Gaza live: a snapshot of life amid blockades and daily gunfire

The Guardian launches a 12-hour project to document life in Gaza, featuring families, fishermen and business people

Harriet Sherwood
The Guardian, Thursday 7 June 2012


".....Gaza has made many headlines in the past five years. But the experiences of ordinary people trying to go about their daily business are often obscured behind the frequent rockets, bombings, shootings and demolitions.

Now, in a unique venture for a mainstream news organisation, the Guardian is attempting to redress that. Over 12 hours, we will tell the stories from Gaza on our website, which we hope will draw a picture of life behind the fences and walls. Some of this material has been gathered over recent days, but much of it will be reported and published in real time during the course of the day.

A fisherman speaks of the Israeli warships which prevent him going beyond three nautical miles from the coast. A family preparing Friday lunch, the most important meal of the week, will describe living on food aid and without power for many hours a day. We will report from Gaza's biggest hospital on the challenges it faces. A businessman describes the catastrophic effect of the blockade on his small factory. We will look at life under daily gunfire in the buffer zone, how farmers are adapting to the export ban, and the rise of the tunnels industry.

We speak to children about their lives and hopes for the future. We will look at the prospects for a baby born today. We visit a zoo whose owner, unable to replace dead animals, has resorted to taxidermy. We meet a woman prevented from travelling to the West Bank to complete her Masters degree. We will listen to a sermon delivered at Friday prayers at Gaza's main mosque; we will interview a motorist about the fuel crisis. We plan to visit a yogurt factory destroyed – for the fourth time – in an air strike earlier this week.

We speak to an artist inspired by her local landscape, and a young woman who refuses to conform to conservative social pressures. We will visit the beach to witness families enjoying the afternoon sun, and we will attend a wedding celebration this evening.

This cannot be a comprehensive picture; rather it is a series of snapshots of life in Gaza. It will be accompanied by commentary and interviews providing a wider context, and it will be open for readers' comments......."