'Color Purple' Author: Catastrophe Has Befallen Gaza

[Purveyor]

Pulitzer Prize-winning U.S. author Alice Walker says a catastrophe has befallen the Gaza Strip and that she hopes she and others can make President Barack Obama more aware of it.

Walker, best known for her novel The Color Purple, toured Gaza this week, including an area destroyed in Israel's recent war on the territory's Islamic militant Hamas rulers.

Several neighborhoods along Gaza's border with Israel were leveled by the Israel Defense Forces during the three-week offensive, which ended Jan. 18. Israel says Hamas is to blame for the destruction because its fighters used civilians as shields and operated from crowded areas. About 15,000 houses were destroyed or damaged, displacing thousands of Gazans.

Walker, 65, said in an interview Tuesday that she encountered widespread devastation.

"Lots, and lots and lots of houses of just ordinary people have been completely and utterly destroyed, and people are living in the rubble," she said, speaking in the garden cafe of her Gaza City hotel. "Some of them are struggling in tents, and some are just sitting in what remains of their homes."

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AP: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1070313.html

[Scurrilous]

1. Wedding in rubble: One Gaza couple looks forward

<snip>

"The newlyweds, still in their wedding finery, stepped over broken glass and rubble into their honeymoon suite — a room in the groom's family home, badly damaged by tank shells during Israel's war on Gaza's Hamas rulers.

The room is small, but has a real bed, rather than mattresses spread on the floor, and offers rare privacy in a house crammed with two dozen relatives taking up the few areas clear of debris and shards.

"I am happy, no doubt, but it's not the feeling that I might have felt before the war," said Haitham Attar, 26, after escorting his bride, Reem Abu Leila, 24, into her new home. In keeping with tradition, she was covered head to toe by a hooded cloak over her white wedding dress, shielding her from view.

The bittersweet story of their wedding day provided a glimpse into the quest of Gazans for normalcy as the world begins efforts to rebuild the damage from three weeks of war.

The wedding was to take place Jan. 15. But Israel's military offensive was going full force, and the town near Israel's border, a frequent launching ground for militants' rockets, was hit hard.

Tank shells smashed through the front walls of the Attars' two-story home, devastating the room Attar had prepared for himself and his bride.

Now, after a delayed ceremony, the couple's honeymoon will end quickly.

Their new room belongs to Attar's parents, Yousef and Fatima, who moved out to give the newlyweds some space after the wedding. But the parents will want to return eventually, and then the couple will have to sleep on mattresses in the communal area or move into a nearby tent camp, where one of the groom's brothers and his pregnant wife and toddler have made their home.

Attar, who earns 1,000 shekels ($235, 184 euros) a month as an elementary school secretary, said apartments for rent in his price range are not available.

The war destroyed or damaged some 15,000 houses. Many displaced people moved in with relatives or rented apartments. Many homeowners have collected emergency aid from the Hamas government or the United Nations, but the Attars say they haven't received aid.

Despite the lack of a proper home, Attar didn't want to put the wedding off any longer."

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[ProgressiveMuslim]

2. "I wanted very much to be with them and to bear witness to what is happening to them, this horrible,

... catastrophic, terrible thing," she said.

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