check out my last piece here : awnifarhat.tumblr/post/97045424851/we-survived-with-only-ourselves-meet-one-of-gazas Writing about Gaza can be a challenge. Sometimes its hard to convey the pain of the people who suffered to hell during the Israeli aggressions. At times I have no words to describe the immense suffering of the displaced people. I was walking on Al Nazaz street in Al Shijaia when I heard a cat meowing. I climbed over the rubble, following the noise, and found the cat with a small boy inside a makeshift tent. I asked the boy what he was doing there, he answered; Nothing! This is my house!. He introduced himself as Mohaned, age 7, and we went together to see his mom. She was nearby, searching through the rubble of their home for clothes and memories. Her name is Asmaa Soker, a well-educated woman, widow and mother of four sons. She lives with her family in the Al Shijaia neighbourhood, which came under heavy attack during the latest Israeli offensive. She told me; At the beginning of the attacks we stayed at home, but we were forced to flee when the ground invasion began and several nearby houses were bombed. The IOF started making automatic phone calls to the people here, telling us to leave our homes. Drones were dropping leaflets telling us to flee to the centre of Gaza City. (Its common here for the Israeli army to terrify people with these calls threatening their homes and families - its a part of their psychological war on civilians.) We had no choice but to leave, death was very near to us. We expected to die at any minute as shrapnel was hitting our homes walls and it wasnt safe to stay. The sound of shelling was horrific. First we fled to an old mosque but they attacked it. Then we took shelter in a hospital but they attacked that too, and then the UN school which we had thought would be the safest place. Mid-conversation, Asmaas 9-year old son Shahed came to show us a rocket shrapnel that he had found in the rubble. She continued; We had a stable life - now we have no life. These are little children! Dont they have the right to play, and have a picnic - to have a normal life? Children just want to play but here most of our children are talking about the funerals they have seen - about corpses, drones, rockets, tanks and rubble. Childhood is missed here in Gaza, it too much. Enough, we cant afford more. The hardest moment for me was when the attacks stopped and we all left the school to go back to our houses and I found my home levelled to the ground. Now we are displaced, prevented from having the most basic rights. We made a tent over the rubble of my house to protect us from the sun during the day, then we go back to the school at night to sleep. Im afraid of the future. Ive already had to grow my children without my husband. My life has been destroyed twice; once when my husband was killed in the 2008 war and now again with losing our home. Im afraid that the next attacks will take one of my children who have grown with tears by myself. Thinking about this scares me. Winter is coming and we left everything behind in the house. We survived with only ourselves. Approximately 110,000 internally displaced persons still remain in UNRWA emergency shelters and with host families. | 18,000 housing units have been either destroyed or severely damaged, leaving approximately 108,000 people homeless. | 450,000 people are unable to access municipal water due to infrastructure damage and/or low pressure.UN OCHA
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 09:29:19 +0000
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