I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble.

By Yahya R. Sarraj

Dr. Sarraj is the mayor of Gaza City and a former rector of the University College of Applied Sciences there. He wrote from Gaza City.

[OCS: Dr. Sarraj, is little more than a titled mouthpiece who, like every Gazan official, serves at the pleasure of Hamas and is beholden to the terrorists.] 

As a teenager in the 1980s, I watched the construction of the intricately designed Rashad al-Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City, named after one of Gaza’s greatest public figures, and its theater, grand hall, public library, printing press and cultural salon.

[OCS: Big fucking deal! A cultural Potemkin icon that masks the terrorist intent of Hamas and the near 80% of Gazans who approve and celebrate their terrorist butchery on October 7. Before you speak about refined culture, explain why your schools continue to teach young children to hate Jews and that their greatest achievement would be to die as a martyr while killing Jews?]

Students, researchers, scholars and artists from across the Gaza Strip visited it, and so did President Bill Clinton in 1998. The center was the gem of Gaza City. Watching it being built inspired me to become an engineer, which led to a career as a professor and, in the footsteps of al-Shawa, as mayor of Gaza City.

Now that gem is rubble. It was destroyed by Israeli bombardment.

[OCS: Any building used to store weapons, house terrorists, or serve as a command center for terrorism is a legitimate target. Perhaps you should have asked why Hamas put this structure at risk?]

The Israeli invasion has caused the deaths of more than 20,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and destroyed or damaged about half the buildings in the territory. The Israelis have also pulverized something else: Gaza City’s cultural riches and municipal institutions.

[OCS: The Gaza Health Ministry is a propaganda tool of Hamas. Even if the number were accurate, how many were Hamas-affiliated individuals? How many were civilian shields for Hamas positions? How many were killed by Hamas to prevent them from  leaving the area and denying their use as human shields?]

The unrelenting destruction of Gaza — its iconic symbols, its beautiful seafront, its libraries and archives and whatever economic prosperity it had — has broken my heart.

[OCS: The Gazans brought this destruction upon themselves: one, by empowering Hamas, and two, by not fighting terrorism in their own area.]

The Gaza Zoo has been destroyed, with many of its animals killed or starved to death, including wolves, hyenas, birds and rare foxes. Other casualties include the city’s main public library, the Children’s Happiness Center, the municipal building and its archive, and the seventh-century Great Omari Mosque. Israeli forces have also damaged or destroyed streets, squares, mosques, churches and parks.

[OCS: Don’t cry crocodile tears when you store weapons in a Zoo and the animals are harmed. Yes, talk about the happy children who dress up as Hamas fighters and pretend to kill Jews while  adults applaud and cheer them on. Talk about the happy children who are “rewarded” with sweets when Jews are killed.]

One of my major goals after the Hamas administration appointed me mayor in 2019 was to improve the city’s seafront and foster the opening of small businesses along it to create jobs. It took us four years to finish the project, which included a promenade, recreation areas and spaces for those businesses. It took Israel only weeks to destroy it. Niveen, a divorced woman I know, was supposed to open a small restaurant in November but her dream is gone. Mohammed, a disabled Palestinian, lost his small café.

Why did the Israeli tanks destroy so many trees, electricity poles, cars and water mains? Why would Israel hit a U.N. school? The obliteration of our way of life in Gaza is indescribable. I still feel I am in a nightmare because I can’t imagine how any sane person could engage in such a horrific campaign of destruction and death.

[Trees were hiding terrorists and weapons, as for the rest of the infrastructure – that’s war for you.]

The modern municipality of Gaza was established in 1893 and is one of the oldest in the Middle East. It served about 800,000 people, among the largest congregations of Palestinians in the world. Even after Israel forcibly displaced more than one million Palestinians from northern Gaza after the war began, much of the population in the city remained.

[OCS: Bullshit! The majority of the population are Egyptian and Jordanian Arabs. And one might ask, why did Gaza not flourish like Beirut or Dubai? Could it be the fault of terrorists? Most of the population remained because they were denied exit by Hamas who shot departing civilians or lacked the ability to escape. The government, under Hamas, denies any responsibility for civilians, leaving their care to the United Nations or the so-called “occupiers.”]

When Israel began its war on Gaza in response to the deadly attack by Hamas, I was abroad. I cut my tour short to return to help our people. I head an emergency committee of municipal workers and volunteers, who have been trying to fix water pipes, open roads and clear disease-causing sewage and garbage. At least 14 members of our municipal staff have died. Almost everyone on the committee has lost a home or relative.

I, too, have lost a loved one. Without warning, a direct hit to my house on Oct. 22 killed my eldest son, Roshdi, a photojournalist and filmmaker. He thought he would be safer at his parents’ home. It made me wonder if I could have been the target. We will never know. I buried Roshdi and quickly returned to work with the emergency committee.

[OCS: You, as a high-ranking Hamas official, and anyone around you is a legitimate target. It was a “targeted” precision strike—so I can assume the presence of Hamas.]

Israel, which began its blockade of Gaza more than 16 years ago and has maintained what the United Nations and human rights groups call an ongoing occupation for far longer, is destroying life here. An unnamed Israeli defense official promised to turn Gaza into a city of tents and Israel has forcibly displaced its inhabitants. For once, Israel is keeping a promise its officials made to the Palestinians.

[OCS: The United Nations is a corrupt, failed institution, now dominated by anti-America nation States. You should be turned into a sea of glass and pillars of salt for the terrorism you spawn]

I call on the world’s municipalities — everyone — to pressure world leaders to stop this mindless destruction.

[OCS:  Asswipe, I don’t hear you call for the surrender of the terrorists or for Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel. It is not mindless destruction, but precision strikes to kill terrorists and to eliminate or degrade their military capabilities. That the HAMAS terrorists chose to locate weapons in civilian areas, next to private homes, schools, hospitals, and Mosques is their choice. Likewise, Hamas chooses to use Gazans as human shields to protect their terrorists—again their choice.]

Why can’t Palestinians be treated equally, like Israelis and all other peoples in the world? Why can’t we live in peace and have open borders and free trade? Palestinians deserve to be free and have self-determination. Gaza’s emblem is the phoenix, which rises from the ashes. It insists on life. <Source>

[OCS: Because Gazans are not like the Israelis. The do not share the same values with respect for human life or human rights. They have voluntarily elected to be governed by brutal terrorists whose charter demands the killing of Jews and the destruction of the legitimate State of Israel. Even your Muslim neighbors, the Egyptians have closed their borders to Gazans as they also recognize the danger of jihad being exported to their country. The border protections are to protect the innocent from your terrorists. As for free trade, that is a propaganda buzzword. Gaza manufacturers nothing of note to export and diverts much of its industrial capacity, such as it is, to the production of weapons.]