Sandy Tolan recently returned from Gaza, where he was reporting on water in the context of the ongoing war there. He found people living under siege but determined not to give up hope. Sandy posted several dispatches on his Facebook page (follow him!), as well as on his website, Sandytolan.com.
Here’s an excerpt from a post from August 2.
The indelible images of suffering and stories of loss are everywhere in Gaza. The family of 19 in three small rooms whose only drinking water comes from plastic jugs filled at the mosque. The woman who lost 38 members of her family during Israeli strikes in 2014. The man who lived with 49 others in a relative’s house after his neighborhood of Shujaiya was flattened. But there is something else that abides in the day-to-day life in Gaza that for me resonates just as deeply: a kind of stubborn resilience in the face of catastrophe.