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India's indifference, Israel's agression will kill us: Palestinian expat

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For Delhi-based Palestinian businessman Abu Mazen and his family, Israeli strikes in Gaza have belied Newston's third law of motion, which speaks that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The revenge attacks that have so far killed 620 Palestinians in the bombardment is a disproportionate reaction.

Hailing from Ramallah, the capital of West Bank, Mazen's phone is continuously ringing. He speaks in Arabic, yells to his wife, there is a big cry and they wipe tears. "The call was from a cousin in Gaza. My uncle had left to a local mosque for prayers. He is dead," says Mazen in a choked voice. Israel on Tuesday bombed several mosques, a hospital and a stadium in the Hamas-ruled Gaza. The conflict has claimed 29 Israelis as well.

Born in Ramallah Abu Mazan had come to India in 2006 on a three-week visa. Finding himself in a country where he knows no one, not even the language, he started walking Mumbai streets aimlessly. He was then advised to go to New Delhi which has a Palestinian embassy. But the embassy refused help, and asked him to go to the UNHCR office, to register himself a refugee.

Engaged in business of supplying computer parts to clients in Middle-East and export of olive oil, Mazen is married to a Palestinian girl Aleah, born and brought up in a refugee camp in Egypt. Alongwith their four-year-old daughter they are glued to news on TV. "We lost four of our close relatives, who were living in Gaza, one of them as young as 12, who was buried under a rubble while coming home form a school," he said. "We go to the nearby mosque and pray for the departed. That is all we can do," he says wiping tears.

Though his wife with an Egyptian passport can travel freely all over the world, Mazan's refugee passport allows him to live just in the issuing country. Upon arriving in India, and living a jobless life, he alongiwth an Iraqi friend started, first did menial jobs and then set up this small business. His partner has since then returned to his country.

Pursuant to Oslo accord of 1993, four million people in Palestine are divided into the West Bank and Gaza. While the former is under the jurisdiction of Palestinian National Authority led by secular Al-Fatah, the Gaza strip bordering Egypt and Mediterranean Sea is ruled by Islamist Hamas. Some 3,05,000 Israelis also live in the 121 officially-recognised settlements in the West Bank. While Al-Fatah had been engaged in direct talks with Israel, the Hamas refused to recognise the Jewish state.

Last month, both the secular Al-Fatah and Hamas came together to form a Palestinian consensus government, which Mazen believed was a trigger for Israel, which wanted Hamas isolation to continue. Israel had made it clear that it will thwart Palestinian unity.

"It has imposed economic sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, refused to negotiate with the new government, and also urged the international community not to recognise it," said Abu Saleh, a student in Delhi University.

Saleh is also from West Bank, who is here for last two years studying economics. Originally from Haifa, Saleh was also born in a refugee camp in Bethlehem. He believes abduction and killing of a few Israelis allegedly by Hamas militants was just an excuse for Tel Aviv to pound bombs. Hamas had earlier agreed not to rock the direct negotiations between Tel Aviv and Al-Fatah, provided the outcome of talks is put to a referendum.

Though, Mazen says, he felt safe and confident in India, Palestinian students, who don't want to be identified, however, are pained at the indifference of current government in New Delhi. Even, though India had build strong defence tie-ups with Israel, it was never insensitive to Palestinian cause. They feel more pain, when anchors and commentators on TV channels argue that since India had no stakes in the conflict, they should not feel bothered.

Abu Mazen recalls India's relations with Palestine, were seven centuries old and a symbol of this relationship is symbolised in an ancient Indian hospice in Jerusalem. When the British Mandate over Palestine was established with the fall of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War, the Grand Mufti of Palestine had deputed a delegation to India in 1922 to discuss the Palestinian issue with Indian freedom leaders.

"We may not have arms and defence equipment to sell to the world. We may be a weak country. But we are humans and have a bond of human values which is a far more gluing factor than shipments of arms and ammunitions. Sometime we believe India and others would turn up to support our cause and end our sufferings," said Mazen, with his wife nodding head alongwith the four-year old baby girl, playing with a toy train at their two room apartment in Delhi's Vansant Vihar locality.

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