Rafah, Egypt.
Tiny jets, the size of rice, cross-stitch the blue skies over the streets of Gaza. Surveillance blimps hover like the Super Bowl. The people below, one and a half million of them, huddle in close homes without electricity or water. Witnesses cringe as noises from the jets paint the town.
Heavy bombs, made in America, are guided by video game controls thumbed by invisible hands. There are no anti-aircraft defenses to oppose them.
BOOM pulses the air and convulses the ground. A huge cloud of black smoke silently rises over a neighborhood. Witnesses fall silent in sadness and rage.
A tiny border mosque speaker starts mournful guttural prayers for the dead and wounded.
Over the prayers comes another BOOM and another and another.
Black smoke mixes with the prayers of sorrow. Minutes later, the air smells of burning. People die. And tomorrow there will be more. And the politicians talk.
BILL QUIGLEY is a law professor and human rights lawyer at Loyola University New Orleans. Bill has visited Haiti many times as a volunteer advocate with the Institute for Justice and Peace in Haiti. www.ijdh.org Vladmir Laguerre, a journalist in Port au Prince, helped with this article. Bill can be reached at quigley77@yahoo.com.
