Ghada Ageel

I can't hug my mother in Gaza



There is nothing worse in life than being glued to the TV screen, watching one’s nation being slaughtered on an hourly basis while able to do nothing. There is nothing more painful in this universe than hearing the tears and cries of one’s mother on the phone and be unable to hug her, to wipe her tears or to comfort her with any words or means. Ghada Ageel writes from the UK

A recipe for Israel's security



Time after time, Israel has failed to provide its citizens with either actual security or even a sense of security, whether inside or outside the country. This is so despite the fact that it possesses all means of military power and superiority including the nuclear weapons making it the strongest regional power in the Middle East. In fact, despite all its power, Israel lives in a continuous security crisis. Ghada Ageel comments for EI

Will peace cost me my home?



Sixty years ago, my grandparents lived in the beautiful village of Beit Daras, a few kilometers north of Gaza. They were farmers and owned hundreds of acres of land. But in 1948, in the first Arab-Israeli war, many people lost their lives defending our village from the Zionist militias. In the end, with their crops and homes burning, the villagers fled. My family eventually made its way to what became the refugee camp of Khan Younis in Gaza. Some people may tire of hearing such stories from the past. “Don’t cry over spilled milk” is one of the first sayings I learned in English. But for me, the line between past and present is not so easily broken. Ghada Ageel comments. 

The "disengagement" as seen from Gaza



In 2002, Moshe Ya’alon, then Israel’s army chief of staff, said that “the Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.” “I wonder if Ya’alon would make the same statement today after the completion of Gaza settlers evacuation?” asks EI contributor Ghada Ageel who was born and lives in Gaza’s Khan Yunis refugee camp. Whether right or wrong, says Ageel, whether Ya’alon likes it or not, today most Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and in the diaspora, young or old, women and men do feel in the deepest recesses of their hearts that they are the victors. 

Gaza: horror beyond belief



The situation in Gaza is horrific beyond belief. Since Tuesday, May 11, thousands of people have been denied the simple right to return to their homes; this includes infants, children, students, employees, women, and men of all ages. There is no law in this life or world that should prevent someone from returning to his or her home. Yet in Palestine this is happening. And it is Israel, the storied democratic state, that is practicing this grave violation of very basic human rights. Ghada Ageel reports from Zahra, in Gaza Strip.