as you may have heard, there was recently a rather significant war in the middle east. call it gaza war # whatever we're at now. our city of be'er sheva happened to be right in the middle of it. things really got started when the idf (israeli defense force) surprise assassinated ahmed jabari, the head of hamas' military wing in gaza, as punishment for hamas rockets being fired into southern israel over the last couple years. we got advance warning from the israeli medical students who were taking our neglected tropical diseases module with us - they got some texts from their friends with connections and told us we better go home asap and hide in our bomb shelters, as all hell was about to break loose. and indeed, it basically did. hamas responded with a continuous and sustained barrage of rockets, as did israel, that continued for the next week or so - about 1500 rockets each. it was crazy. no school. no going far from the bomb shelter (which luckily for me happens to be my room). sirens, quickly followed by huge sonic booms that rattled the windows and the fridge. many of be'er sheva's residents as well as most of my classmates fled town; some even left the country. my roommate and i decided to stick around. soon i started getting cabin fever, and would (probably unwisely) go on runs in the eerily deserted streets, sometimes hiding behind something when the sirens went off, others times simply continuing to run and cranking my ipod to drown out the sounds of war. we had the strange and unfortunate honor of being the center of the world's attention for a few days. cnn's wolf blitzer was even tweeting live from close to my apartment - i quickly got on my bike to go try to find him, but he had already moved on to interview some more rocket attack victims.
israel has developed a missile defense system called the iron dome, which shoots down rockets heading toward developed areas with at least 90% accuracy. it is truly beautiful to watch this system in action at night (watch it at work here protecting a wedding - coincidently this is just meters from my apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M-BQtp4Www). one concern has become that the iron dome provides incentive for israelis (and me) to go outside to watch "the fireworks" when the sirens go off, rather than to hide in their bomb shelters. despite the dome, some rockets definitely still get through and hit be'er sheva and other towns in southern israel. for example, one shattered the front window of some of my friends' house.
and of course, the people of gaza have no such protections, as evidenced by the fact that 160-some gazans died in this latest war compared with 6 israelis, a gross disproportion fairly typical of israeli-palestinian violence. i have really tried not to make this a blog about my political positions, but allow me to briefly state what i see as the most important root cause of this particular conflict: life in gaza is hell. no economy allowed; no hope. the vast majority of gazans aren't allowed to leave, ever. they can't get life saving medicines in for their children without impossible-to-get permissions from israel. israeli doctors who want to go volunteer in gaza are barred from doing so by the israeli government. food going into gaza is rationed. fishermen get shot if they stray more than 3 miles from the shore - not really far enough to catch many fish. 95% of gaza's children have clinical signs of ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder). the list goes on... and on... and on. no one can expect people to live under these conditions without resorting to desperate measures. it is true that hamas is a terrible organization. their stated targets are israeli civilians, which is completely wrong; indeed evil. but the israeli government can't blame anyone but themselves for the fact that hamas is popular in gaza. and the saddest thing is that not much has changed after the now ceasefire. conditions are still horrible in gaza, and pro-violence hardliners retain popular support on both sides. this war will repeat itself, sooner rather than later. okay, enough from my political soapbox (although i would argue that its not really about politics, its about innocent people's lives). of course, there are a myriad of other factors that also play into the region's propensity for conflict, and others predictably point fingers in other directions. just always remember: conflict, especially in the middle east, is invariably more complicated than can ever be described in one paragraph, news clip, facebook sharable infograph, or even dissertation. unfortunately, the only thing that the leaders of both sides agree on is that they probably aren't going to start getting along any time soon. that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing everything we can to try to help that start to happen.
anyways, about a week into the conflict, things were looking pretty bad. rockets were hitting tel aviv and jerusalem (for the first time since the 1970s), there was a bus bombing in tel aviv that had every israeli worrying about a third intifada, and an israeli ground invasion of gaza seemed imminent. my school's administration decided that it would be best to end the semester early. ironically, just a few hours after they made that announcement, a ceasefire was unexpectedly agreed to, and actually stuck. so, we got off early, but we need to go back early too, and attend school on weekends to make up the lost time. unfortunately this means i have to miss my main man devin's wedding which i was really stoked about attending, and spend christmas day on an airplane, and have even less time this spring to start preparing for the biggest exam of our lives, the usmle step 1 board exam, but at least my classmates and i can all be thankful that we survived this thing, unlike the 160 or so who weren't so lucky. war is terrible.
israel has developed a missile defense system called the iron dome, which shoots down rockets heading toward developed areas with at least 90% accuracy. it is truly beautiful to watch this system in action at night (watch it at work here protecting a wedding - coincidently this is just meters from my apartment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M-BQtp4Www
and of course, the people of gaza have no such protections, as evidenced by the fact that 160-some gazans died in this latest war compared with 6 israelis, a gross disproportion fairly typical of israeli-palestinian violence. i have really tried not to make this a blog about my political positions, but allow me to briefly state what i see as the most important root cause of this particular conflict: life in gaza is hell. no economy allowed; no hope. the vast majority of gazans aren't allowed to leave, ever. they can't get life saving medicines in for their children without impossible-to-get permissions from israel. israeli doctors who want to go volunteer in gaza are barred from doing so by the israeli government. food going into gaza is rationed. fishermen get shot if they stray more than 3 miles from the shore - not really far enough to catch many fish. 95% of gaza's children have clinical signs of ptsd (post-traumatic stress disorder). the list goes on... and on... and on. no one can expect people to live under these conditions without resorting to desperate measures. it is true that hamas is a terrible organization. their stated targets are israeli civilians, which is completely wrong; indeed evil. but the israeli government can't blame anyone but themselves for the fact that hamas is popular in gaza. and the saddest thing is that not much has changed after the now ceasefire. conditions are still horrible in gaza, and pro-violence hardliners retain popular support on both sides. this war will repeat itself, sooner rather than later. okay, enough from my political soapbox (although i would argue that its not really about politics, its about innocent people's lives). of course, there are a myriad of other factors that also play into the region's propensity for conflict, and others predictably point fingers in other directions. just always remember: conflict, especially in the middle east, is invariably more complicated than can ever be described in one paragraph, news clip, facebook sharable infograph, or even dissertation. unfortunately, the only thing that the leaders of both sides agree on is that they probably aren't going to start getting along any time soon. that doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing everything we can to try to help that start to happen.
anyways, about a week into the conflict, things were looking pretty bad. rockets were hitting tel aviv and jerusalem (for the first time since the 1970s), there was a bus bombing in tel aviv that had every israeli worrying about a third intifada, and an israeli ground invasion of gaza seemed imminent. my school's administration decided that it would be best to end the semester early. ironically, just a few hours after they made that announcement, a ceasefire was unexpectedly agreed to, and actually stuck. so, we got off early, but we need to go back early too, and attend school on weekends to make up the lost time. unfortunately this means i have to miss my main man devin's wedding which i was really stoked about attending, and spend christmas day on an airplane, and have even less time this spring to start preparing for the biggest exam of our lives, the usmle step 1 board exam, but at least my classmates and i can all be thankful that we survived this thing, unlike the 160 or so who weren't so lucky. war is terrible.
