Rika Fujiya: Days Spent Learning Alongside the People of Palestine

2024/04/09

Photo: People enjoying a swim at a beach in Gaza (2004, Photo by Rika Fujiya)

"I want you to know that we Palestinians are not terrorists. We want our children to grow up healthy. We just want to live in peace."

Between late 2008 and 2009, approximately 1,400 people were killed during Israel's military invasion of the Gaza Strip. Even hospitals, which should be protected under international humanitarian law, were attacked.

As the airstrikes continued, I called a friend in Gaza. She and I had been running a child nutrition improvement program together. Due to the ongoing power outages, the phone didn't always connect. I would contact her via email in advance and call her with a prayer in my heart, hoping to hear her voice. This was how she responded to my call from Japan.

Why must people whose lives are under threat have to say they are "not terrorists"? It must be because she felt, with painful clarity, how Palestinians were being perceived by the outside world.

I have been involved in health projects in Palestine as an international NGO staff member since 1995, and at that time, I was in charge of Palestinian operations. From 2004 to 2006, I was the local coordinator for Palestinian operations, working on child nutrition improvement in the Gaza Strip. When conditions allowed, I stayed in Gaza for about half of each week to work on the project. During the 2009 invasion, I was in charge of Palestinian operations at the Tokyo office and visited the region about three times a year.

During my local assignment, international NGO staff were allowed to enter and exit Gaza, but it was extremely strict, and very few foreigners stayed there. I traveled to the Gaza Strip with friends from the UN and other international NGOs, staying at the homes of UN friends or in hotels where international staff resided.

Palestinian society has strong family ties. Families are large, with five or six people per household being common. For the people of Gaza, being alone in a room seemed to be a matter of great pity, and as a friend, they couldn't leave me be. My colleagues would invite me, a foreigner living alone, to meals and take me shopping with them.

The tap water in Gaza has a high salt concentration; while it can be used for daily life like laundry, cleaning, and showering, it is not suitable for drinking or cooking. Even that water was often cut off. This was affected by the fact that electricity was only available for limited hours. Drinking water was purchased separately, kept in yellow plastic containers, and placed in the corner of the kitchen. Despite such hardships, they would serve their signature dishes and offer drinks.

The lemonade my friend made was the best. Gaza is a famous producer of citrus fruits, and many lemons are grown there. Fresh lemons, chopped roughly with the peel, are blended with mint, sugar, and water, then strained through a coarse mesh. It is served with ice. It took a bit of effort, but she always made it by hand.

In Gaza, a small, red, white-fleshed fried fish called "Emperor Ibrahim" is a delicacy. In my hometown in Yamaguchi Prefecture, we eat a very similar fish called "Kintaro" as tempura. We had a great time talking about how the names of the fish were somehow similar.

The suffering of the people due to the Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip, which have continued since October 2023, is beyond imagination. More than 30,000 people have died. However, this did not start last October. Following the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948 and the Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967, the region came under Israeli occupation, and the construction of infrastructure necessary for sustainable economic development within the Gaza Strip was restricted and weakened. It was placed in a state of "de-development," where self-determination and future possibilities are structurally denied. With the tightening of the economic and movement blockade by Israel, the Gaza Strip became an "open-air prison."

I personally was involved in emergency humanitarian assistance (providing food and medicine) in response to the damage from military invasions of the Gaza Strip in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2014.

For many years, I have been involved with the Gaza Strip as an expert in international health, through health projects and emergency humanitarian aid. However, the memories that come back first are the days spent with the people—the bittersweet taste of lemonade, the aroma of spices from signature dishes filling the kitchen, and trivial, laughing conversations. From them, I learned what we should cherish as human beings, as well as strength and kindness. No matter the situation, people have their daily lives and wish to live with dignity.

In the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the representative of Doctors Without Borders said, "Humanitarian action is the most apolitical of all acts. However, if its actions and its ethics are taken seriously, it can have the most profound political implications."

Delivering food and medicine will not end the war. However, I want to believe that if we convey why we must deliver them, tell the stories of those who suffer, and share that reality, and if everyone thinks about it earnestly, an end to the war through political decision-making will become inevitable. I want to engrave her earnest wish—"I just want to live in peace"—in my heart once more and share it with others.