Tag: Children - Page 6 - International Solidarity Movement

Gaza children with terminal illness spend their final years under the siege

3rd February 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Epidermolysis bullosa is an exotic name for what is, in its most severe form, unusual, painful and fatal disease. It is caused by a deficiency of the protein that binds the two skin layers together, creating friction, blisters and open, slow-healing wounds. These blisters and erosions occur Even on internal mucous membranes. The wounds are similar to third degree burns, and children – victims of its most severe form will rarely be older than that – are also more prone to skin cancer. A cure does not exist.

In Daniela Riva’s apartment in Gaza City is a party, with cakes and cordiality. Some of the affected children are there, along with some siblings and their mothers. It is a merry atmosphere. They are playing, and there is some strife about whose turn it is to bowl with a Wii video game. One of the girls after a long, fascinated look at my red beard and blue eyes, borrows my notebook and draws a big heart. It takes her some time to fill it in.

They are unusually short, and have red sores on their faces. Their bodies have to put much effort into heal the wounds, as much as possible, and keeping the symptoms of the disease in check. Those at the party look six or seven years old. In fact, they are about ten years old. And they move stiffly, mainly as a consequence of all the bandages they wear – bandage that keep a special kind of layer in place to prevent their clothes from sticking in their wounds and allow them to live reasonably normal lives without the pain that any contact otherwise will cause – but their movements would be strained even without these bandages. Their stiff skin makes them turn their bodies simultaneously with their heads, and their fingers are becoming more and more hunched and rigid.

R – let us call her that – is the most active during the party. She is ten years with a catching smile, although it reveals her effected teeth and gums, and with a small hand, most similar to a human claw, she tries to get her hair in order.Her eyes reflect a curiosity. She is everywhere in the room and can’t sit still. But her breathing is strained, her voice is mostly a hiss and it’s hard for her to make herself heard. The disease also attacks her windpipe and throat. It is likely that her death will be caused by suffocation.

R know she will die. She knows she lives in constant proximity to death. That’s why she refuses to sleep with white sheets – it’s white sheets in which dead bodies are buried – and on a few occasions, when she had a cold and was barely able to breathe at all, asked to call a few friends to say goodbye. One of those she dialed was Daniela.

Daniela came to Gaza for the first time in 2008 to work in water and sanitation for an Italian NGO. She did not return to Italy until 2011. However, she did not spend all her time in Gaza, but traveled back and forth to Israel and the West Bank via the crossing at Erez. During the “Operation Cast Lead” military offensive, she was in Jerusalem. And it was when she returned after the war that she first saw a child, a boy about ten years old, with what appeared to be third degree burns.

She contacted Dr. Majdy Naim, at the al-Shifa hospital, who introduced her to other affected families. Together they advertised in newspapers and radio stations, and thus registered all in the Gaza Strip with the rare disease. Many of the parents had been unaware that there were more victims, but with Daniela’s help, they have now formed an association where they can get support and advice from each other, and through the association they seek assistance worldwide.

Her involvement with these children led her to stop working for the NGO that brought her to Gaza. Instead she got in touch with another, Debra Italy. They were so interested in what Daniela had to say that they made contact with a hospital in Rome, and in December 2012, she was back in Gaza with specialized surgeons who dilated the childrens’ esophaguses so they can eat normally, a procedure that needs to be done more than once during their lives. They also brought the special fabric that allows the children to live more functional lives, a product that cannot be found in the area.

The last time Daniela returned to Gaza, she brought a bag of this fabric. But it was not without difficulty. She was stopped by customs at the Cairo airport, where they requesteded a certificate from the Egyptian ministry of health allowing her to bring in medical materials. Without it, she had to pay ten percent of the value, which was $ 600, money she was promised to get back when she crossed the border to Gaza with the unopened bag. Of course she did not receive any money back in Rafah. But she got the material in, and it is needed. The bandages need to be changed every two to three days, a procedure that takes more than two hours, and between ten and fifteen layers are needed to cover the wounds, costing $75 to $125. The stock she brought will last 5-6 months. After that, the families can only hope that Daniela or someone else will enter with more.

R has one year left to live. Daniela has a dream to take her to Italy to let surgeons there assess if it is feasible to perform one last surgery in her throat, and to give her a nice final trip. I ask no more about it, suspecting that what she calls a dream is what most of us call a will, and I have seen what her will can achieve. Instead, I ask how come she is so self-sacrificing and continues year after year. She is now 36 years old, an age when most people are focused on their families and careers. It was a coincidence that made her start to work with children who have this disease, and as she explains, it just feels right to do it. She does not need any more reason than that.

Video: Gaza mother remembers Israeli airstrike that decimated her family a year ago

20th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Gal·la López | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

On 19th November 2012, shortly before the end of Israel’s “Operation Pillar of Defense” military offensive against the Gaza Strip, an Israeli missile struck the Hijazi family’s house as they watched TV.

The father and two his children were killed. Other family members were injured. Their house was destroyed, and their lives will never be the same.

Amna Hijazi, the mother and wife of the victims who was amid the carnage of the attack, recalls the details of the day one year later.

Gaza boy remembers Israeli drone strike that maimed him and killed his cousin

18th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Charlie Andreasson | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

Muhamad al-Zaza. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

An hour before dusk, an armed drones flies low over the rooftops, taking its time, seeking. A few miles away, someone sits, perhaps a young man, perhaps a woman, in front of a screen, secure in a command center. Soon this faceless person will find a target and fire the drone’s deadly cargo.

Two boys, cousins, 14 and 15 years old, were playing as boys in that age often do, kicking a ball between them. Adulthood had not yet begun, the future was still made of dreams, and neither was aware of what was just about to befall them.

Meanwhile the man or woman in the command prepared to fly the drone back to its base, make a neat landing, and perhaps get for a pat on the back for a successful mission.

It was 19th August 2011.

Muhamad al-Zaza woke up lying in his own blood next to his cousin Ibrahim al-Zaza. He screamed, but only for a brief moment before he fell into unconsciousness. Muhamad would never hear Ibrahim shout again, nor would they ever kick another ball. Ibrahim died a month later from his injuries, after weeks of struggle against death. Another number for the statistics. Another casualty of the military occupation’s cruelty. A 14-year-old boy who had to atone with his life for the crime of having been born on the wrong side of the separation barrier.

When Muhamad awoke, he lay bandaged at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, more or less like a mummy. And there could he have died as a direct consequence of the siege. The medical equipment necessary to save the life of someone as badly injured as the two boys was not there. They had to get treatment elsewhere. Still, it took eight days before they were allowed to be transferred to Kaplan hospital, in Israel, the nation behind the attack and which caused their injuries. They were admitted not in recompense, but on a commercial basis, a cynicism that exceeds the limit of the possible.

Ibrahim was immediately placed in an isolated room when he arrived at Kaplan hospital. He had lost a lot of blood and both hands, and most of his internal organs were injured. All efforts to save him were in vain. For Muhamad, the odds were better, but his condition remained critical. Surgeons places eight nails in his leg, and it took several more surgeries to clip muscles and tendons in his legs and hands.

But the hospital was an oasis of humanity for the eleven months he stayed there, very different from what he would encounter during his journeys between hospitals. First he went to Jerusalem; for two months in rehabilitation; then to Nablus, for a month; for back surgery; and then to Egypt. He was refused ambulance transport, and only after a physician at Kaplan hospital, Dr. Tzvia Shapira, paid out of her own pocket could it be arranged. The harassment continued at military checkpoints, with the constant threat soldiers would deny him passage.

Photos of Muhamad's hospitalization. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson) — Photos of Muhamad’s hospitalization. (Photo by Charlie Andreasson)

When Atef al-Zaza, Muhamad’s father, begins to talk about Dr. Shapira, his eyes glitter like distant stars. She did not let Israeli propaganda and war rhetoric obscure her vision, but saw his son as a human being, and started a fundraising campaign to enable his continued operations and rehabilitation. But despite the warmth that surrounded Muhamad in her care, fear crept in every time he heard the sounds of F-16s from a nearby military airport. He feared not only for his own life, that they would come to finish the job, but also for his family and his friends in Gaza.

I asked him what he experiences today, two years after the attack that could have ended his life, when he hears the sound of the drones as they fly over the rooftops. Muhamad first threw a pleading glance at his father, who said that the nightmares his son once had no longer wake him at night. But when he began to describe the feelings the sound of the drones raise, I saw discomfort reflected in his face, a face whose muscles he struggled to control, and asked another question.

I asked him if he thought that the soldier who controlled the drone experienced it like a computer game, that the people maimed at a safe distance were not of flesh and blood, of emotions and dreams, but just something fictitious on a screen that generates points. This time the answer came immediately, and it was clear he had asked himself the same question. To him it did not matter if the pilot saw it as a computer game or not. “The soldiers, before they sit down in front of the levers, already have dehumanized us Palestinians,” he said. “They do not see us as people. If they did, they could never have done this to us. I would not talk to the soldier if we sat as you and I sit now. Now words can be exchanged between us, not as long as we are not people to them.”

“And,” he says, hesitating a little, “I ‘m afraid that I would hate him, that such a meeting would only produce a worse side of me.”

He pronounces the words with a calm voice, and I try to see the boy as he was before all this happened. The scars he showed me, covering large parts of his body, were obviously not the only ones caused by the drone attack.

The bill for the first eight months of Muhamad’s care in Israel landed on the Palestinian Authority’s desk. A fundraising campaign Dr. Shapira started funded the rest. But more surgery is needed for Muhamad to be able to return to a normal life, something very evident when he showed the injuries on its legs and hand.

During the interview, none of us knew that Dr. Shapira had just launched a new fundraising campaign to at least be able to operate on Muhamed’s hand. When Atef learned this, his eyes again glittered like lightning. But he knows that his son’s story is not unique, that many similar attacks have affected others, and that Dr. Shapira is not enough for everyone.

“Gaza Book”: Exhibition of photos by Gaza children

18th November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Maria del Mar Fernandez | Gaza, Occupied Palestine

We attended a photography exhibition last Wednesday in besieged Gaza City. There were many, many pictures, some of which we photographed. I wish were as much of an an artist as the children, between nine and 16 years old, who shot the originals. They were there, among the public, and I was able to talk to some of them. They told me that they, themselves, had chosen what they wanted to express. The black and white photography reflected how life is going in Gaza well. Yet there were many cheerful photos. I was moved as I wandered about among the scores of people at the exhibition. The children watched eagerly for our reactions and comments. I really would have liked to photograph all of them, or to spend more time there. It was amazing. Initiatives like this encourage children to overcome the great difficulties they face in their daily lives under occupation and siege, and under the permanent fear that Israel may launch another military offensive against them.

Tear gas in Hebron school leads to cancellation of classes

27th October 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Khalil Team | Hebron, Occupied Palestine

Two school children suffer from the effects of tear gas

In the Israeli controlled H2 area in the center of Khalil (Hebron) children are used to tear gas canisters being fired after them before going to school.

Usually the teaching is delayed for at least half an hour, as many children are afraid of walking along Shalala Street where the school is, and with good reason. This morning, eight Israeli soldiers and two members of the Border Police were present as the children made their way to school, and they responded with no hesitation when four young children threw a hand full stones towards the checkpoint. At first one stun grenade was thrown from behind the checkpoint where the soldiers held their position, but they moved immediately out of the checkpoint towards the school.

From this position, another five stun grenades were thrown and six tear gas canisters were fired, one of which was fired carelessly down the street, nearly hitting a Palestinian woman on her way to work. This would have required hospitalization.

One stun grenade was purposely thrown at two international activists who were taking photos of the episode. After around half an hour the soldiers and police decided to go back to the checkpoint where two of them remained to check the ID’s of Palestinians and internationals. The rest of the soldiers and police left in a jeep while teachers and pupils walked back home since the school yard and classrooms had tear gas hanging in the air.