Psychologists here are trying intervention techniques to help relieve pain and anger. Children are given play-therapy sessions, and are monitored to observe violence. Therapists talk in workplaces and schools.
It is still too early to know whether self-rule will take hold here. For now, Palestinians are still accommodating themselves to their new-found freedom. For the last six and a half years, every Palestinian in Gaza was under a nightly 9 P.M. curfew. When the Israeli army left, a caged population exploded into the streets, staying in cafes all night. Palestinians ushered in the peace agreement and its implementation with euphoria and celebrations.
But after the music died down and the world's cameras were shut off, Palestinians were left with the same garbage-infested streets and shantytowns. Groups of unemployed men still loiter in shops and cafes, drinking Arabic coffee and playing cards, and children still run barefoot in the streets.
A population in shock is left with the task of building what they hope will be an independent state, but most Palestinians are still trying to survive. "When Palestinians in Gaza wake up in the mornings," says Hamdona, "they don't think about organizing themselves but about how they are going to get food for the day."
Trading real land for the intangible of peace is difficult for both sides. Perhaps it is a shade easier for many Israelis, simply because "the majority of Israelis have already renounced the territories. They don't seem like a place where we can safely go," says Israeli psychiatrist Menachem Carmi. But getting used to avoiding a place and relinquishing military control over it are two different things, and that loss of control has plenty of Isrealis worried. Yet for many Palestinian refugees, home is still something they can't "shake free" of. When I went to interview Hamdona, who seems to understand the issues at stake, even he told me that he is from Majdal---now the city of Ashkelon in Israel, although he was born in Gaza. "But you aren't from Majdal," I said, "you were born in Gaza City."
"I know this;' he answered. "The majority of Palestinians know it inside, but you can't say it to them aloud. You can't tell them to throw their keys away." The Palestinians are still, metaphorically and literally, a homeless nation of people carrying keys they may not be ready to relinquish for peace.
PHOTO: Leila Susi holds photos of her dead sons.
PHOTO: Palestinian wooman holding the key to her home.
PHOTO: Children playing with rocks and guns in the street.
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