“Two Hours in Hell” is an article written by Luisa Morgantini, an Italian member of the European Parliament, and published by ILMANIFESTO on January 14th. [Via: Too Much Cookies]

The article describes the visit of the European Delegation to Gaza during the current Israeli attacks and reflects the awful situation of Gazans and their suffering perfectly.

“A little bit more than two hours, but it was enough to see the destruction and desperation among people in Gaza.

With 8 Members of the European Parliament and one Italian Senator (Democratic Party PD), we are the only political representatives to have entered the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the Israeli attack.

We entered through the Rafah crossing, thanks to the indispensable collaboration of the UNRWA and of the Egyptian Authorities, and forcing the resolve of those Israelis who had turned down our request.

Cannons were firing and bombs were falling close to the UN building that we were visiting, despite the fact that there was supposed to be a three-hour truce. A truce that is not respected, just like the UN Security Council’s resolution, rejected by Israel and Hamas.

“Both will declare themselves the winners but it is we who are dying,” said a man lying on the floor of a UN centre for refugees.

Of course Hamas bears its own share of the responsibilities, but the asymmetry is undeniable. For more than 40 years, Israel has continued to occupy and colonize Palestinian lands and population, using military force and violations of humanitarian and international law. In Rafah, I saw human beings stunned by terror, exhausted by insomnia caused by two weeks of hard bombings, of desperate searching for corpses among rubble and suffering from hunger that had already lasted at least as long as the blockade and that before the ‘cast lead’ operation was already being imposed on the civil population of the Gaza Strip as a form of collective punishment.

Now they are being attacked by air, by land, by sea; no one and nothing is safe. And it is maybe the first time that bombed people have no place to escape: borders are closed, so they stay there waiting to die. This is what one of them, Raed, told me: “Each time, before trying to sleep, I kiss my wife hoping to be still with her the following day and not to die under the bombs”.

Horror and impunity: the UNRWA school in Jabalya was pinpointed and hit by a missile and it was not Hamas militants who were shooting. 45 civilians were killed there. Morgues are full of corpses and hospitals are full of people burnt by white phosphorus or wounded by DIME weapons, which were already employed in Lebanon – Israel has already admitted this.

A doctor told us that patients with chronic illnesses no longer receive care because there are no longer any medicines and there are too many wounded people. In Gaza, dozens of mothers crammed into  one small room with their children were looking at us desperately and the eyes of some were lost in emptiness. They were showing us their children who were still wounded and asking us: ‘Why?’.

The UNRWA is denouncing the lack of basic goods that are needed. Israel does not permit the necessary flow of aid. But nothing and no one is safe from the Israeli choice to pursue illegality.

While Gaza is under bomb attack, at the same time the number of illegal settlers increases in the West Bank and the construction of the Wall continues, confiscating lands and dividing Palestinians from Palestinians. Continuing to keep alive the hope for the right to a State based on ‘67 borders with Jerusalem as the  shared Capital is becoming more and more difficult.

How can we push the International Community to assume its responsibilities? How can we obtain an immediate cease-fire? How to convince Israel that it can’t continue violating international law but that it must start to listen to all those voices, within and without, calling for peace, rights and dignity for the Palestinian people, as the only way towards their security? The European Union must have the courage and the coherence to stop upgrading its relations and cooperation with Israel, starting with its military cooperation.

We, European Parliamentarians, will call for this once again, as well as for a cease-fire from both sides and an International force for the protection of civilians not only in Gaza but in West Bank too.

And I also wish that in Italy movements could understand that being united is important and that we must not be in favour of Israel, of Palestine, but for rights and justice. I continue to stand together with those Palestinians and Israelis who are saying “we refuse to be enemies – stop the massacre- stop the occupation”.