“What Choice Do We Have but to Be Resilient?”: Scenes of Daily Life in Gaza

I drove down south the next day, searching for the remnants of the latest round of violence in Israeli towns. A ceasefire had been declared a few days before, after 11 days in which 256 Palestinians and 13 people in Israeli were killed. I had tracked down the names of streets where rockets fired by Hamas had fallen, but struggled to find the impact sites. In some cases Israeli flags hung over damage to hide it from gawkers. Other spots had already been patched up. I found some damaged buildings in Ashkelon, where a stoned security guard shook his head and clucked his tongue as he patiently pointed out every shred of destruction no matter how small: a smoke-scorched door, some shattered glass, a damaged fence. I continued to Zikim beach, which runs into the Gaza border, and watched Israelis frolicking in the surf and eating ice cream. Despite the idyllic scene, the signs of the ongoing blockade were omnipresent—a massive security wall extending into the sea, watchtowers, soldiers on leave, and a few beachgoers armed with M4 carbines. In the Israeli towns surrounding Gaza, concrete bomb shelters are almost always within a quick sprint, though many seemed to double as a spot to toss trash or urinate.