This “open-air prison” sounds better all the time. This one had a “theater, grand hall, public library, printing press and cultural salon.”
Meanwhile, the New York Times is publishing propaganda from a Hamas-appointed official. Would it publish a weeper from an ISIS chief? If he were attacking Israel, sure.
“I Am Gaza City’s Mayor. Our Lives and Culture Are in Rubble.,” by Yahya R. Sarraj, New York Times, December 24, 2023:
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.
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.
Students and researchers, scholars and artists from across the Gaza Strip came to visit 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….
Mark says
They can NOT both say the truth !! Hamas is telling the fairytales of 1001 Arab Nights !!!!
rick says
Would love to know what books were available in the library and how reading material was chosen. All legitimate historical books on the Middle East or Jewish History had to be Verboten!!! or else Gazans would learn the truth which contradicted everything they were taught What about the Holocaust? Probably only holocaust deniers were on the shelves starting with Abbas. And any history of Israel would be too dangerous a book unless it were written by a Hamas janitor.
maria villa says
They can blame their Hamas terrorists leaders for the bombardment.