Author: admin

The last shelter / the last resort

“Civilians will not be harmed. We do not intend to harm civilians. This is a war against terrorists. All civilians must leave Gaza City and the north of Gaza and go to the middle area and the south, to Khan Younis and Rafah. These are the safe shelters.”

From most of Gaza City and the north, more than a million people left for what was called ‘safe shelter’.

The middle area, the south, Khan Younis and Rafah. Were they really safe? Bombing and airstrikes followed the civilians, leaving thousands dead and huge destruction.

A month later, all civilians in the middle area were required to go south to Khan Younis and Rafah, safe areas, safe shelters.

People fled from the middle area, dispossessed, forced to leave, to survive. They saw what had happened to those who did not leave Gaza City and the north.

But Khan Younis and Rafah were not any safer. Killing, bombing, shelling, airstrikes followed them, again leaving thousands dead and huge destruction.

A month later, all civilians had to leave Khan Younis and go to Rafah. Rafah is safe.

More than two thirds of the Gaza Strip population is squeezed into Rafah. The last resort, the last safe place for the civilians of Gaza. Is it really safe? Still bombing, shelling, airstrikes follow people, leaving thousands of dead and huge destruction.

Last night was an example of what is coming to Rafah. 162 people killed in 2 hours, as usual the majority women and children.

People are stuck and paralysed. People have no choice at all.

Since they began talking about invading Rafah, the city changed; the market is less crowded, there are fewer street sellers, no one is moving once dark comes.

At home, most of our talk is about what to do, where to go. Shall we stay? Shall we move again? But to where? And we end the conversation without any answer. We are stuck.

Everyone I meet raises the same questions: Are you staying? Are you planning to leave Rafah? Where would you go?

I don’t know.

We called our daughter Salma, who is in Egypt now. For more than fifteen minutes she was only crying, afraid for us, and we are afraid too. She asks the same questions, and we could provide no answers.

We don’t know.

Why should any human being have to go through this horror? Why?

Rafah is the last city, the last resort. Then the border with Egypt; the border with high walls, huge barbed wire, many observation towers, no access.

Now they call for a military operation in Rafah. Where will people go?

The terrifying stories from Gaza, the north, the middle area and Khan Younis leave people in an unbearable state of panic.

People don’t know what to do, where to go.

Empty head, full heart

My head is empty.  There is nothing in it, like a stone, closed, blocked, do not receive, do not send.  My heart is full, can’t take the pain anymore, can’t be moved anymore.  I am not going to talk about people I meet anymore, like my colleague, Shereen whom I meet today for the first time since October 5th.  I could not recognise her, very thin, very small, very dark face, the very best image of a broken human being.  I am not going to tell any more about how many times she had to evacuate, from Beach Camp to Nasser Street in Gaza,  from Nasser to Bureij Camp in the middle area, to Zawayda, to Khan Younis, to Rafah and with each displacement losing part of her family, losing part of her soul.

What am I doing?  I said I don’t want to talk about these things.  My head is empty and my heart is full, no more space for any sad stories.

I want to dream. Yes. I will dream.  I dream now. I am dreaming that I am having a nice meal, a big meal, a meal with no canned food, only fresh food, fresh chicken, and a steak, a very soft, juicy steak of meat. Beside it a big plate full of all types of fruit, bananas, apples, oranges, strawberries.  And the dessert is a big cup of ice cream, topped with a shiny, red cherry.  Yes, this is what I want.  

I don’t want to think about the dead around me.  I don’t want to know how many were killed today.  I don’t want to know that there is no more blood to spare at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and that injured people are bleeding to death.  No, I don’t want to talk about people in Gaza City, more than 600,000 people are starving to death because the Israelis do not allow food aid to reach Gaza and the north. I don’t want to talk about people outside with no shelter, no food, no clothes, in the cold, under the rain.  I don’t want to talk about the children who suffer hunger, pain, fear, panic and no-one can assure them safety or secure them food.

I want to dream.  I dream now.  I am with my wife and my daughter driving on the sea road, having hot cups of good coffee, listening to music, recalling nice memories and laughing together, yes, together, myself, my wife, Abeer and my daughter, Salma, having fun, with no fear, no worries, just having a good time.

I am not going to talk about the hundreds of messages I receive every day from people I know and people I don’t know, asking for help, asking for a tent, or plastic sheets, or clothes for their children, or food, or any kind of life-saving items. I am not going to talk about my feelings when I receive these messages and I can’t meet 1% of these needs.

I want to dream, only dream, dream that I am waking up at 6.30 am in my bed, in my home, taking my dog for a walk and then come back, have a shower, have my morning coffee, getting dressed and going to my job.  Nothing more.  This all I dream about.

Message from a dear friend

I am writing some diaries during a war. I share them with many friends in the UK, Belgium, France, USA, Austria, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland and some other countries.  They share them widely. They translate them into their languages and share them more.  Some great old and new friends read them and share them on their FB pages.

One of these friends is Marianne Blume, a very dear and very close friend from 1995, when she came as a teacher of French language to Gaza.  We met.  We became friends.  She connected us with theatre makers in Belgium, Phillipe Dumoulins and Claudine Artz, and through this connection we were able to perform in Belgium, France and Luxembourg for several years.

Marianne is reading my diaries and she sent me this voice message a few days ago.

Marianne:  ‘Hossam, you write a lot but you don’t tell what you feel, how you feel.  Personally, I know that you watch horrible things and you want to tell us how you live but how is Hossam inside?  This is what I want to know.  Big, big kiss.

Dear Marianne, I am trying my best to ignore my feelings. I don’t have the luxury or the opportunity to think of me or my feelings.  I can tell you and you only, that I am afraid. I look strong but I’m very weak, afraid for my family, for Salma, if something happens to me.

For my old mother, what would happen to her if I die?

I try not to think, because thinking will kill me.  I get involved in my job and in helping people so I don’t have time to think.

I am tired and want to rest.

I want to cry and can’t find my tears.

Only now, while writing this to you could I cry, I’m crying now and thank you because I need it.

Marianne:  My dear Hossam, I understand but I was feeling that you were there in your texts but absent from yourself.  Take care.  All my thoughts are with you.

I thought that my other friends should also know how I feel, so I wrote it down and am sharing it with you.

Winter, wind and water

At 2am Abeer was calling me to wake up.  She went to the toilet and felt her feet wet.  She put on the light of her mobile, water everywhere.  Half my mattress, my blanket completely wet, the room full of water, the sitting room too.  We woke up everybody, trying to figure out where the water came from. We wiped up the water.  We moved the wet mattress and blanket.  Luckily it was only my stuff that was wet otherwise it would be a catastrophe; how could we secure mattresses and blankets for 11 people.  I share with Abeer her mattress, 60cm wide and her blanket.

It was very heavy rain last night.  The water entered through the balcony of the room.

Went out, I will visit some NGOs, maybe they can give me a mattress and blanket.

I also bought some honey for my nephew, Hisham, who got hepatitis.  My brother installed his tent in a small area 1km away from where I live.  In that spot there are at least 30 tents.  As I arrive there, people are moving everywhere, crowds and noise, many carrying wet blankets and mattresses, putting them on top of the tents to dry. To dry?? While it is still raining, the small camp of tents drown in the rain, including my brother and his family.  Now I have to look for mattresses and blankets.  I don’t know how.  I don’t know who to address.  Thousands and thousands of tents drown in the rain. What can people do?  Who can help them?  More than half a million people drown in the rain.  Tents did not help.  Poor tents flew away, broken by the wind and the rain.  Children and women everywhere crying, screaming, men moving astonished, helpless, tired, exhausted, sad, angry, unable to do anything, running after pieces of their tents, trying to fix what can’t be fixed, and still the wind and the rain go on.

I saw my problem as very small.  I can still share with Abeer the 60cm wide mattress and one blanket.  I still have a concrete roof over my head.  You see, I’m lucky! Should I be thankful??

Another day under war

My nephew called me yesterday, his mother who is receiving dialysis treatment got a chest infection.  She is at the hospital.  She is in need of medicine that is not available at the hospital.  He can’t find it.  I spent half a day moving from pharmacy to pharmacy, from UNWRA clinic to a government clinic and did not find it either.

Today my nephew called me again.  His younger brother got an infection, hepatitis A, like thousands of other people due to lack of clean water and hygiene.  Medication is not available. Doctors asked him to give his brother honey and sweet things that don’t include oil.  I don’t know if this is an alternative cure or what.  They can’t afford it.  I will buy it tomorrow.  There is a kind of low-quality honey in the market that arrived with some humanitarian aid and is sold at double the price or more.

Diseases of all kinds spread among people: hepatitis, skin diseases, chicken pox, skin inflammation, fleas, bugs and many other diseases I don’t know the English for.  The spokesman of the Ministry of Health is talking about more than 20 diseases spread among displaced people in shelters, schools, tents, overcrowded homes, with very limited quantities of unsafe water. Gaza used to suffer from scarcity and poor quality of water before 7th October.  Today when most of the people are pushed into a very small place, no electricity to operate desalinisation units, people  are obliged to use whatever water is available and only for life-saving needs such as drinking, cooking and cleaning if possible.

Today I received news of the killing of a father of a colleague in Khan Younis. Today I received news about a bombing of a very respected person, a professional psychiatrist who was on the roof of Al Aqsa University in Khan Younis trying to bring some water to the water tanks on the roof when a drone targeted him.  Today I learned that a theatre colleague in Gaza was killed with his family when Israeli air force struck his home.  Today a man was going back to Bani Suhaila in east Khan Younis to check on his father who remained there and he found him shot dead and wrapped in a carpet inside his home.  He tried to dig a grave at his home but the drones were in the sky.  He was afraid. He left his father’s body inside the house and came back to Rafah.  Today I went back with my wife, Abeer, to Sawarha near Nuseirat to bring her family some food and hygiene materials and what I saw on the road from Rafah was heart-breaking.  I passed by Tel Al Sultan in Rafah, then Mawasi near Khan Younis, then Deir Al Balah, then Sawarha.  Thousands and thousands of tents of all kinds, many were broken and torn by the wind.  These are windy and rainy days.  People looked so sad, desperate, children with very light clothes, many without shoes on their feet, sorrow, sadness and helplessness.

Death and agony, this is Gaza and nothing else.

Miracles

Miracles are countless in the bible, in the Quran. In methodologies, the saviour always appears to rescue the poor ones; the sea is separated by a touch of a stick to save poor people;  heroes and prophets appear from nowhere to save them.

In Gaza: no saviours, no heroes, no prophets.

Children are dying and no miracle; men, women and old people are dying and no miracles!  People displaced once, twice, four times, twelve times and each time they have to start from scratch, looking for shelter, food, water and no miracles.  Diseases spread among people with no cure or health services and no miracles.  Fields are destroyed and no miracles; factories are bombed and no miracles;  roads damaged and no miracles; animals slaughtered and no miracles; trees grasped from the roots and no miracles;  graves destroyed and corpses brought up and no miracles; life stopped and no miracles;  schools and universities destroyed and no miracles.  How does God see this and do nothing?

I hate miracles

Abu Hamza

Like every evening, some people gather in the side yard of Abu Khaled’s home. The fire is lit, the tea pot on the fire, men come, men go until 8 or 9pm, until the last guest leaves.

Abu Hamza was one of the guests this evening. A 55 year old man, tall, big, with a beard. I entered while they were talking. Abu Hamza was telling them what happened to him last night in Khan Younis.

He has a 3 storey home near the Mawasi area in Khan Younis not far from the sea. The area that the Israeli army kept telling people to go to and considered a safe area. 

Abu Hamza speaking:

“It was a hell of a night. Bombing, shelling, striking, heavy shooting did not stop for a single minute, very near to our home.

   

We are about 70 people. Several families gathered together after many of us were displaced                                from Gaza and the middle area. The oldest of us is over 80 years old and the youngest is 3 months. Boys, girls, men, women, all ages. 

Out of fear, we gathered in two rooms on the second floor. Suddenly, around 2am, we heard a huge noise. Crash. A bulldozer broke through the wall of the house on the first floor. Heavy shooting inside our home from more than an hour. We don’t know how this hour passed.

After an hour, we heard movement inside the house. Many people are invading the house, climbing the stairs, the doors of the rooms where we hide are broken by a group of Israeli soldiers. Shouting in a strange language, the soldiers started to push us downstairs. Children scream, women cry, men pray and soldiers kept shouting and pushing us downstairs and out of the house. In the street there were several tanks and armoured vehicles. They separated us; the women and children on one side, the men on the other. A soldier speaking Arabic, addressed us shouting all the time:

• Take off your clothes. All your clothes.

Another 2 soldiers beside him were shouting around us and in the air. We started taking our clothes off except for our underwear. He kept shouting:

• Everything, take off everything.

Some soldiers started beating us randomly with their feet and guns. 

• Lie down! Lie down!

He kept shouting,

• Face down! Everyone lie face down! Hands behind your backs! Hands behind your backs!

Our faces to the ground and the screaming, the crying of our women and children, is passing through our ears like knives cutting our hearts.

They left us for around an hour in this position. Then they start to retreat. We could not see; it was one of the darkest nights, no moon, no stars and of course no light. As they left, the one who spoke Arabic kept shouting:

• Go to Rafah! Don’t stay! You will die if you stay! Go to Rafah!

And this is what we did. We came to Rafah. 

It was 4am, the very slightest light of dawn when we entered our home. We entered through the front door, we ignored the big hole in the wall they had made, we considered there to still be a wall there. We gathered whatever we could; mattresses, blankets. personal things and we moved to Rafah.

We arrived at 6.30am. Now we are in several different houses, temporarily separated. Full houses that can only receive us for a few hours. We need to rent some flats. At least two.”

Abu Khaled was, as usual, doing what he knows best, trying to help, calling people he knew to see if they had empty flats for rent. It became late. They did not find a place today, maybe tomorrow.

Abu Khaled said:

• Abu Hamza, please bring all the women and children here to my home for tonight. I think the men can manage. I wish I had enough place for all of you, but you know that the house is already full of displaced people. We can receive the women and children here until you can manage.

And this is what happened. All 30 women with their children came and spent the night at Abu Khaled’s home. Don’t ask how they managed without mattresses or blankets or even enough space to absorb them. They managed.

Writing and painting

Basil Marquosi, my life-long friend, the artist, the painter, put a statement on Facebook saying: 

I am painting to feel alive.

It seems I am doing the same; I am writing to feel alive when life has stopped having any meaning, when life is only a daily journey to look for food and water like any animal in the wild. When life has no purpose, writing gives me some purpose, a kind of reason to stay alive.

Basil lives with his family, his wife, 3 or 4 children, a daughter-in-law and her baby child and 2 strangers, friends of his son, who have lost contact with their parents for more than 2 months and have no place or anyone to take care of them. They all live in a tent, a poor plastic sheet tent. He has no income, has no money, spending his whole day trying to secure some food from charity or humanitarian aid. 

At night, by the light of his mobile, he paints. He has no colours, he has no canvas, he has no paint brush, he uses whatever paper he finds and with a pencil or a pen he paints. This is the time he feels alive still.

I am in the rented flat, writing, trying to describe what I witness or what I passed through during my day.

In the morning, I took my wife to her work, it’s in Zorob Square, normally a 7 minute drive from where I am in Junaina neighbourhood in Rafah. It took at least 40 minutes due to the huge crowds on the roads, especially outside shelter-schools. Thousands of people in the street, making driving almost impossible.

Not far from Abeer’s workplace at Humanity and Inclusion Organisation, there is an aid distribution store. Yesterday, I received a message to go to that address to get a food parcel. I went there, they gave me some vegetables and some tins of food – 2 kg of tomatoes, 3kg of potatoes, 1kg of eggplant, 5kg of green peppers and 1 kg of lemons, 2 tins of brown beans, 2 tins of white beans, 2 tins of tuna. They compared my name on the list with my name and ID number, then asked me to sign. This is the first time I receive a food parcel since I arrived in Rafah. I asked:

• Is this a regular food parcel? Weekly, bi-weekly or monthly? 

They answered:

• There is no schedule. We can’t guarantee receiving this aid and we try to reach as many displaced people as we can.

Displaced people? They are more than a million. There were about 200 parcels in the store. When will they be able to reach all the displaced people? And what will people do until they reach them? How are they going to eat? And if the food parcel is finished, when can they get another one?

I left with my food parcel back to Rafah town. My older brother is calling:

• Yes?

• Our middle brother and his family, 4 boys and 1 girl, escaped from Khan Younis and they are on the streets.

• Oh God, not again. What can I do?

• They are in need of a tent.

• Is there a space for the tent? It took you 3 days to find your space.

• I reserved a place near me for them.

• But I have no access to tents.

• Please try.

• I will do my best.

I don’t know what to do. This is too much. Where can I get a tent? The first one was a challenge, not easy. I must call some people, I don’t know if I will succeed this time. Also the mattresses. the blankets, the food??!!

My nephew is calling:

• Yes dear?

–  My mother (the one who has kidney failure) has a chest infection and we can’t find the medicine

• What medicine?

• Lorex, Augmentin, Azcir – any of these three.

• Ok my dear, I will try my best.

Oh God, is there any end to this nightmare?

Game of death

When the life of a whole nation becomes only the quest for food and shelter, running away from death that chases them from place to place, from Gaza City and the North to Nuseirat, from Nuseirat to Deir Al Balah, from Deir Al Balah to Khan Younis, from Khan Younis to Rafah, from Rafah to nowhere. No escape anymore. 1.2 million people squeezed into a very tiny place, and still the bombing, the shelling, the air strikes following them, killing them, cutting them in pieces, deprived from shelter, from food, from healthcare, from water, from safety.

Then what is the purpose of life?

Our life reminds me of cheap movies about some rich businessmen who pay to have the chance to chase and hunt to death some poor people. The organiser of these games makes it easy for the rich to succeed and never easy for the poor to escape. In the end, the rich men succeed and kill the poor ones.

We are the poor people. We run. We try to escape. We look for a place to hide, to survive, and during this odyssey many fall dead, many fall injured, many fall sick, many fall hungry, many fall handicapped, children become traumatised, dignity becomes a luxury, having a shower becomes a dream, using a toilet like a human is a myth, sleeping on a mattress is difficult, finding a blanket is a challenge. Agony and death are the only sounds in the air.