Gaza youths use Facebook to lash out at Israel, Hamas (News Feature)

By Ofira Koopmans Jan 26, 2011, 15:04 GMT

Gaza/Tel Aviv - Youths in Gaza are using Facebook to vent their rage and frustration at the parties involved in the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

Calling themselves Gaza Youth Break Out (GYBO), eight students from a Gaza City university have opened a page on the internet's biggest social network that features a furious manifesto blaming Israel and Hamas for making their lives in the impoverished, blockaded coastal enclave unbearable.

It also accuses the international community of standing by idly.

The movement has rapidly gained momentum, with 18,637 web surfers approving of the virtual community by clicking Facebook's 'like' box. The manifesto has been translated into 21 languages, including Chinese, Dutch and Icelandic.

'Fuck Hamas. Fuck Israel. Fuck Fatah. Fuck UN. Fuck UNWRA (The UN agency caring for Palestinian refugees). Fuck USA,' says the strongly-worded manifesto.

The youths describe their lives under the Israeli blockade and an oppressive Islamic religious regime as 'a nightmare within a nightmare.'

'We are sick and tired of living a shitty life, being kept in jail by Israel, beaten up by Hamas and completely ignored by the rest of the world.'

The text, loaded with utter desperation, is a cry for help into cyberspace.

Gaza, a tiny strip of land, is home to 1.5 million Palestinians, most of whom live below the poverty line. Unemployment is widespread, industry has been paralyzed - the results of more than four years of Israeli-imposed economic sanctions in response to rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants - movement is restricted, electricity is cut off for some eight hours each day, and political freedoms have been reduced since Hamas seized sole control of the enclave, in June 2007.

One of the group's founders said they chose rough words to express their 'severe suffering,' not to offend.

'We didn't mean to insult anyone. We respect everyone regardless of religion, race, colour or political affiliation,' the student told the German Press Agency dpa.

She preferred not to give her name and age for fear of being arrested by the Hamas authorities over the group's outspoken criticisms.

'They jail anyone who protests or demonstrates trying to defend what he or she believes in,' she told dpa.

The group says the 'last drop' that made them publish the manifesto was a November 30 raid by Hamas police on a western Gaza City-based youth movement, Sharek, which had become a hang-out of liberal-minded, secular and critical young Gazans.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Centre for Human Rights last month condemned the shut-down of the Sharek Youth Forum and the arrest of 13 of its participants, as well as the prolonged detention of three others after a peaceful demonstration against the raid.

'We are sick of being caught in this political struggle; sick of coal dark nights with airplanes circling above our homes; sick of innocent farmers beings shot in the buffer zone (on the Gaza-Israel border) because they are taking care of their lands; sick of bearded guys walking around with their guns abusing their power, beating up or incarcerating young people demonstrating for what they believe in,' reads the manifesto, which also lashes out at Israel and Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling Gaza.

'It is difficult to find words for the pressure we are under. We barely survived the Operation Cast Lead, where Israel very effectively bombed the shit out of us' and 'distributed post- traumatic stress disorder to everyone,' it says of Israel's massive offensive against Hamas in the winter of 2008-2009.

'We are scared. Here in Gaza we are scared of being incarcerated, interrogated, hit, tortured, bombed, killed.'

The document concludes with 'ENOUGH!'

'We want three things. We want to be free. We want to be able to live a normal life. We want peace.'

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