The Gaza ceasefire - Time to reconsider

As you might all know, a ceasefire in Gaza was established. Not because of benevolent considerations, but because it needed to happen. It was planned, as this entire military operation was planned well in advance. An Egyptian friend of mine informed me that the fighting needed to and would be stopped before the 18th of the month, because of the inauguration of Obama. I was not completely sure of his assessment, but he assured me that this was how things were about to unfold and I would come to acknowledge that he was right. And so he was... completely... a ceasfire: A time to reconsider the next steps, and to evaluate the outcomes and impact of three weks of fighting, with 1300 people being killed, 5500 wounded and about 100.000 made homeless.

Time to reconsider, for me as well. This ceasefire is my ceasefire, although my survival is not really at stake of course. Nonetheless,the three weeks of fighting have had its toll on me. Sometimes it's like the entire war in Gazais also fought out at the personal level. An invisible mini version of the war inside my head.
Over three weeks I've been fighting with my own weapons, even though their impact has been very limited at best, or even close to zero if I'm being honest enough to be realistic.

My trip to Egypt, to Al Arish and the Rafah border crossing have exposed me to the violence in Gaza and made it real for me. I saw, as far as I was able to see that the war was not just going on at the Al Jazeera tv channels. Wow... real war, with real victims, even though only a glimpse of it was revealed to me. I saw and heard the numerous explosions at the Rafah border, watching in shock how the rockets "slowly" fell down on Palestinian soil. Without being able to know the exact consequences , leaving it to my imagination to do the math.
This combined with hanging out with my Palestinian friends from Gaza, meeting others that were affected, hearing the stories, watching the news, travelling back and forth between Taba, Al Arish and Cairo, dealing with the fascist Egyptian police and just by being in the crazy jungle called Cairo, that is a lethal energy sucker itself, have left me beyond being emotionally and energetically drained.
It was time for a ceasefire, inside my head. Regroup, rearm, re-energize, reconsider altogether. My combat units had just completely destroyed all the civilians infrastructure in my mind, killing many of my civilians that were just against the fighting and that were only looking for ways to live a calm and simple life.
Now it's time to look for survivors under the rumble of the effects of war.

In the end there's not a lot of difference between physical and mental fighting. And even, and I'm truly shocked to say this as I never imagined myself saying such a thing, between fighting for a just cause and fighting for an unjust cause.
By that I mean: We should be completely aware that any fighting is violent and kills a lot, whether inside or outside yourself. My mental fight for a just cause, for Palestine, for Gaza, has created a lot of internal casualties and refugees.

When reading my own words, I'm surprised that these are mine. I've never thought about this, or like this, before and it is unfolding as I am writing this. Most likely way too deep for a simple blog like this... but as is Palestine itself... so whatever.

I don't mean to say that fighting for Palestine is useless or that I, myself want to give up my struggle for Palestine. I'm just saying that it comes at a price and we should not forget about that.

So time for a ceasefire. I'm currently in Taba right now and I've already been here quite some time, but I really need it. I went back to my friends at the beach camp and they've re-welcomed me with open arms. It has everything I need to get myself completely back together again: there's no people, no traffic, no noise. Instead there's the beach, the sea, the sand and stones, the sun, the moon and the stars and daily camp fires with cups of tea and laid-back conversations about life. But most of all, I refound myself there. Time to reconsider: Who am I? What do I want with my life? Why do I engage myself so deeply in this struggle? In the end I feel from inside that it's not my struggle, but why then do I identify myself so profoundly with it?? No easy answers available. But this place gives me so much new energy that in a few days I will be ready again to go back to Palestine and tackle these issues inside of me.