Basel Almaquosi, one of my closest friends, is an artist, a painter and a photographer. He spent most of his life working with and for children with hearing and speaking difficulties, using his art to provide them space for self-expression and relaxation through painting. Since the war started on Gaza, Basel has continued doing what he knows most, what he likes to do most, doing painting workshops with children and mothers in the displacement camps. He receives no pay for this, he does not wait to receive anything for what he does, he does it because he loves it, he is doing it because he believes that this is the least he can do to support children and mothers under bombing and displacement.
Basel, my friend, wrote this:
Oppression
Do you know what oppression is???
After leaving Rafah under the bombing, the shelling, the air strikes and heavy shooting from drones and tanks, with the bodies of killed people and injured along our route, we survived and arrived at a new place to stay at Zawaida in the middle area, myself and my family, next to 3 garbage containers, the only empty spot I found in Zaweida. I set up my belongings, which were some mattresses, some wooden sticks and plastic sheets, trying to make a sleeping place for my wife and my children. They slept and I kept awake guarding them all the night from street dogs and cats and passing cars. How I felt was beyond words: oppressed, defeated, conquered, humiliated, no words can express what I felt. I cried, nothing could prevent me from crying. My tears fall slowly on my cheeks, hot, burning. Crying for my manhood that I don’t feel anymore, crying for the promise to my family to protect them and my failure to keep the promise.
The second day, a friend of mine helped me to find a better place in Deir Al Balah. We moved. It was dark when we arrived. I slept, could not do anything but lie down and sleep. In the morning, we realized that the place was a barn for sheep and cows. It had been cleaned by some NGO and several families use it as a residence. We felt some familiarity with other people around us, but we could not forget that this place is a barn for animals and cattle, not a residence for human beings. Every single minute I felt that we are those cattle that the Israelis decided to slaughter, and that the world is watching silently. And the reason for that is nothing except that we are Palestinians… from Gaza.
I am there and don’t know how the time passes, how days pass, day after day, days of horror, fear, panic, bombing, shooting, death and destruction every single minute. The place is not far from the Salahaldeen road, where Israeli tanks are positioned, not far from Al Aqsa hospital. You can’t avoid seeing injured people and dead bodies arriving at the hospital by ambulances, cars, donkey carts, or even carried by people. People like me: women, elderly people, children, boys and girls bombed while sleeping, while walking, while sitting somewhere. Expecting death any time like all the people of Gaza, who do not know that it is the moment to die in the most brutal way.
I don’t know what they felt at the last moments of their lives, what they felt when the rocket hit them, and I live with this oppression, I feel the oppression, I breathe the oppression all the time, sleeping with one eye shut and the other eye on my wife and children.
We remained at that place for 3 months, until a new invasion occurred in Deir Al Balah. We had become practically the front line, bombing, and shooting everywhere, with people running everywhere, no one knowing where to go.
We left our place carrying whatever we could, leaving what we could not carry, knowing that we will be in another search for another place, leaving behind other essential things we need. The Israeli army is calling for evacuation, naming areas which are supposed to be safe, while they know, we know, everybody knows that there is no safe place at all in the whole of the Gaza Strip.
We arrived to Zaweida village, in the middle area of Gaza near the sea. We were in the street for 2 days until we found a spot to install our tent. During these 2 days, I moved from Zaweida to west of Deir Al Balah to Khan Younis. No place, no empty 4 square meters for my tent, only a big place for my disappointment, weakness, and helplessness.
Two days homeless with my wife and my children moving from place to place, from town to city to camp, until finally one of Zaweida’s residents allowed us to install our tent on his land. It did not take me long to realise that the place was a garbage dump station with a sewage pipeline underneath. Two days cleaning and cleaning, and the smell does not leave the place, and my tears do not leave my eyes. The tears that I do my best to hide from my wife and my children.
How can we continue living in this place with this disgusting smell, a smell that invades our noses and soles.
I felt that everyone and everything is agreeing about torturing us without cease, the Israelis, the Americans, the West, the Arabs, the UN, nature, and even ourselves.
After days of continuous searching, I and some families found an empty place to rent, a place between olives trees and in the shade of orange trees.
We paid the rent to the landowner, a monthly rate that would be enough to rent a nice furnished flat for 6 months in normal times, but this is not normal times, it is a time of war and death, where war merchants take advantage of everything.
On the second day at this new residence, we realised that the landowner has a place for his donkey just near our tent. Now we are neighbours with donkeys.
I could not tolerate the situation, I kept looking for a better place, no matter how much the rent will be, I will see later how to secure the money, but I can’t stay here.
Eventually we found a room for rent, only one room, one old dirty toilet, with a little space that we can use for cooking. The cost is 300 Shekels, not worth more than 30 in normal times, in fact it would be worth nothing as no one would ever think to rent it if it were not for the war, the destruction and the continuous displacement. We settled in this place.
I can’t stop thinking about my son, who is stuck in Egypt since he went for few days of vacation before the war. I miss him so much. Here, I look after his wife and newborn daughter and I wonder, “How does he feel when he hears the news, how does he cope with being away from us, what fear and terror does he live in?” And at the same time, I feel relieved that he is there, safe.
My daughter with her husband and my grandchildren are in Mawasi near Khan Younis. I must visit them twice a week, at least. Those grandchildren, the joys of their grandfathers, are filling a space in the heart that we did not know existed. I can’t stop thinking about them, and don’t have the ability to bring them here with me.
I rented this place, and I don’t know how I will secure the next month’s rent. By the way, I have not received any salary from my job as an art teacher at a rehabilitation association since March 2023. We will see what is going to happen this month, maybe we will have to evacuate again, who knows?
Despite everything, we are still alive, until further notice. And I still have this feeling of oppression, helplessness and panic for my family, and this feeling is only growing and growing.
Basel Almaquosi
20th September 2024