Rika Fujiya: Days Spent Learning Alongside the People of Palestine

Photo: People enjoying a swim at a beach in Gaza (2004, photographed 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."

Approximately 1,400 people died during the Israeli military invasion of the Gaza Strip from late 2008 to 2009. 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 continuous power outages, the phone didn't always connect. I would email her in advance and call with a prayer in my heart; finally, I was able to hear her voice. This was how she responded to my call from Japan.

Why must people whose lives are being threatened have to say they are "not terrorists"? It must be because she felt so painfully aware of how Palestinians are viewed from the outside.

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

During my time stationed there, international NGO staff were allowed to enter and exit Gaza, but it was extremely strict, and very few foreigners stayed in Gaza. I traveled to the Gaza Strip with friends who were UN staff or international NGO workers, and stayed at the homes of UN staff friends or hotels where international staff stayed.

Palestinian society has strong family ties. Families are large, with five or six people per household being common. For the people of Gaza, the idea of someone being in a room alone was pitiable; 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 is 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 citrus-producing region, and many lemons are grown there. Fresh lemons cut into chunks with the peel, mint, sugar, and water are blended, strained through a coarse mesh, and it's done. It's served with ice. It takes a bit of effort, but she always made it by hand.

In Gaza, fried small red whitefish 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 that have continued since October 2023 is beyond imagination. More than 30,000 people have died. However, this did not just begin last October. Following the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948 and the Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967, the area 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.

I have been involved with the Gaza Strip for many years 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 scent of spices from signature dishes filling the kitchen, and trivial jokes. 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 his 1999 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the representative of Doctors Without Borders said, "Humanitarian action is the most apolitical of all acts, but if its actions and its ethics are taken seriously, it can have the most profound of political implications."

Delivering food and medicine will not end the war. However, I want to believe that if everyone sincerely considers why we must deliver them, thinks about the people who are suffering, and faces that reality, then ending the war through political decision-making becomes essential. I want to engrave her earnest wish—"We just want to live in peace"—in my heart once again and share it with others.