Delinda C. Hanley: Gaza’s Traumatized Children Can’t Wait For Borders to Open and Violence to End

Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, April 2009, pages 13, 15
Special Report
By Delinda C. Hanley

AS SOON as Israeli authorities granted a Gaza entry permit to Bill Corcoran, president and CEO of American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), he was on the next plane out. When he returned to Washington, DC, still stunned by the devastation he had seen in Gaza, Corcoran spoke at an informal lunch co-hosted by Foundation for Middle East Peace and the Middle East Institute on Feb. 23.

Corcoran entered northern Gaza through the Erez crossing. As he drove into what was once a middle-class residential neighborhood of Beit Hanoun, he recalled, “I was looking at the aftermath of a tsunami. Two-story homes that you or I would have lived in comfortably were totally demolished. Their former occupants are living in tents in their rubble, with no water, sewage or electricity.”

[Read the report]

Related:
Erin Cunningham: Gaza families down to a meal a day