Diala's Diary: Gaza Continued
This piece is the fourth of our communications team’s recap series to highlight our trip to Palestine in the summer of 2022.
We started day three in Gaza admiring the glittering sea and indulging in a simple Palestinian breakfast: hummus drizzled in olive oil and freshly baked pita bread.
This was our final full day in Gaza. We were leaving the next day around noon and our hearts were already beginning to feel heavy at the thought of leaving Gaza’s people.
The walls of Gaza
Digital Futures for Palestine Refugees
The morning began with a tour of UNRWA’s IT Service Centre. This cutting-edge hub is a space for Palestine refugee graduates to work on cloud-based projects in the tech industry and hone their programming skills. As we moved from room to room, we were greeted by coders who spoke perfect English and were bursting with pride to share with us the IT projects they were working on. Our colleague Kaan Centinturk who is UNRWA’s CIO & Director of Information Management and Technology has stated that boys and girls in Gaza all want to grow up to be coders now – not necessarily doctors and engineers as it used to be in the old days – and this center made that evident.
IT center staff, 40% of whom are women, work remotely with global clients including other United Nations agencies to provide services like web and mobile application development, software quality assurance, UI/UX design, cyber security, cloud computing, data science, project management, and service desk.
UNRWA USA’s Communications team with UNRWA’s IT Centre staff in Gaza
The IT Service Centre is a beacon of hope in Gaza, creating economic opportunities for Palestine refugees despite the ongoing blockade. By attracting contracts from across the globe, the center is financially stable and able to make UNRWA operations more sustainable.
Since our trip, UNRWA USA has been collaborating with the IT center to launch a Digital Futures initiative for Gaza. With this $10 million vision, we will be deepening skills education for tomorrow’s workforce, advancing tech sector employment readiness for today’s emerging workforce, and accelerating innovation to improve service delivery to refugees.
Summer Fun Weeks and Mental Health
Our morning showed us Gaza’s innovation and the opportunity it could create. The rest of the day was a case example of why that innovation is so necessary.
After another hospitable meeting and with a new sense of hope, our team rushed over to Al Ferdous School, another UNRWA institution located in northern Gaza. There’s so much to see in Gaza, we had to move quickly to see as much as possible in our short three days there.
UNRWA students attending summer fun weeks in Gaza
Laila, Harley, and I were energized by another Summer Fun Weeks experience: music, fun activities, the infectious laughter of children, and a strong passion for life. Interacting with UNRWA students is always an exhilarating and grounding experience, whether it's dancing dabke or playing volleyball - Palestine refugee students exude a joy, strength, and vigor that’s impossible to forget. These students were aged between 7 and 15, all were born under a blockade, have witnessed as many as five Israeli military assaults, and have only known life under such harsh conditions. Hearing their laughter and seeing their love for life tugged on my heart and gave me the willpower to continue working in their service.
After our adrenaline rush, we sat down with the school’s administration and the school’s mental health counselors.
Because of the school’s location near the border, it's usually the first to be targeted during military assaults. These circumstances also contribute to a higher poverty rate among the student population. As a result, we learned that the rate of students’ mental health cases is higher than average.
The mental health issues faced by the students range from PTSD, high levels of depression, hypertension, grief, and fear. Due to funding constraints, there is also a shortage of mental health counselors, leaving counselors overwhelmed.
As I sat and listened, I couldn't help but remember how these conditions are a driving factor behind our Gaza 5K walk/run events back home in the United States.
UNRWA USA Communications team sitting with the school’s administration and counselors
For the past 11 years, UNRWA USA has hosted Gaza 5Ks across the country to raise funds for UNRWA’s mental health program in Gaza. The program employs specialized mental health counselors - recruited from the local refugee population - to provide individual and targeted group counseling to Palestine refugees at UNRWA schools.
In 2023, we are bringing the Gaza 5K back home to the Washington DC metropolitan area so stay on the lookout for announcements on final dates and locations. Your participation in the Gaza 5K prioritizes the mental health of students and counselors in schools like Al Ferdous.
Once again, the stories of the students, teachers, and counselors reiterated the importance of UNRWA’s work in the Strip and highlighted our role and power as Americans to better the lives of Palestine refugees.
More Palestinian Food and Generosity
When you are in Palestine, every person you meet invites you over for a meal. The culture of hospitality is huge and generosity is ingrained in the people. Once our meeting ended, we headed over to UNRWA’s main health center in Gaza City. We accepted an early dinner invitation from Dr. Ghada Al Jadba, Chief of the UNRWA Health Program in the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Ghada manages a workforce of over 900 employees and oversees services across 22 UNRWA health centers. It was an honor and privilege to spend the afternoon with one of the most beloved and respected pillars of the Palestine refugee community. The aroma of homemade Ma’loubeh, stuffed grape leaves, Tabbouleh, olives, and freshly squeezed orange juice filled up the office. It was mouth-watering and filling. The most memorable part: a side dish of hot and spicy peppers that Gaza is famous for, bathed in olive oil, lemon juice, and garlic.
UNRWA USA’s Communications team with Dr.Ghada Al Jadba and her team
Dr. Al Jadba spoke to us about the May 2021 Israeli military assault on Gaza and how difficult the situation on the ground was for health workers. Hearing the personal stories of how staff had to leave their families and show up to work amidst the military assault was heart-wrenching. The violence and deprivation are senseless and inhumane. My eyes involuntarily filled up with tears as I listened and wondered when this vicious cycle will stop. Life in Gaza is nightmarish and it shouldn't be.
Despite the grave topics being discussed, our hearts and bellies were full of warmth and love. We concluded our afternoon on a comforting note with slices of Harisseh, a coconut, and semolina cake soaked in rose water syrup and warm sage tea.
This just goes to show how the Palestinian spirit is like no other.
Palestinian cake - Harisseh, made from coconut, semolina and rose water syrup with a side of sage tea.
end of day three
I admired our final sunset in Gaza. The serenity of the sea and the sound of children’s laughter. Its absolute beauty is calming; and such a stark contrast to what the Palestinian people are experiencing.
We were leaving Gaza the next day and heading back to the West Bank, but our first stop was a vocational school in the early morning hours before hitting the road… more on that in the next post in this series.