that the upcoming activism, local and international, should deal with the socio-psychological dramatic outcome of the genocide, especially among children and women survivors of rape and sexual abuse. However, “nothing will be back to normal. You don’t get detoxed from genocide, but you resume your struggle.”

A photo of a poster in solidarity with Palestine, taken by the author in Beirut.

Peacebuilding: A systematic lifestyle?

Despite their frustrations, pain and daily harassments, all three women, Zainab, Rasha and Lucy continue to work for justice and peace. These brave women and hundred thousand of alike Palestinians cannot be left behind anymore; humanity has failed them for years. Enough!

I will conclude by quoting Lucy, who has a message for all of us: “Turn your activism from a reaction to an ongoing genocide, to a systematic way of life with a justice perspective, pressing to end impunity in all atrocities, starting with those in Palestine.”

Only that can be rightly called peacebuilding!