What’s This ‘Toilet Paper’ In My Gaza Aid Package? Do Westerners Not Have ‘Hands’?

by Jukha Masri, Gaza City resident

Gaza City, November 7 – Canned meat. Fruit preserves. Flour. Crackers. Sugary drinks. Sanitary wipes. Flatware. And… what’s this? Wafa, what’s this white roll of paper? It says… “toilet tissue.” That’s… oh, by Allah. Really? Don’t those Americans have a left hand, just like everyone else?

Look, it has perforations so you can rip off individual segments, but none of those look big enough to do much. What even is this stuff?

It can’t be for cleaning a toilet bowl; the paper would just soak up all the water and not do anything. Even if the hole through the cylinder does look like it’s supposed to be mounted on a pole or stick of some sort. Do… do Americans never learn to wipe properly? What would you use this stuff for?

Our friends and neighbors like to complain that the contents of the aid packages wouldn’t impress a Mongolian peasant, but I’m not dismissive, I’m just confused. And a little concerned. Love them or hate them, I’d have thought Americans were intelligent enough to learn to wipe with their left hands, the way you’re supposed to. Do they put the roll on their forearms? The hole isn’t big enough for that. Unless this is “child-size.” It doesn’t say that, though. It would, if it were meant for kids. You could charge twice as much if it’s marked like that. Americans would never miss that marketing opportunity. So that can’t be it.

I suppose it’s possible our Hamas, uh, leadership has systematically gone through the aid packages and taken all the useful or good stuff for itself, for cronies, or to sell, and all I have here are the remainders. Which means maybe this roll of paper is only part of a larger assembly that might make sense, if we could see the whole product.

But bear with me here – what do the Americans use to wipe themselves, if the paper roll is so obviously not suited to the task? Potsherds? I know the French use a bidet, but they’re French. I’ve half a mind to suggest Americans use a gun. But that seems more in keeping with the apparent competence level of our noble Hamas overlords closer to home. Remember that time during the Second Intifada when a group of our noble resistance fighters set a bomb to go off in the car they were driving to “deliver” to a target in Israel, but failed to account for the fact that Israel had already switched to Daylight Saving Time? Yeah, so they set the clock wrong and the bomb exploded before they could deliver it, killing all of them.

I just… why wouldn’t you just use your left hand?

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