Rika Fujiya: Days Spent Learning Alongside the People of Palestine

Photo: People enjoying a swim at a beach in Gaza (2004, Photo by Rika Fujiya)

"I want you to know that we Palestinians are not terrorists. We want our children to grow up healthy. We just want to live in peace."

Approximately 1,400 people died during the Israeli military invasion of the Gaza Strip from late 2008 to 2009. Even hospitals, which should be protected under international humanitarian law, were attacked.

As the airstrikes continued, I called a friend in Gaza. I had been running a child nutrition improvement program with her. Due to continuous power outages, the phone didn't always connect. I would email her in advance and call with a prayer in my heart, and I was able to hear her voice. This was how she responded to my call from Japan.

Why must people whose lives are under threat have to say they are "not terrorists"? It must be because she felt so painfully how Palestinians were being viewed from the outside.

I have been involved in health projects in Palestine as an international NGO staff member since 1995, and at that time, I was in charge of Palestine operations. From 2004 to 2006, I was involved in improving child nutrition as the local coordinator for Palestine operations in the Gaza Strip, staying in Gaza about half the week to work on the project when conditions allowed. During the 2009 invasion, I was in charge of Palestine operations at the Tokyo office and visited the site about three times a year.

During my local assignment, international NGO staff were able to enter and exit Gaza, but it was extremely strict, and there were very few foreigners staying in Gaza. I traveled to the Gaza Strip with friends who were UN staff and international NGO workers, and stayed at the homes of UN staff friends or hotels where international staff stayed.

Palestinian society has strong family ties. They have many children, and five or six people in a household was common. For the people of Gaza, the idea of someone being alone in a room was pitiable, and as a friend, they couldn't leave me be. My colleagues would invite me, a single foreigner, to meals and take me shopping with them.

The tap water in Gaza has a high salt concentration; while it can be used for daily life like laundry, cleaning, and showering, it is not suitable for drinking or cooking. Even that water is often cut off. This was affected by the fact that electricity was only available for limited hours. Drinking water was purchased separately, kept in yellow plastic containers, and placed in the corner of the kitchen. Despite such hardships, they would serve their pride-and-joy dishes and offer drinks.

The lemonade my friend made was the best. Gaza is a famous producer of citrus fruits, and many lemons are grown there. Fresh lemons cut into chunks with the peel on, mint, sugar, and water are blended, strained through a coarse mesh, and it's done. They would serve it with ice. It took a bit of effort, but she always made it by hand.

In Gaza, small red fried whitefish called "Emperor Ibrahim" is a feast. In my hometown in Yamaguchi Prefecture, we eat a very similar fish called "Kintaro" as tempura. We had a great time talking about how the names of the fish were somehow similar.

The suffering of the people due to the Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip that have continued since October 2023 is beyond imagination. More than 30,000 people have died. However, this did not start last October. Following the First Arab-Israeli War in 1948 and the Third Arab-Israeli War in 1967, the area came under Israeli occupation, and the construction of infrastructure necessary for sustainable economic development within the Gaza Strip was restricted and weakened. It was placed in a state of "de-development," where self-determination and future possibilities are structurally denied. With the tightening of the economic and movement blockade by Israel, the Gaza Strip became an "open-air prison."

I personally was involved in emergency humanitarian assistance (food and medicine support) in response to damage from military invasions of the Gaza Strip in 2002, 2004, 2006, 2009, and 2014.

For many years, I was involved with the Gaza Strip as an expert in the field of international health, through health projects and emergency humanitarian aid. However, the memories that come back first are the days spent with the people—the taste of bittersweet lemonade, the scent of spices from their favorite dishes filling the kitchen, and trivial jokes. From them, I learned what we should cherish as human beings, as well as strength and kindness. No matter the situation, people have their daily lives and wish to live with dignity.

In the 1999 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, the representative of Doctors Without Borders said, "Humanitarian action is the most apolitical of all acts. However, if its actions and its morality are taken seriously, it can have the most profound political implications."

Delivering food and medicine will not end the war. However, if we convey why we must deliver them, tell the reality of the people who suffer, and if everyone thinks seriously about it, I want to believe that an end to the war through political judgment will become essential. I want to engrave her earnest wish—"I just want to live in peace"—in my heart once again and share it.