The "pandemic" has increased the burden on the people
The closure of the Corona virus exhausts the population of the Gaza Strip
The Gaza beach is the only outlet for the people of "the Strip".
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The "sector" suffers from a siege that has lasted for many years.
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It was too late in Gaza.
Adam and Karam, my two young children, were asleep.
But the sound of the bombing was very loud, as the Israeli warplanes targeted military sites belonging to the "Hamas" movement.
My fear, as usual, was that the noise would wake them and scare them.
But when I checked, I found them both asleep.
There would be nowhere to go when they wake up.
For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, all of Gaza's two million residents are under home quarantine, in order to slow the spread of the epidemic.
Our movements are always restricted within 140 square miles of the Strip, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on one side, and surrounded by the Israeli army on the other.
But now, with planes approaching the 20th night in a row, we can't even leave our homes.
We're stuck on lockdown inside another lockdown.
Months ago, the Gaza Strip recorded only about 100 cases of infection, all of them among residents returning from abroad, and they were immediately isolated.
On August 24, however, the first cases of unknown origin were reported, in the critically overcrowded Maghazi refugee camp, and Gaza was put into complete closure overnight.
Since then, we have recorded more than 1,400 local cases.
It's nice to be a parent, but it's especially difficult in Gaza.
This has been true since Adam was born 10 years ago.
Will I be able to protect him and provide him with a decent life, in besieged Gaza?
I wondered, looking at my little boy in wonder.
And in the decade that followed, the question never disappeared.
The continuous cycle of escalation between Israel and "Hamas", the armed group that rules here, means constantly explosive nights, and an all-out war has erupted twice.
Recently, "Hamas" and other armed groups launched incendiary balloons that caused fires in neighboring Israeli communities and farms.
Israel responded, every night, by bombing Hamas installations ... it is the violent background in our lives.
My sons fell asleep, and I lit a reading lamp.
We are fortunate to be able to afford our solar energy system, which provides about 70% of our household needs.
Many of my neighbors, in Gaza City, and almost all of the 600,000 people who live in eight Gaza refugee camps, are spending the siege in the dark.
The Israeli army destroyed Gaza’s main power station in the 2006 war. In the best of times, we only have eight hours of electricity per day, with electricity still being cut off in the neighborhoods.
But three weeks ago, in retaliation for the incendiary balloons, Israel cut fuel shipments to the last power station in Gaza.
With the outbreak beginning in late August, Gaza had only four hours of electricity a day.
A world is shrinking
Being locked up at home while you are locked up, too, in a small coastal enclave, is very annoying.
One way to stay while living under siege is to travel wherever possible, or meet with friends who are Gazans in cafes, in mosques, or on the beach.
In the camps, social life is centered on families and friends, and they congregate on sidewalks and entrances to homes.
Now, even that connection to ordinary society is being broken.
And like everywhere, Gaza has been under the restrictions of the Coronavirus for months.
Restaurants were closed, and others were restricted to submitting external requests, and mosques and churches were closed.
However, everyone who entered Gaza through the checkpoints was isolated for three weeks, and the number of injuries remained low.
My children went back to school in the second week of August, after an absence of five months.
The semester started early, hoping the children could catch up with what they missed.
My two children were excited to go back to school and see their classmates, and they had heroic achievements to share;
Karam won the yellow karate belt, and Adam learned new soccer moves.
The school is one of the few places where life in Gaza appears normal.
Within weeks, the study was halted again due to a sudden recording of new infections.
As warplanes struck every night, the epidemic was approaching, and our world was shrinking again.
Children are skipping school, and now most of their play is on PlayStation, and their social life is when cousins and friends can join them, online, for a few hours.
It might be a good thing that they are still too young to understand the layers of conflict, and the epidemic pressing on them.
And when we are free to move around, we give them a good life by Gaza standards, with extended family, friends, school, and public spaces.
We want to protect them;
But the reality in Gaza makes this increasingly seem like an impossible task.
Mixed blessing
Every day, Adam and Karam notice how their lives are different from the lives of the people they see on their screens, and they ask me: When will we travel to see their grandmother in the West Bank, something that may take months of planning.
We need permits from Israel, and sometimes from Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. The three maintain checkpoints at the same crossing to Israel for individuals.
Any of them can say no, and Israel does so often.
Now, even that possibility has disappeared.
Technology is a blessing that opens the minds of my two children and expands their knowledge, but it can be a curse, too, in besieged places like Gaza, because much of what we see cannot be done.
And the places that the internet brings us are forever out of reach.
And I think of my friends who got scholarships to study abroad, but were unable to get out of Gaza.
For many Gazans, the farthest distance is the beach, where we calm ourselves down with the Mediterranean breeze and look into a world completely closed to us.
But this is Gaza, and even spending a day at the beach is complicated by the conflict.
There is not enough electricity to run the waste treatment plants, and we cannot swim due to the untreated sewage, which is pumped into the sea.
One evening, a few days before closing, I took my two children to the beach.
It is always a mixture of pain and pleasure sitting with them and watching them play, but knowing that they will run into the water and then return, asking every five minutes whether or not they can swim.
And I had to answer, "No."
And when this quarantine ends, we will return to the beach to enjoy what is available to us.
This is the life of a father in Gaza: a cycle of stress, relief, despair and joy.
Hazem Bolusha, a resident of Gaza, prepared the report for the "Washington Post"
When the Corona outbreak began in late August, Gaza had only four hours of electricity per day.
Children are absent from school, and now most of their games are on PlayStation, and their social life is when cousins and friends can join them, online, for a few hours.
Months ago, the Gaza Strip recorded only about 100 cases of infection, all of them among residents returning from abroad, and they were immediately isolated. On August 24, however, the first cases of unknown origin were reported, in the crowded Maghazi refugee camp, and Gaza was completely sealed off the same night.
For the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, all of Gaza's two million residents are under home quarantine, in order to slow the spread of the epidemic. Their movements are always restricted to within 140 square miles of the strip.
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