Coleraine Palestinian student Haneen appeals for Gaza conflict to end
A Palestinian student, who was the subject of a Trocaire campaign to allow her to come to Coleraine to study, has made an impassioned appeal for the brutal conflict in Gaza to end.
Writing exclusively to The Coleraine Times from the war-torn country, Haneen Jabr Wishah, said: "I'm asking you and all the peace lovers all over the world, in the name of love, peace, and humanity to take action now before it's too late."
Haneen was granted a visa by the Israeli government last September, allowing her to travel from Palestine to Egypt and then onto Northern Ireland to study at the University of Ulster in Coleraine.
SDLP Youth had urged everyone to sign a Trcaire petition to the Israeli ambassador supporting Haneen's case to take her Masters in Business Innovation scholarship at the local campus. Haneen had previously attended the Jordan University of Science and Technology where she graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Computer Information
Systems.
Haneen (24), whose father works for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, said she was happy to speak to The Coleraine Times to give readers the "real story about the Israeli aggression" which has so far claimed 700 dead, at least half of them women and children. Additionally more than 2,900 have been injured and 200 are in critical condition.
Haneen wrote: "I can assure you that it is a real, barbaric war going on in my homeland: killing civilians, destroying houses and even targeting poultry and chicken farms.
"While I'm writing to you I can clearly hear the non-stop bombardment outside from the American manufactured war planes and gun boats shelling, which makes it impossible to concentrate on what I'm writing. Even to have a silent second here to write, read or just lie down and think is something forbidden."
Haneen said the Israeli attacks had caused "massive damage" and destroyed thousands of homes.
"The Israeli Army has effectively divided the Gaza Strip into two sections after the land incursion which took place on January 3
AGGRESSION
"They are forbidding ambulances and their medical crews into the damaged and shelled areas. With the ongoing aggression of the air strikes from American-manufactured F16s shelling ambulances eight medical crews have been killed while trying to help injured people and move them to the nearest hospital where they can be treated.
"The situation here is unbelievable, inhuman and and very hard. 750,000 refugees are suffering from shortage of food supplies as a result of the ongoing siege that Gaza suffered from in the months before the current Israeli aggression began on December 27."
Since writing to this newspaper Israel halted military operations for three hours a day to enable aid to flow through a humanitarian corridor it set up in the Hamas-ruled territory.
Haneen appealed for people power to "stop the Israeli aggression on my land and people."
"We, as Palestinians are begging to live in peace in a justice world in our homeland Palestine, because it's our legal right and we won't give up until we free our land Palestine from the Israeli occupation."
Haneen returned home in October after a year-long campaign to allow her to come to Coleraine to study.
She said she was grateful to everyone involved in the Trocaire campaign to pressurise the Israeli government to "let me out of Gaza to pursue my studies in the University of Ulster."
Thanking the campaigners, Haneen said: "My dad, who works for the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in Gaza, has always said to me that we are made stronger because of the support of people all around the world. Now I appreciate how true this really is. You helped me to keep hope even in the darkest of times.
"I am one of the lucky ones. Even though it took over one year and the efforts of countless numbers of people - I got out. There are still hundreds of students stuck in Gaza, unable to fulfill their dreams and their potential.
"That is not to mention the cancer patients who can't get access to radiography machines or the farmers who can not export their figs or their strawberries."
Haneen says she is planning to return to Coleraine to study, but doesn't know when. She added: "Gaza is still under siege. The work to free it, and the people in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, must continue."
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Wednesday 23 May 2012
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