Author: admin

Abo Khaled Abdel’Al

A 50 year old man, tall, big, fat; looks like a giant but with a babyface. He is from a very respected family in Rafah. Started his life as a construction worker in Israel, then a hairdresser, but he was an ambitious man. He had a dream to one day be a businessman. He followed his dream and he became what he wanted to be. Today he is a well-known and respected businessman in the Gaza Strip.

He lives with his family in a big house. Three floors, the first floor is a big living room with one bedroom and bathroom.

His front yard is as long as the house. He made a place where he receives guests; a fire for making tea and coffee is alight from 6am until 9pm. The door to the front yard is always open; any person passing by is invited to rest and drink tea. He receives hundreds of people every day.

The family live on the second and third floor. The basement of the home is a big storage area. He is a man with principles, honest, respectful and generous.

Horror and relief

It is 6 days without any news about my brother’s and sister’s families. Since my nephew told me that the building behind their house was bombed and collapsed on their home. No news about whether they were inside or had left before. I did not stop trying to reach them but communication between the south and north is cut.

Today more horrific news: in the morning, calling my daughter in Lebanon, which is much easier than calling my wife in the middle area, she told me that her mother, my wife, Abeer, is in a panic. She saw a video of an injured person taken to Al Aqsa Hospital who died before reaching the operating room and she believes it is her brother. She shared the video with me. There was no way to tell who this person was; his face was mostly covered; his body is similar to my wife’s brother, but wait!! My wife’s brother is in Gaza City, even if he is injured he won’t be brought to Al Aqsa Hospital in the middle area. The road between Gaza City and the middle area has been completely cut for more than a month and a half. 

Calling Abeer, can’t reach her. She told Salma that she is going to Al Aqsa Hospital to check. I called my nephew, the son of my other brother who took refuge in the aforementioned hospital with his family. After several attempts I finally reached him. I asked him to go to the morgue to check if Abeer’s brother is among the martyrs there. He calls back after an hour. He says that the 30 bodies that arrived yesterday and this morning are without names and he does not know my wife’s brother so he could not help. Yet he continues talking. He says that finally he got news form Gaza City; my brother and sister with their families are safe. They left home a day before the invasion of their area and before the bombing of the building behind their home. 

• How do you know?

A neighbour who had a Cellcom communication sim (Israeli communication company), called him and told him that my brother went to a shelter-school far from the area and that my sister went to another shelter-school in the north.

I keep calling Abeer with no success. Contacted Selma. Finally Abeer had called her and told her that the body she believed to be her brother is not her brother, yet she had no news from her brother for more than a month.

Some relief after a time of heaviness and horror. Keeping hope. 

Day and night

I wake at 6.30 am every day. My host is amazing. At 6 he is in the side yard of the house lighting the fire, preparing breakfast and hot tea. I am not allowed to leave without breakfast. He asks about my mother, repeatedly asking if she or I need anything.

Leaving at 8 am for the office of my organisation, Ma’an Development Agency, in Rafah. Full house, people from everywhere, from many associations that have no offices, trying to follow up on the interventions they are making for people. 

Rafah, which used to have 170,000 inhabitants is now hosting more than a million, at least half of them on the streets, building tents from plastic sheets which do not prevent cold or rain. But this is what is available. The market in the town centre is over-busy. It feels like the million people are gathered in this town centre. 

I’ve realised that there is plenty of work that we do besides providing psychosocial support; we distribute food, we build kitchens and distribute hot meals, we distribute hygiene and dignity kits to displaced people, we distribute water tanks to shelters and random collectives of displaced people, we distribute clothes for children, we are trying to bring in better tents for people, we employ staff to clean the schools and mainly the toilets on a daily basis. All of this, as well as what the UNRWA do, as well as what all the humanitarian organisations offer, meets almost zero of people’s real needs. With the stoppage of normal life, no-one has any kind of income in Gaza, all that people look for is shelter and food. 2.2 million people. But above all, people are in need of safety and dignity. It is not there anymore. 

I got involved in all of this as a team member of Ma’an emergency team. I have no chance to think about anything. It’s like a bees’ cell. But I can’t stay at the office more than 5 hours; I must go back to my mother who gets panicked if she doesn’t find me around her at 2 pm.

Back home, I go directly to be with my mother who must blame me for being late whether I am early or late. I provide her with what she needs, then try to rest.

Rest!!! I hate it. While trying to rest, thinking starts. What has happened to my brother and sister’s families? Are they alive? Did they survive? Maybe some died and some survived. My wife Abeer and her family – no contact for the last 3 days. I will go to Nuseriat tomorrow to check on them. I wanted to go earlier but could not.

When will this nightmare end? Does it have an end? What kind of end? What will life look like when it ends, with completely destroyed cities and towns? Who is going to be the ruling authority? A new Israeli military occupation? The corrupt authority of Ramallah? Hamas again?

As much as I try to get busy with the family hosting me in order to avoid thinking, night is coming. Dark thoughts invading my head, falling asleep I don’t know how, and waking up in the morning so tired as if I did not sleep or rest at all. 

Terror and torture

After two days in Rafah I relax, I’m more involved in work and I don’t worry about my mother for the 5 hours I leave her at Abu Khaled’s home. This wonderful family who had never met me yet received me and my mother, treating us as part of their family, caring for my mother when I am out and even when I am in. 

Communication has been cut for one and half days. Could not reach my wife and her family. Strikes and bombing are concentrated against the middle area; mainly Bureij, Maghazi and Nuseirat where I left my wife. Words do not help to explain how I feel. Trying to reach her family by mobile, trying thousands of times every day. It doesn’t work.

My brother and sister with their families and other relatives, around 25 people, remain in Gaza City. They did not want to leave home. 5 families gathered in 2 apartments in the middle of Saftawi Street, north of Gaza City, where for more than a month communication has been cut. I know nothing about them; they know nothing about me.

Today my brother’s son called me from Al Aqsa Hospital where he and his brother, his father – my eldest brother – and his mother took refuge in a plastic tent in the courtyard of the hospital. HIs voice was not normal:

• I’ve been trying to call you since this morning. (It was 16.50)

• What’s up? How is your mother? Your father, your brother?

• Uncle Sofian, Aunt Taghrid…

• What about them? What happened?

• (Crying) I don’t know.

• What do you mean? Please tell me

• I met a neighbour from where uncle lives, he said the tall building behind their home was bombed and fell onto the house. The house collapsed and was completely damaged.

• What about your uncle, your aunt, their families? Were they inside? Did they leave before?(begins crying)

• Please answer me.

• I don’t know.

• What do you mean? Ask the man.

• He doesn’t know – 

The call ended. I tried calling his mobile again and again, his brother’s and his father’s mobiles.

It is 10.25pm and I am still trying to reach anyone to know anything.

The third displacement, to Rafah

Finally, I must decide – my wife Abeer’s brother and his family, Abeer’s female cousins and their daughter arrived at my parents-in-law’s home. A full house of women and children, some of us must move to Rafah, the next destination after Gaza City and Nuseirat. They are all one family. I am the outsider. I decided to take my mother and leave. Abeer decided to stay with her parents and sisters. Now we have to separate. I don’t know how long for. I don’t know if we are going to meet again. 

Finding a taxi to Rafah was not easy, I had to walk from Sawarha to Salahaldeen Road where taxis are found, 5km walking, in fact almost running. It was 14.40, dark falls in less than 3 hours. I must be in Rafah before dark. Dark is another fear, another uncertainty.

Found a taxi, asking for lots of money. No choice, I agreed. $100, almost 20 times the normal price. We drove back to Sawarha, I loaded our stuff, 2 mattresses, 2 blankets, 2 bags of clothes. A half full cylinder of cooking gas enough for 2 weeks.

I did not know even then where to go in Rafah. I called a friend there asking him to find me a place. I know that I am giving him an impossible task. More than 1 million people displaced to Rafah, a city of less than 100,000 people now hosting 10 times the original population.

From Nuseirat taking the sea road, anxious, not comfortable, the Israeli navy on the horizon, we heard many stories of shelling and killing of people on the sea road. Arriving at Khan Younis, west of Khan Younis, Mawasi area, the area which is mostly uninhabited, agricultural land. We used to drive and spend our weekends there running away from the crowds and noise of the city, Gaza City. It is unbelievable how it has become, thousands and thousands of people on the main road, which became similar to a flea market, selling some food items, second-hand clothes and other stuff. On both sides of the main road, hundreds of tents made from cheap plastic sheets.

Arrived in Rafah, same image, same situation doubled. Crowds everywhere, tents everywhere, small sellers everywhere. People moving all ways, back and forth, huge chaos. Dirt, garbage everywhere, destruction everywhere, bombed houses everywhere. Grey and black are the dominant colours, as if the colours of life have been taken away from Gaza. Trees in the street are all cut, people cut them to use for fire. No green colour anymore, even the sky in this season hides its blue colour and shows its grey, gloomy colour.

Some of my friends who arrived in Rafah earlier are in tents in the streets, tents that don’t prevent the cold or rain, but this was their only option, their only possibility. What will I do with my 83 year old bedridden mother?

Calling my friend all the way and the connection is not going through. More than 60 times trying until finally it works. He asked me to come to his family house in Rafah. I know already they have no place, no room for any more people. I know they are hosting more than 100 people there. 

Arrived at his place and he received me with a big smile.

• Are you lucky or are you lucky?
• Why? What?
• I asked a friend who has good connections to look for an apartment for rent. He is a wealthy business man but he could not find any place for rent.
• So, what is the news then?
• He asked me again, ‘Who wants the place?’ and I told him it’s for my friend and his bedridden mother. He decided to host you and your mother in his home.
• Really?! I don’t want to bother people.
• Don’t worry, let’s go.

He took a ride with us, guiding the driver to his friend’s address.

Arrived at a fancy building of three floors, with a side yard with a decorated, wooden roof.

The man was there waiting for us with a big smile, very friendly and welcoming.

He asked his sons to unload my stuff, they did not let me carry anything. The ground floor had a big living room and one bedroom with a toilet beside it. The man said: ‘I hope this is ok for you.’

I was speechless. Could not express my feelings of appreciation but kept saying: ‘Thank you, thank you.’

I put my mother to bed. They brought food and offered for me to take a shower. A shower? Wow. A hot shower. The first time for three months, since then, I have been washing my body using a plastic can with cold water.

My mother was so tired from the journey. She slept.

After the shower I went to the side yard. There were some men around the fire, brewing a pot of tea. We sat, chatted until 8pm. Then we all went to bed. They did not stop asking me if I needed anything, they did not stop saying ‘ Your mother is our mother, you should not worry about her.’

I slept. My mother slept.

Fear, loneliness

Since the start of this brutal massacre and killing of the Gazan people, I was always afraid. The kind of fear that you think you control by caring for your family, by keeping busy, securing their needs, by following up on the work of my colleagues, the counsellors and social workers at the shelters, by writing my diaries and sharing them with friends around the world. The kind of fear that you keep in and ignore, although all reasons for fear and panic are there – the random bombing, shelling, shooting, destruction, the number of people killed and injured reaching more than 27,000 killed and more than 54,000 injured. Yet I keep it deep inside.

Since yesterday my feelings are different. My fear is different. Since the Israeli army ordered people in Bureij Camp and part of Nuseirat Camp, where I am displaced, to leave, I don’t feel the same. I could have been killed before, at any minute, by any of these bombardments, yet now I feel it coming towards me and my family.

There are only three of my friends from Gaza City displaced to Bureij and Nuseirat. Th three of them are in the areas ordered to evacuate and leave. Yesterday I tried to reach them by mobile. Did not work. I walked to one of them. He was not there. It was too late to walk to the others – one in Bureij and the other in Nuseirat near Bureij, the Salahaldeen Road separating them. Bureij, east of Salahaldeen, borders Israel, and Nuseirat is west of it.

Today I went to Al Awda Hospital. The first message was from my friend and colleague, Mohammed:

Dear Hossam, 

I am preparing to leave with my family for Rafah. I am now busy searching for materials to build a tent there in Rafah. I don’t know when we will communicate or meet again. I hope soon.

Stay safe until then,

Mohammed.

I don’t know why after reading this message, the feeling of fear came up to the surface and overrode my ability to tolerate it. 

I could not stay. I thought about going to Bureij to check on my friend Eyad. Bombing and heavy targeting started last night. I rejected the idea, I felt like a coward.

Then I thought about Maher. He is in Nuseirat. I will go. I walked 2km, arrived to find there are no cars in front of his home. It’s a building of 3 floors. Up to yesterday it was hosting more than 80 people. Maher’s brother, the home owner, was there, taking things from the house and loading them into a mini-bus. Mattresses, blankets, bead flour, suitcases, bags…

• What’s up? I said
• We’re leaving.
• Where’s Maher?
• He left yesterday with his family, they all left, myself and my wife are the last.
• Where to?
• Rafah. We’ve a brother living there, Maher and his family went there Myself and my wife will go to my daughter’s home in Zawayda.

There was nothing to be said. The man was busy and rushing to load his stuff.

I said: ‘Goodbye, be safe.’

Walking back to Al Awda Hospital, holding my mobile the whole way and trying to call Eyad. I tried more than 50 times and all the calls failed.

Suddenly I stopped. I feel something is wrong. I feel dizzy, unable to walk properly. The fear invades me from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet. I don’t feel well. I continue walking. Arrived at the hospital, went to the office. I started to collect my stuff; the laptop, the mobile charger, the small battery that I use to light some led lights. I finished and got ready to leave. Then I sat down again. I don’t want to go home with these feelings, in this condition. I must control myself.

Arriving home, talking to Abeer about what we shall do.

She has a sister in Rafah, a widow with 5 girls living not far from Alnajjar Hospital, living in a very small house of two rooms with a small living room. Shall we go there? Shall we send some of us so if something happens here we can move more easily and lighter? We are around 22 people. Maybe her mother and sister and her sister’s family can go tomorrow and then we can figure out what to do next.

We do not decide yet. We are still discussing the options when her brother, his wife and 3 children arrive with their luggage. They were in Nuseirat, not far form the area ordered to evacuate. So he is seeking refuge at his father’s home. Fair enough.

What next? We finished our talk without deciding anything. No safe place in Gaza Strip. People moving from place to place seeking non-existent safety. I am one of them. There is a storm outside, the wind is screaming, heavy rain and the cold is reaching my bones while the bombing is continuing and this time not far at all.

I am afraid. I feel so lonely.

 

Fuel, bread and fear

Yesterday I decided to drive my car, despite the fact that there is no fuel to replace what I use.

I made sure I had enough fuel left for 68km of driving, according to the fuel gauge.

But yesterday was special. Finally I got some cooking gas, half a cylinder with 6kg of gas, enough for 2 weeks. It will spare my wife Abeer and her father and sisters from using fire for cooking and for other daily needs, especially as it’s winter and some days are rainy, making building a fire impossible. Another thing, it’s my father-in-law’s turn to receive bread flour from UNWRA – 2 bags of 25kg – also enough for 2 weeks. 

But wait, I think I need to elaborate a little bit about Number 6 Block, Nuseirat Camp and bread flour distribution.

UNRWA started this distribution of bread flour in late October for all families of the Gaza Strip. But as there is not enough and food aid is entering Gaza in limited quantities, UNRWA decided to prioritise. So, in late October they announced that they would distribute to families of 11 members and above. After 2 weeks, they start to distribute to families of 8-10 members. After 3 weeks they distributed to families of 7 members.

And here, we are only talking about one of the items distributed to all the people in this system.

A few days ago they started to distribute to families of 6 members. And here comes my father-in-law’s turn; his family are 6. My own family is 3 members; myself, my wife Abeer and my daughter Salma. I don’t know when I will receive bread flour, which will only be a bag of 25kg.

It’s a good plan to prioritise, but those under 10 members, under 7, under 6, under 4, how will they manage to live, to eat, until they receive this treasure? While all types of work are completely frozen, zero work, zero jobs, zero income, as life has stopped and nothing is happening but the war and the long search for daily meals, I mean something, anything to eat daily.

Anyway, Abeer was waiting at Al Awda Hospital finishing her work, I bought some food for tomorrow and went to get Abeer and go home. 

Starting the car!!! Doesn’t work. 

Try again and again until Abeer asks me to stop otherwise I’ll damage something. All I know about cars is how to drive. But, I know that those working as drivers know everything about cars so I approached one of the Al Awda Hospital ambulance drivers and asked for help.

In less than a minute he said: ‘No fuel.’

What? No fuel?!! But I’d kept some in the car.

He asked: ‘What type of fuel does your car take?’

I said: ‘Benzene’

‘When did you last drive your car?’

‘Almost 2 monks ago’

‘You know that benzene evaporates? Slowly evaporates.’

Oh my God. How had I not considered this simple, physical fact? What is the solution? There is no fuel left at all in the market.

Abeer said: ‘Why don’t you ask Dr Rafaat, the director of Al Awda Hospital? They should have some.’

I was so shy, embarrassed, but I did. Dr Rafaat as usual was more than helpful. He provided me with 1 litre which was all I needed to drive the 3km back home and park my car for good.

The second day, arriving at the hospital at 8am as usual, I felt something was wrong. People moving fast, many speaking about areas ordered to evacuate, talking about a map and SMSs.

Went to Dr Rafat’s office. Many people. One of the staff connected his laptop to the big TV screen.  There was a map of blocks on the screen. Within a few minutes I understood the situation. The Israeli army dropped letters of warning on Bureij Camp and part of Nuseirat Camp and sent messages randomly to many people in these areas asking everyone to leave, completely, and to go to Deir Al Balah. The hospital staff were trying to understand whether the hospital falls within the threatened area or not.

Where will people go? Deir Al Balah is completely full. The houses, the school, the public institutions, the mosques. Tents in the streets everywhere. The area to be evacuated marked out on the map is hosting at least 150,000 people. Where will they go?

And do you realise what it means to evacuate an area and call it a war zone? The Israelis will start making a so called fire belt. You remember what a fire belt is? It is striking, bombing and destroying entire areas, many buildings, completely clearing entire neighbourhoods, flattening them to the ground, above the heads of people who have nowhere to go.

Dr Rafaat said sharply: ‘Even if we fall within this area the hospital will not close. We stay. We are here to help the sick and injured and this is what we will continue doing.’

Note 1: The main branch of Al Awda Hospital in the north of Gaza was attacked, invaded, destroyed and 3 doctors were killed. Many other people were killed there. The hospital was their cemetery.

Note 2: I am still in Nuseirat Camp. My father-in-law’s home is out of the threatened area but it soon won’t be, and truly, I won’t know what to do then, with 2 bedridden old women, another 22 people; children, women, men and my wife, Abeer.

Note 3: I am truly afraid.

Mother Courage (not Bertolt Brecht)

By the wall of the school, the shelter, many sellers lay out their small amount of merchandise on a small, old, wooden table, or a cardboard box, or even on a plastic sheet on the ground. Small quantities of cans of meat, cans of tuna, cans of beans, cigarettes, sugar, rice. Some have  quantities worth $200 and others, all their merchandise is worth no more than $30. Trying to make enough profit to feed themselves for a day or two.

Among them a lady, a middle-aged woman with a veil completely covering most of her hair, is busy cooking bread in an oven made of mud. A line of people standing to buy a piece of bread or two or whatever. Calling to her 7 or 8 year old son from time to time to feed the fire under the oven with some bits of wood – a normal scene in Gaza, mainly around the shelter-schools. 

I took my place in the line to buy some bread, when a journalist approached the lady asking her for an interview. Without looking at him she said, “You can see that I’m busy.” The journalist was  patient and polite. He asked if he could film her as a part of the market and life in the shelters. She shrugged with a sense of not caring if he did or he didn’t. The reporter made a gesture to the cameraman to start filming.

The journalist:   

 Have you been doing this for a long time?

The woman: 

Cooking bread? One month.

Journalist:          

You built the mud oven?

The woman:        

No, I bought it from someone who built it but could not work on it. He was too old for this work.

Journalist:            

Are you from here? I mean Nuseirat Camp?

The woman: 

(whilst working, putting a piece of dough in the oven, turning it over from time to time using a wooden stick): 

No. Not from here.

 

(talking to a customer) 

I haven’t change for a hundred shekels. Find some change and come back.

Jounalist: 

Where did you come from?

The woman:

From many places since the 12th of October.

Journalist:

Like where?

The woman:

From Beit Hanoun. When they started bombing, my eldest son and father-in-law were killed. The bombing was targeting a neighbours’s home. They were all killed. 

She stopped talking and continued her work. The journalist did not rush her. She raised her head again, looked at the journalist for a second, then turned back to the oven and continued talking.

The woman:

We moved to my family home in Shati Camp, ‘Beach Camp’, I was at the market with this little son, when we heard a huge explosion from an air strike. I went home with some vegetables. They bombed a nearby home and my parents and my husband were killed. They were all under the rubble. I recognised my husband from his feet that appeared out of the rubble. He was missing a toe, he lost it in a work accident in Israel two years ago. He used to work in construction. When the accident happened his boss did not do anything for him, he sent him home and never allowed him to work again. Of course, no compensation. In Israel they don’t register Palestinian workers as a legal workforce, so no one can claim any compensation. They just use us as cheap labour, that’s all. My poor husband did not rest until he died.

(to her little son):

Enough wood, we’re almost finished.

(to a customer):

This will cost you 4 Shekels.

She looked at the journalist. He was still there holding the mic towards her, the cameraman was focused on her.

The woman:

So, we moved to Zahra City, to my sister who is married and lives there. They followed us with the bombing. My daughter and my mother in-law were killed. We came here; myself and this little boy, my sister’s son and my injured sister. We are at this school. (She pointed at the school behind her).

Journalist:

How do you manage? Does UNRWA distribute food at the school?

The woman:

Yes. They come every few days, give each family some cans of food, some biscuits, some soap, food barely enough for one day. Anyway we are still alive,

Journalist:

What about water? Hygiene? Toilet?

The woman:

This is another story.  I wake up at 4 in the morning to join the queue for the toilet. At this time there will be a line of 7-15 people. If I’m late, I’ll find a line of 50 or 60. I take my injured sister, her daughter, and my little son. We do our business there and go back to sleep again. They distribute mineral water bottles. I don’t use them. I sell them to get some money. Here we are surviving.

Journalist:

What do other women do?

The woman:

Other women? Yes, there was a pregnant woman, we helped her to give birth inside the classroom. She was lucky, her delivery went smoothly, she did not need a hospital. We care for each other in our classroom. Not like in other classes, all day you hear screaming, shouting, cursing, disputes. We are lucky. They look after my sister and her 2 year old daughter when I’m out.

Journalist:

How do you get the wood for your oven?

The woman:

It was easy in the beginning, I collected bits of wood from the streets, from the nearby olive orchards. Then I started to buy it from wood sellers. It was 1.2 shekels/kilo to begin with and then the price rose, like all prices, now it is 3 shekels/kilo. Everyone is using fire now as there is no cooking gas or fuel. Scarcity in everything.

The woman started to clear up, put out the fire, collect the bits of wood which were not burnt yet, and covered the oven with a piece of material.  She carried her son and went towards the school. The camera man followed her with his camera lens until she disappeared inside the school.

Schindler’s list

Is there any Schindler for the Palestinians of Gaza?

Pause

.

.

.

.

.

Pause

.

.

.

.

No. There is no Schindler for the Palestinians of Gaza.

Back from market

My sister in Deir Al Balah called me last night begging for some blankets. She has only one for her and her mother-in-law. She sleeps in a classroom of one of the schools nearby the sea, her three sons sleeping in a plastic tent in the front yard of the school also have only one blanket between the three of them. I don’t have much either. Luckily I bought 2 good, heavy blankets two months ago in preparation for the cold days of winter. Abeer told me that there are 3 extra blankets her family do not use and can give out. Old, not heavy, but we can give them out.

In the morning we went out. Abeer to Al Awda Hospital and I to Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al Balah. I messaged my sister to meet me there so I can also see my brother and his family who took refuge in the empty hospital courtyard like thousands of other people.

I arrived there around 9.20, walking halfway, a ride on a donkey cart for 1km and finally a taxi for the rest of the distance.

The tent of my brother and his family is 2m square. No mattresses, some cheap blankets, some pieces or cardboard below the blankets. The 2m space includes all their belongings beside the 2 sleeping spaces. They are 5 people. The sleeping space is divided between them by time. 2 people sleep at a time and then they change over. No mattress, a blanket on the floor and a  blanket on their bodies. This is all that they have. Helplessness is a deathly feeling. My sister had not yet arrived. I could not stay. I told them to take one of the three blankets and to give two to my sister and left. Left fast, feeling ashamed that I do have a good blanket, that I have a roof over my head, I have a mattress below my body. No place for more people at my parents-in-law’s house, they host me, my mother, my wife, my wife’s sister and her husband and children, two of her female cousins and their children, and, of course, her family; her parents and her sisters.

No internet in Nuseriat for three days, difficult mobile communications, almost zero. There was not much to do at Al Awda Hospital, it was a short day of work.

We passed by the market, me and my wife, Abeer. We purchased some vegetables and some medicine for flu. It was a rainy day. It did not stop. Light rain and heavy rain. We could only find a ride with a donkey cart which has no roof, of course. The donkey’s speed is no faster than a man’s speed, pulling this heavy weight of passengers with their groceries, the distance of 2.5km from the market to home takes at least half an hour. After ten minutes of slow walking, it started raining, light at first, then heavy rain, very heavy, the raindrops hurt. Nothing we could do. We kept sitting on the cart, not talking, not a word, until we arrived, wet, completely wet to the bone. We went in, took off our clothes, dried our bodies and put on new, warm, clean clothes. We emptied our laptop bags. There was water in them. My laptop screen swallowed some water, I’m so worried that it will be corrupted. I hope not. 

I went to my mattress, pulled the heavy, soft blanket over my body and thought about my brother’s family, my sister’s family and the thousands of families who are there, outside, in plastic tents that don’t prevent water coming in, don’t prevent wind, don’t prevent cold. There are thousands of families who don’t even have such a tent in Deir Al Balah, in Khan Younis, in Rafah, in Gaza City, in Jabaliya, in Beit Lahia, in Zaytoun, in Shujaiya, in Mawasi. I don’t feel guilty but I feel very bad, very helpless, very weak. I feel I am nothing.