Three students from Gaza revealed a human facet to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Friday as they described their life in the occupied territory.
About 50 students from Penn and Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore colleges were able to speak face to face with Palestinians Hekmat Elsarraj, Adel Alghoul and Mostafa Elkayali as part of Palestine Awareness Week.
Gaza has attracted much attention lately, as Israel has begun to withdraw troops and settlers from the territory as part of the peace process.
However, "there is a huge difference between what is going on in the media and what is going on in reality," Elsarraj said.
"Media in the United States are eager to talk of the removal [of troops and settlements] as [granting] paradise to the Palestinians ... [but] when the Israelis remove themselves from Gaza, they'll take other areas," she added.
Removal does not mean that the lives of Palestinians are going to improve quickly, either.
"Gaza is a big prison with only two exits, which are two checkpoints," Elsarraj said.
She is frustrated at this closed environment, which prevents Gaza from developing economically and having relations with the outside world.
"Gaza is not allowed for foreign countries to obtain visas and do business there. This lack of access [to the outside world] imposes a ceiling on the thinking process of the Palestinians," she said.
Elsarraj's energetic activism is characteristic of many Palestinian students', but it has also cost some of the best years of her classmate's life.
In 1987 as the first intifada began, Aghoul, then 17, was trying to reach Turkey to study when he was arrested at the Israeli border. His crime: being a member of a student-activist group.
Facing a military tribunal without a lawyer, Alghoul was imprisoned and finally released in 1994 after the signing of the Oslo Accords.
He has since established an organization for the protection of refugee rights as well as a network of Israeli and Palestinian students speaking against the occupation.
Despite tough experiences, these students were determined to share their stories across borders and in the United States.
They received a particularly eager welcome at Penn.
Swarthmore junior Lauren Fenton said that the talk "revealed facts that are completely glossed over by the media, that the peace process is advancing when it's really not. [Palestinians are] not allowed to reach out toward other people."
Organizers said that the media does not focus enough on the human side of the conflict.
Most attendees seemed to agree.
"It's really important for there to be a face for the Palestinian issue," College junior Anisa Rosell said. "We have a way of dehumanizing them here, and [this talk] really brings things into focus."
