Gaza

A year after the 2014 war in Gaza, not a single house of 18,000 that were damaged or destroyed by fighting was habitable.

Alongside the Hamas training camps and bombed-out neighborhoods, there is a parallel reality where the wafer-thin Palestinian middle class is wooed by massage therapists, spin classes, and private beach resorts.

When Wareef Kassem Hamedo was growing up in the Syrian city of Aleppo, he dreamt of opening his own restaurant. Last fall, Wareef’s dream finally came true when the 35-year-old opened Soriana (Our Syria).

Dozens of Palestinians emigrating from Gaza are missing after boats ferrying asylum seekers sank in the Mediterranean in September 2014. The first boat was deliberately sunk by unknown perpetrators on Sept. 10, followed by the sinking of a second boat off the coast of Alexandria on Sept.

Gaza is frequently called “the world’s largest open air prison.”

Originally publish in Hebrew in Ma’ariv, on January 25, 2009. Translated to English by the Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA).

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