Religious customs often become acts of resilience, depending on the situation. At a time when Anti-Hijab Protests rock Iran, wearing hijab has become a must for the Palestinian women! Most importantly, no one has forced women in Gaza to wear hijabs, which usually refer to various head coverings conventionally worn by many Muslim women. Instead, the ongoing Israeli atrocities in the Gaza Strip have prompted the women in Palestine to use the piece of cloth.
Dana Al Ghossain, a Palestinian mother in Gaza, recently told TRT World: "Wearing the hijab is a source of pride for me, and I steadfastly embrace it. I have had all my experiences, including the challenges I faced during the war wearing the hijab." In an act of resilience and unwavering faith, Palestinian women in Gaza wear the hijab even to bed as they live under Israel's relentless bombing, facing the prospect of being forced to flee at any moment and sharing small spaces with hundreds of people, deprived of privacy.
Safa, a mother who fled from Gaza to Rafah, has said: "When we need to flee from sudden bombings, we want to be prepared with our modest attire for any situation." Typically designed for quick use at home during daily prayers or thrown on hastily when unexpected male guests visit, these garments are not usually worn outside the home. Yet, in times of war, Palestinian women consistently wear hijabs as a means to protect their modesty and to avoid any potential exposure of their bodies in case of injury or death, necessitating retrieval from beneath the rubble due to the imminent threat of bombardment. Eman Shanti, a Palestinian woman from Gaza, has stressed that these prayer clothes become their "official uniform in an emergency" during such dire circumstances.
Meanwhile, Israel has started engineering a buffer zone in Gaza. Mounting evidence suggests that the Jewish nation appears to be rendering large parts of Gaza unliveable, raising fears that the Israelis may be planning to carve out a buffer zone.
The plan, not publicly confirmed by the Israeli Armed Forces, appears to entail taking a significant chunk of territory out of the already miniscule Gaza. The demolition along the path represents only a sliver of the wider damage created by Israel's war on Gaza, which (as per one assessment) has damaged or destroyed half of all the buildings within the enclave.
The US, Israel's top ally and provider of military aid, has repeatedly said that Gaza's territory should not change and that a buffer zone would breach that principle. However, the Administration of Prime Minister Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu has ignored the advice. It seems that the Israeli Prime Minister decided to encroach the entire Palestinian territories after the October 7 (2023) terror attacks by Hamas.
It may be noted that a significant portion of the weapons used by the Palestinian Hamas Movement are recycled from unexploded Israeli and US-manufactured bombs dropped on Gaza. In a report published on January 28, 2024, the New York Times (NYT) made this claim citing sources close to the Israeli military and intelligence agency.
The findings could present a counterpoint to a long-standing narrative by the Israeli sources, which maintain that Hamas sustains its arsenal mainly through smuggling them in via the tunnel network it has built under the besieged enclave. Approximately, one out of 10 explosive weapons dropped on Gaza by the Israeli Armed Forces fails to detonate, according to UN experts.
The NYT report further claimed that the figure could be even higher, given that some of Israel's arsenal traced back to the Vietnam War Era in the US. Weapons that were repurposed included weapons, such as anti-tank explosives, RPG warheads, thermobaric grenades and improvised devices, and the like, the report suggests.
In line with the recent findings, an Al Jazeera documentary in 2020 revealed how the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, repurposed undetonated Israeli munitions from the 2014 Israeli War on Gaza, as well as metal water pipes left behind by Israel during its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Israel is estimated to have deployed more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives in the besieged enclave so far in Gaza following Hamas' attacks on October 7, 2023!
With inputs from articles published by TRT World on February 5, 2024.
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