The title of this article suggests that what follows are observations. In reality, these are testimonies from people — some of them entirely helpless — that have been displaced from various areas of the Gaza Strip. These testimonies were pieced together from many conversations with and voice recordings of people who volunteered their words among the other tasks they have been carrying out. The stories may seem like the sorts of stories that emerge from a war, but in an area so small such as Gaza they sound uncanny; they are doubly painful, especially since those fleeing death aren’t able to escape to places that will shelter and protect them. Some of them wait for death alongside their families. Others, who aren’t in Gaza, wait for the phone to bring them the news of their family’s death.
I was at home in Mashrou’ Beit Lahia. Relatives from Beit Hanoun had moved into our house. A house in our neighborhood was bombed, and most of our street resembled a “sieve,” it was a massacre. We left the house after the bombing resumed, and found refuge in a shelter in northern Gaza. The day soon came when Israeli warplanes dropped leaflets calling for people to leave the north to the south. UNRWA [staff] left the headquarters in the north and headed toward the south, and the schools that had been turned into shelters were left with no administrative staff, so popular committees were formed to self-manage. My family, my relatives who were displaced, and I also headed south, walking a distance of around 40 km to reach Deir al-Balah.
7,000 citizens were crowded into an UNRWA school that had been converted into a shelter there. I had never experienced humiliation in my life, until now. We were humiliated in every sense of the word. The provision of water and the distribution of aid was all carried out by the people themselves. UNRWA [staff] only appeared at our school after two days of us staying there. Those who did eventually come were teachers. I don’t believe the agency had a contingency plan. If it did, we would have felt it.
I’m unable to use the bathrooms because of overcrowding. The school can only house 7,000 people.
I can’t tell what the difference is between what’s happening now and what happened in 1948. Perhaps it’s the fact that I’m displaced between cement walls, while my grandparents were in tents. As we speak, tents are being put up in Khan Younis.
I have a child named Ghaith, and I owe him a huge apology.
For two years Wissam has been living with his wife and children in Beirut, where he came to study. Around two months ago, he sent his 12-year-old daughter with his friend and his family to the Gaza Strip to see her grandfather and grandmother. She returned to Beirut, and when friends asked him about his decision [read: audacity] in sending a child to travel alone, he said: I want her to feel her strength.
About a week ago, I met Wissam, along with two friends. We asked him about his family, and how they were coping in this war. His answers were full of sadness and composure. He said: “I spent more than a week without any information about my family until I was able to speak to my sister, who told me that they were fine. As for my brother, I haven’t heard anything since the beginning of the war.
On Monday, Oct. 30, Wissam’s phone rang. This time it was from Gaza. The news: his mother was martyred along with a number of his family members. Wissam's father survived because the house they were sheltering in was targeted [by Israeli airstrikes] at prayer time, and his father was at the mosque.
Days before Wissam's family was martyred, the family of Abdul Rahman, who also studies in Beirut, was also martyred. His uncle first. Two days later, his brother and his wife and their two daughters were martyred. His two sisters, his sister’s husband, and his sister’s three children were also martyred. His father was seriously injured.
Wissam and Abdel Rahman received mourners in Beirut. They, like other Gazans abroad, live in heartbreak and pain. It would not be more difficult if they were in Gaza, they said in unison.
Communications were cut off in the Gaza Strip on the night of Friday, Oct. 27. There was no longer anyone in Gaza communicating with the outside world. This remained the case more or less until Sunday. I sent my friend Bahaa a message to make sure he was alive. His reply: “When Bahaa disappears, he doesn’t disappear to decieve. When Bahaa disappeared, he learned that modern life isn’t good. I’m fine. I got to know these people who are with me here at home, since they’re my family.”
After reading what he wrote, I asked: “what is it that you want?” He said: “I want the Palestinian prisoners to be released. I swear, I’m speaking seriously. I witnessed Wafa’ al-Ahrar [the prisoner exchange deal between the resistance and the Israeli Occupation] in 2011. I kept crying for six years. I’ve never been as happy as I was that day.”
I also asked him: “What do people want? What do you hear them say?” Bahaa, who is also working as a volunteer to help people between the shelters and hospitals, answered: “People need a moment to return to their homes, get their things, and carry on in shelters.”
“Gaza has become a graveyard for thousands of children,” announced UNICEF spokesman James Alder. “It is a living hell for everyone else.”
These reports from UNICEF, along with other accounts, prompted me to ask some of those I know in the Gaza Strip about infant formula. Their answers, for the most part, indicated its lack of availability.
One of my friends said to me: “Today I went to four pharmacies to get milk. I also need essential medications that I take daily that I am starting to run out of. The reason for my search for milk is that one of my friends in the shelter has a three-month-old child, and said the last time he’d managed to find any was a week ago. His child hasn’t eaten since. I found myself searching for milk instead of my medicine. I couldn’t find any. You can find this stuff in malls sometimes, but they too have run out of it."
What this friend told me confirms that there are victims who are killed not by shells, but rather by malnutrition. Given the current conditions in the Gaza Strip, it is very possible that hospitals will not be able to save them.
During one of my conversations with Bahaa, I asked him about graves and burials, given the increasing number of martyrs. He shared with me what he saw in Deir al-Balah: “We started removing stones from the cemetery wall, placing them as headstones on the graves, so that we could [at least] identify those buried... there are no more stones left. There’s no longer any room to bury each person in an individual grave. That’s when the mass graves started. Even the spaces between graves — horizontal and vertical — are now used to bury the dead. When we enter the cemetery to bury our martyrs people are often standing on other graves."
