"It's a disaster": Local Palestinian restaurant owner speaks out about war in Gaza
NATICK - Mohammed Alghool spends his days working the grill at his Natick restaurant, Cafe Yafa, inspired by his Palestinian culture. These days, Alghool finds it hard to focus on food when his mind is on the Gaza Strip.
"The worst part about it is when a building collapses and they don't find the bodies and they keep searching and searching and searching and trying to find what's happened to them. Sometimes they find them. Sometimes they don't find them," said Alghool.
Alghool has been in the U.S. for 33 years but has plenty of family in Gaza Strip, right in the line of fire as Israel rains down bombs on the Palestinian territory. The onslaught on Gaza began after Hamas militants invaded Israel, slaughtering 1,400 people, many of them civilians. Palestinian officials say the death toll in Gaza has nearly doubled that.
Alghool says he lost a cousin to an air raid in Gaza just last week.
"You cannot describe it. It's a disaster going on for all the people in there. Imagine bombs falling over your head every minute," Alghool said.
He argues that Israel has repeatedly taken Palestinian property, even after the Israeli occupation of Gaza ended in 2005. As for Hamas, he has little to say about them or the survival of a "two state solution" where Israel and Hamas live side by side.
"If they represent me or they don't represent me, that's not the question. The question is what is the Palestinian going through," Alghool said. "Where you going to put two states if they keep taking your land? How are you going to expect a country to be your neighbor if every day they are taking more homes of your people?"