Amid the recent military flare-up in Gaza, there were no protests, sit-ins or strikes on the West Bank to express support for the Palestinians trapped in the besieged enclave. The lack of public displays of solidarity has reportedly left Palestinians in Gaza angry and bewildered. The military escalation kicked off by Israel's assassination of Islamic Jihad military commander Baha Abu al-Ata on Nov. 12 left 34 Palestinians dead and 111 injured along with 65 Israelis wounded.
Imad al-Frangi, former head of the Forum of Palestinian Journalists in Gaza, published an article on Nov. 17 in the newspaper Felesteen, which is close to Hamas, claiming that Gazans are in shock over the absence of supportive actions on the West Bank. Zakaria al-Agha, former member of Fatah’s Central Committee, wondered in a Nov. 15 Facebook post why this was so, noting that in the past, the Palestinians have reproached other Arabs for being apathetic to their suffering. He went on to say that Gazans had adopted “Ya wahdana” (“Oh we are alone”) as their slogan, borrowing from a poem by Mahmoud Darwish dedicated to Palestine.
