Rami Almeghari

Some 30 meters away from election campaigning by the largest Palestinian parties, the ruling Fatah and Hamas, in the refugee camp of Maghazi, central Gaza Strip, the house of Kamal Taha, 55, is located in one of the camp’s alleys. About 400 Palestinian candidates in the West Bank, Gaza and Occupied East Jerusalem are competing in an election campaign that began on January 3 and would end by January 24, to be elected as members of the Palestinian Legislative Counci. Kamal had used to work in Israel as a porter prior to the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Intifada in September 2000, and since then he has been unemployed due to closure by Israeli authorities of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Israeli jetfighters, mainly F-16s, continue to air-strike many areas in the ‘recently-evacuated’ Gaza Strip, in which several Palestinians have been killed, dozens others wounded, severe damages inflicted to buildings and a great deal of panic caused to men, women and children. “Suddenly, at 2:30am, in the early hours of Saturday 24, 2005, I woke up suddenly from my sleep, finding my three little kids, Ghadir (9), Rewan (6) and Fadi (4) , crying fearfully in my room, calling “Dad, Dad”.