‘Attention drawn to Gaza more valuable than the aid itself’

Yes, but what do ordinary citizens of Palestine think about the latest incident and Turkey’s support for them? We decided to ask these questions directly to the Palestinians. All of the Palestinians we reached by e-mail just after the attack, first thank the Turkish government and the Turkish people and add, “Aid is very valuable to us.” In their messages, they say that they share the sorrow of their Turkish brothers who died in the attack. We should note that many of the Palestinians with whom we requested an interview hesitated to respond to us, saying that they could get in trouble with Israeli security forces. Those who agreed to answer stipulated that their identities should be kept secret. This alone is indicative of the terrible conditions under which Palestinians are forced to live.

Let us start with Zaher, a Palestinian who lives in Gaza, which is at the center of the recent developments. Noting that Turkey’s support to Palestine started after the invasion of Gaza in 2009, Zaher considers the aid flotilla a valuable contribution, but not sufficient in the long run. For Zaher, it is more important to trigger a public reaction than to bring aid to Gaza. “Attention drawn by the Turkish vessel to Gaza is more valuable than the aid it carried,” he says. He expresses his great thanks to the Turkish government and people.

Zaher is 28 years old. He could not complete his degree in civil engineering after three years due to challenging obstacles that prevented him from continue his schooling. Pointing out that they live under very difficult conditions in Gaza, Zaher thinks that Europeans, Americans and even Muslims are not completely aware of the reality Gazans face. He explains that Gaza is connected to the outside world only through the Rafah border crossing, which has been open only three days in a month since 2006, and which is not sufficient for the passage of thousands of people. He adds that aid to Gaza is checked by Israel before being sent to them and that there is difficulty in finding even the most basic foodstuffs and that what they can find is very expensive. Noting that the power is gone for eight hours a day in Gaza, he offers two words to describe their feelings: “despair” and “isolation.”

The recent initiative and Turkey’s support for Palestine has created much gratitude on the part of Palestinians living in the West Bank. A Palestinian from Beit Jala, a Palestinian settlement in the West Bank, who wishes to remain anonymous for personal safety, says that he was very sad when he first heard of the incident but adds that the attack was not surprising given the fact the attacker was Israel. He maintains that Israeli soldiers kill women, children and old people in defiance of human rights and moral values. Noting that many people did not open their workplaces on the day after the attack, the 38-year-old Palestinian explains that one could see how sorry people were for the attack. Noting his strong concerns for the future, he says that they expect Turkey to sever diplomatic and military ties with Israel.

Zeynep, who lives in Nablus, describes the people aboard the Gaza flotilla as “heroes.” She says nine people killed aboard the vessels were heroes who would have spread support for the Palestinian cause if they had lived. A 27-year-old university student, she points out that they were expecting the people aboard the vessels to be stopped by Israel, and those people paid a big price for trying to turn the world’s attention to Israel’s unfair practices. She also thinks that Israel’s excessive force was actually a serious message to similar aid initiatives in the future.

Zeynep says that before the massacre of the nine humanitarian volunteers they felt that there were Muslim sisters and brothers in Turkey who thought about them, but after the attack she now sees herself as a child of Turkey and the Turkish people as her family.