Category: Hossam’s 2014 war blog

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014

24 July 2014

I wrote to Hossam to thank him for the initial draft of the Arabic translation of Caryl Churchill’s SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN which will be performed at our War and Peace: Gaza-London event on 14th September at Rich Mix.  Also I asked him to write about how our plans to create a stage production of Tolstoy’s War and Peace seemed to him now.  We thought we might get a piece about this into the Comment is Free online section of The Guardian. Crazy!?

Dear Jonathan
lots of love my dear
Sorry I could not write in the last few days, electricity is 4 hours every 2 days, my internet system with its small battery collapsed so I don’t have access as I used to.
At the same time through my work in Gaza with Ma’an Development Center we have started to work helping people, we distribute matresses and blankets and food and hygiene kits for displaced people.
I am assigned by Ma’an to be the  focal person for emergency coordination, this will require so much time and effort as I have to coordinate with all the UN agencies and INGO’s working in the crisis response, also I have to lead the emergency response of Ma’an (with other colleagues of course!)
The displaced people are more than 200,000 people, the capacity of all the humanitarian agencies can not meet half of this number, catastrophe everywhere, people with no shelter (schools are not enough but also targeted) today the Israeli army bombed a shelter / school containing more than 1500 people (16 killed and 100 injured ). UNRWA coordinates with the Israeli side the use of these schools as shelters. They are supposed to be safe, they have the coordinates of the place.
In this war Israel breaks all limits, no red lines, hospitals targeted, shelters targeted, homes targeted, and mainly children targeted, among the 800 fatalities, more than 200 children.
Salma again has to manage her self, as I am in the field, and Abeer started working voluntarily in the main hospital of Gaza since yesterday, we are unable to stay home.
No signs at all of any end soon to this massacre, all the talked-about truces seem to have failed, we expect harder times.
stay safe my dear
we will try to do so as well
Gaza lives
love
Hossam – Salma – Abeer

PS: Regarding War and Peace, for the time being the only thing I can say: I believe in doing it now more than any time before.
I cant write more now. I have only 2 minutes of power

A little later he sent me two photographs with the following message:

So so so sorry my friend for the hard image, but as I know that such photos do not go in the media, I just wanted to share with you little bit of what we are expose to. Please forgive me.

This is one of the photos that he sent:

 

 

 

 

This is the other:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read Hossam’s messages from Gaza. Next.

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014

21 July 2014

After a few days of not hearing from Hossam in Gaza I received the messages below.  I am posting them on this blog in the order I received them and indicating the different means of communication used.

Az Theatre is in partnership with Theatre for Everybody in Gaza and our latest project can be read about here.  We intended this blog to be about the process we are going through to organise an event in London on Sunday 14th September which will link via live video with the work in Gaza on Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace.  When the current military violence escalated we devoted the blog to the messages from our friends and partners there in Gaza.

We are carrying on the organisation of the event at Rich Mix.  We are building our team, contacting performers, receiving short scripts from writers who are involved in the project. Hassan Abdulrazzak and Haifa Zangana have written short pieces.  Caryl Churchill has agreed to a brand new Arabic translation of SEVEN JEWISH CHILDREN which Hossam Madhoun in Gaza and Hassan Abdulrazzak are working together on.

Note by Jonathan Chadwick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Help meeeeeeeeeee! I want to cry, but I can’t find my tears!

After receiving this we sent Hossam a message begging him to write, tell me about the photo, tell me how his family was coping.  We had this SMS exchange:

Me:  Please write more if this at all possible.  Love Jonathan

Hossam: It’s too hard my dear, it is beyond words.  Families are slaughtered in Gaza every day, babies, children, mothers, homes.  Trees, life, every alive thing is a target, it is beyond words.

Me:  How are you, Abir and Salma coping?? How are you managing?  Love j

Then this email arrived:

The photo is of a mother and his boy running out of Shijaiya the day after the massacre, the Israelis kept shelling at them until they kill both the mother and the son, my cousin, working for a human rights association, (Almizan) was near by. He was injured slightly. He saw part of the massacre.
Massacres are every day, every hour , every minute, many families killed inside their house without being warned and without having any so-called target, shelling, bombing, sky strikes every moment everywhere, more than 100.000 people took refuge in schools, more than 100.000 took refuge at relatives or friends.  They ran out with nothing, no food, no clothes, no shelter, no safety, and no one has the capacity to assist them, neither  UNRWA, nor the Red Cross. All emergency preparedness plans and capacity of all the UN agencies and Red Cross and INGOs is to help 50.000 people for 2 weeks with shelter and food and non-food items, now the needy people is more than double. There is no electricity most of the time, that means there is no water most of the time, (no electricity to operate the water wells and the water pumps to houses) no electricity to operate the sewage pumps and the sewage treatment plants, so sewage floods.
More than 560 people killed, at least 150 among them children under 15 years old, more than 100 women among them, bodies arriving to hospitals in pieces without heads, without arms, without legs, Oooh my God Ohh  my God, what you want me to write about, Jonathan, about more than 3000 houses destroyed totally and more than 1000 destroyed partially in a city were cement is not allowed in and so people won’t be ab;e to rebuild their homes. I can only cry and cry helplessly, my ultimate fear is to face the moment that I won’t be able to help or protect my daughter and my wife, I am unable to think further than that. I have no space to think about my mother sisters, brothers, friends. We are slaughtered here and the world understands the Israelis need to defend themselves. Why is no-one trying to understand that we too need to defend ourselves, to live! For more than 7 years we live under blockade like rabbits in a cage, not allowed to travel, not allowed to build, not allowed to plan for the future, not allowed to progress, just living with the world assisting to help us survive, just to survive but not allowed to live or practice human life, why??????????
Do you want me to write about those orphans children who don’t know why they are suddenly living with strangers….sorry my friend . Allow me, I …..I cant…….maybe tomorrow I will be able to write you something.

Then this email arrived minutes later

Do you understand what I mean my friend? There are many like this boy. Can any one imagine what is waiting for them?
At this moment while writing to you, my dear, heavy bombing near my home, yesterday they bombed a flat in a building 50 meters from my home.
Now I am writing to you, I can not promise you to be alive to write again, we will see tomorrow
love,
Hossam – Abeer – Salma

Then much later in the night he sent this SMS:

What to write?  About the man who lives in the fourth Floor finding the body of a 2 year old boy in his bedroom thrown from the opposite building?  Would you believe? Would anyone believe it happened in Gaza not in an American action movie.

So very hard dying everyday a million times.  Gliders in the sky.  Bombing heard every three seconds. Unable to sleep for days.

I first met Theatre for Everybody in 2000 in Gaza and we first worked together at the Sibiu International Theatre Festival in Romania in 2002.  Hossam and Jamal are my colleagues, they and their families are my friends. This is why I am posting what they have to say. Note by Jonathan Chadwick.

Read Hossam’s messages from Gaza.  Next

 

 

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

19 July 2014

I want to say…. sorry, I am unable to say any thing, I don’t want to say any thing any more, I am very angry, tired, sleepy, unable to sleep, afraid, frustrated, panic………when I got married, all I wanted was to be a father, today, as I feel helpless, unable to protect my daughter or my wife, or my self, I wish I’d never been a father have a look at the attached photo, may be you will understand me. Sorry for any inconvenience

This post from Hossam arrived this morning and at the same, time from a different source, I was sent this link about an Israeli MP calling for the killing of Palestinian Mothers. Also yesterday Jamal, the other co-director of Theatre for Everybody, sent me his blog piece about what he did with his daughter, Yara, during the 5 hour ‘humanitarian’ cease fire. 

Tomorrow I will do another skype guitar exchange with Yara.  All being well.  We will continue our work on the Girl From Ipanema.  

Now I’m going out on the demonstration opposite Downing Street and the march to the Israeli embassy.

Read Hossam’s messages from Gaza. Next.

 

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

17 July 2014

you want to be safe in Gaza during the war (remember – the war on Gaza is a trend, it will happen from time to time – any time – all the time)
so here’s some advice
where to live? this is not the question, the question is where not live?
so in order to be safe
don’t live near a police station
don’t live near a security facility
for sure not near a security base
not near a governmental institute
not near the legislative council
not near an empty land or a landscape
not near a school
not near a hospital
not near gas station
not near a Hamas leader
not near a Hamas member
not near any politician
not near a civil activist
not near the border
not near the sea
not in a high building
not in an isolated home
not in the camp for sure
not near the market
not near a local organisation

now, if you find that place in Gaza, please, please pleaaaaaaaaaase  tell me about it that I can move and live there

Read Hossam’s messages from Gaza. Next

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

13 July 2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear friends, colleagues

Attached some information figures reflecting part of the reality of what’s going on in Gaza

The photo is in my street yesterday night, my home is 50 meters from the blast, me, my wife and my daughter are safe (so far)

Be safe

from Gaza with love

link to: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_sitrep_14_07_2014.pdf

The above is the report for the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs for 13/07/14

Read Hossam’s next message. Next

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

13 July 2014

This line from Mahmoud Darwish means: “We love life whatever way we find our path to it” Or “We love life – whenever we can”.  He wrote this to me in response to my message below telling him about Hassan Abdulrazzak’s translation of his previous message.

Dear Jonathan

Mahmoud Darwish said,

نحبالحياةمااستطعناإليهاسبيلا

this, they will not take from us

H

Dear Hossam,

Our friend, Hassan Abdulrazzak, has translated your message and, of course, I am thinking about you, Abir and Salma.  You are in my heart.  

Yesterday when I was making a guitar exchange with Yara, Jamal’s daughter, there was a strange repeated sequence of sounds on the Skype signal and about a minute afterwards there was an explosion that was very close.  It was so close that even I, in London, ducked down!!  I noticed how Jamal kissed Yara’s hand afterwards when they realised they were still alive. 

I was teaching the chord sequence of The Girl from Ipanema, the celebrated Brazilian bossa nova song by Antonio Carlos Jobim.  Yara is extremely clever at guitar.  She picked up the difficult chord sequence quickly, much more quickly than I did!

I’m looking forward to performing The Girl from Ipanema on Skype with Yara once we get the melody line over the chord sequence.

You know why I’m telling you about this.

Sending you love,

Jonathan

Read Hossam’s next message. Next.

 

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

13 July 2014

Hossam sent us this in Arabic. Hassan Abdulrazzak translated it.

One of the hardest nights. A sleepless night. Bombing closer than ever to our home since the start of the aggression. Salma had been able to ignore the bombing and explosions and sleep through the previous nights. This night is different. Black smoke fills the horizon. The smell of gunpowder and pulverised concrete fills our home. After the first bombing, we jumped out of our bed, scared and haven’t been able to sleep ever since. Salma moved into our room. Less than ten minutes after a huge, terrifying explosion – bigger than all the previous ones – shook the entire house. This was accompanied by the sound of smashing glass. We later discovered that it was one of our house windows. We tried to ignore it and decided to go back to bed with the hope that sleep could take us away from this horror. Then after a further ten minutes, the house shook once again and we realised that we cannot sleep tonight. We are still awake. The shattered glass of the window is still scattered in the bathroom and balcony. How lucky we are to have survived on a day when fifty others were martyred.

Read Hossam’s next message. Next

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

11 July 2014

Hossam sent us this photograph and message from his friend, artist, Basel El Maqosul

Hi dear, just wanted to share with you a post from a friend of mine, he is an artist. best, H

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hammoud, my son, my darling 10-year old, said to me, I am 10 years old and I witness three wars so far, when I reach your age dad, how many wars shall I witness? How many times I shall cry because of rockets and bombing, how many dead people I shall weep for…..????

Read Hossam’s next message. Next

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

10 July 2014

A reply to an inquiry about his well-being from a friend in the US

How do I feel? Sorry my friends, you are asking me the most difficult question I ever had to answer. Ask me if I am alive, that’s easy, yes I am, if I am safe, that’s also easy, no I am not, I could be another number in the news any moment just like the 91 Palestinians who have been killed during the last 3 days, just another number, oh how much I hate numbers, imagine you you live 46 years full of actions, memories, achievements and failures, love and pain, being well and getting sick, getting married and having a lovely daughter, and suddenly you are nothing but another number in the news.

No I am not fine (sorry if I sound tough) and please don’t take it personally

I am just angry, frustrated, afraid, yes I am afraid, for the safety of my daughter, my wife, my old mother, my brothers and sisters, my niece and friends. So I panic about receiving this phone call which already more than 100 people received

A phone call from the Israeli army asking to evacuate the home in 10 minutes in order to destroy it

Just imagine that moment when the Israeli army calls and orders you to evacuate your home to shell and destroy it within ten minutes. Imagine that! Just ten minutes and your little history will be wiped off the earth, your gifts and photos of your brothers and daughter when she was a baby, the stuff you like: your chair, books, the latest novel you read, a letter from a emigrant sister, memories of moments with whom you love, your habits of petting a gardenia on your window, your old clothes, your wife’s gold and the money you saved over your life. Oh! Everything comes to your mind and astonishes you! And then, you take only your identification papers inside a candy tray and go out to die a thousand times or, instead, you stay and die for once

Some families took the first decision; some others took the second decision, which is right? Who is wrong? From the outside you may think it is easy to answer, but from inside??!!! Believe me it is not that easy

For the third day, bombing continues, nevertheless what do you hear in the news in the west? But from inside I can tell you, what is happening here looks like nothing you ever knew, 91 persons killed, if we would consider the men are all terrorists, how could anyone consider the 24 children, the 16 women, the 12 old women and men among out of the 86 as terrorists

As I said earlier, I hate numbers, so, those 86 are:

Hossam lists all the names and ages of the dead in Arabic

Read Hossam’s next message. Next

HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014 

9 July 2014

It’s war that’s got used to us.

During one of the nights of bombing in Gaza, a conversation between a husband and wife, a conversation that happened and will happen in every house in Gaza:

Open your window sweetheart (to his child) – half open it.

But Dad I don’t like to sleep with the window open

Well you’re not sleeping in your room tonight

Oh…where am I going to sleep?

In the corridor

Why?

No asking why, just do it

Alright – but why do I have to open my window if I’m not going to be sleeping in my room?

So that if there’s bombing nearby, if the window is open it won’t get broken

(Mother:) Just do what we say, sweetheart

Ok, mum

(husband to wife): and you, darling, go sleep, put your bed next to the girl’s and sleep.

And you? Aren’t you going to sleep?

No. I need to stay awake in case something happens

Ok, well I’ll stay up, you go sleep

What are you talking about? Do what I say, change your clothes and go get some sleep

I’m not sleepy. And anyway, I want to sleep in my street clothes

Why?

It’s better – if we get bombed or there’s bombing close by and we have to run out of the house, I’m not going out naked.

You’re right. So I guess the girl should be dressed too

No it’s better not to scare her for no reason – even if something happened, she’s only young – she can go out in her nightclothes

OK

BOOM

Oh God, why is this happening?

What’s up – just bombing

Close

No, not very – don’t be afraid

Yes, but the walls shook

Just to warn you. Go back to sleep. So you don’t stay scared.

Did you shut the cooking gas off.

Yes

Is the re-chargeable light charged?

Yes, missus, I charged it

Don’t get angry, I was just making sure

I’m not angry, just jumpy because of the bombing

You think it’ll go on for long?

God knows

I hope it doesn’t go on for long

Insha’allah

If there’s a land invasion what are we going to do?

What are we going to do? Nothing. What can we do? Whatever God wills will happen.

It’s good we managed to buy a few things and have stored the food to last us a week

Yes, it’s good

Actually, we should have bought more to store. Suppose it goes on longer.

Thank God we have enough food for a week, there are people who can’t buy enough food for even a day.

Yes, thank God.

BOOM

Oh, heavens

And also I’m here with you…You know what happens during bombing – you shouldn’t be taken aback like this

And what do you want me to do? Is it in my hands?!

That’s why I’m telling you to go sleep

I can’t sleep when I’m scared

Why are you scared? Is this your first bombing? Or your first war?

No it’s not the first bombing or the first war, but I can’t get used to it – God damn it – who can get used to war?

Hahaha – no, actually, it’s war that has got used to us.

(translated from Arabic by Maysoon Pachachi)

Read Hossam’s next message. Next