21st November 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Rosa Schiano | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The lack of electricity in the Gaza Strip is also creating an environmental crisis. Wastewater treatment facilities have stopped due to the lack of fuel. In the Zeitoun neighborhood, in the east of Gaza City, a sewage pumping station has stopped working due to the lack of electricity. The wastewater flooded the streets and houses in the neighborhood.
In the few hours when electricity is on, the water is again partially collected from the plant, leaving mud and putrid slime on which children walk to reach their homes. In some cases, inhabitants have built small bridges. In others, where this is not possible, people have to look for alternate routes through the neighborhood. When the system stops, sewage again starts to submerge the streets.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
At the entrance one building, residents had placed wooden boards to walk on until they reach the stairs. The building was partially evacuated, with only a few families remaining.
“We have lived here a month, and we would like to leave,” Nadia, a young mother, said shortly before the electricity cut. “We haven’t gone out for a week. My kids are sick. I needed to take them to the hospital to see what they had. The doctor told me they contracted an infection due to the dirty water. They had high fevers. Their temperature was over 40 degrees.” Nadia has three daughters and one son. During the night, they can’t sleep because of the stench of sewage. There are also insects and rats.
The waste water also flooded a farmland on which many olive trees are planted. If the emergency is not solved, the land will be irreversibly contaminated. The pumping station, which is used to transfer wastewater from the center to the south of Gaza City, was flooded.
Much of the fuel arrived in Gaza through the underground tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt, now almost totally destroyed by the Egyptian army. Israeli fuel, which is twice as much, costs too much for most in Gaza to afford.
The Energy Authority in Gaza had started to buy fuel from Israel through the Energy Authority in Ramallah, which exempted fuel purchases from taxes. But Ramallah Authority demanded the Gaza Authority pay taxes on the fuel due to the Palestinian Authority’s current financial crisis. The Energy Authority in Gaza, which cannot pay the costs, refused.
(Photo by Rosa Schiano)
The only power plant in the Gaza Strip can work for limited periods. In coming days, the supply of electricity is expected to be further reduced from six to four hours per day. “A disaster, a catastrophe,” children in the Zeitoun neighborhood repeated. Employees of the municipality worked with boots and gloves. Other wasterwater treatment facilities may stop if their generators also run out of fuel.
The humanitarian conditions in the Gaza Strip are deteriorating. The energy crisis affects all the daily needs of the population. Israel has kept the Gaza Strip under siege for over seven years, imposing restrictions on exports (almost zero) and imports of goods, fuel, building materials and other necessities, thus creating increases in unemployment, poverty and aid dependency.
24 March 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza
On Sunday it was reported that a young boy had been shot on farmland near the Rafah crossing. The details were unclear. Several colleagues and I traveled to Rafah to find out what happened. After making several inquiries, we entered a Bedouin area several hundred meters north of Gaza’s border with Egypt and three kilometers from the Karm Abu Salem area of the Israeli border on the East. We followed a young man on a motorcycle down dusty roads with small plots of crops and olive trees on one side, and dilapidated homes made of corrugated metal, cinder block and plastic on the other.
Standing outside a rickety gate, three boys explain that we need to wait, as there are only women at home. A child runs off to summon a male family member. Someone calls from inside asking us to enter.
We pass through a dusty courtyard and are directed to a small dark room with nothing but mats on the floor. A bare light bulb hangs overhead. A plastic clock hangs on the wall. Despite all the children on the street and in the home, there are no toys. A young boy sits in the corner, playing with the fringe on a woman’s coat, shy and surprised at the strangers in his home. A woman with a child clutching her leg peeks from behind a curtain. Plastic chairs are brought in for the guests.
Faiza, the boy’s forty-four-year-old mother enters and sits on the mat next to the boy. He is six-year-old Sohaib Sultan. He is the victim of the shooting, but he looks uninjured. Faiza pulls down his pants to show the fresh bandage on his left buttock. She explains that on Saturday evening at seven o’clock, they heard gunfire from the border. Sohaib was sitting exactly where we sat, playing on the floor with his brothers, when the bullet pierced the corrugated metal roof and struck him. She points to the hole in the ceiling just above my head.
She produces his x-ray, showing a large caliber bullet lodged inches from his pelvis. If he had been sitting in a slightly altered position he could easily be dead. As it was, the bullet did little damage. His mother explains that the bullet hasn’t been removed yet. They need to schedule surgery with the hospital.
Sohaib’s father, Majd, enters the room and sits beside me. He explains the family’s circumstances. He is unemployed and his wife suffers from kidney disease. There is little income and very little support from the government. He and his wife have nine children. Sohaib is the youngest. It is the first time a family member has been injured, although there is often the sound of gunfire from the border and bullets have struck neighbor’s homes in the past.
He said, “We are often afraid, we never know when a bullet could come down.” He continued to state, “To the Israelis we say, ‘Please don’t shoot us, we are civilians here, we have no weapons, we live a civilian life. We just want to live like humans. We want to live in peace.’”
Baraka al-Morabi was not as lucky as Sohab Sultan. He lived in Zeitoun camp with his mother, father and two sisters as well as his grandmother and three aunts with their families.
I attended his funeral. I watched as a father stumbled, carrying his seven-year-old child to his grave. Baraka was wrapped in a white shroud and lowered into the ground. A short ceremony was held. A Palestinian flag was draped over the fresh mound of dirt, and a cardboard placard identifies the grave. His is the last in a line of fourteen new graves of fighters and civilians.
Several days after the funeral we visited with Baraka’s father, Mohammed Osman al-Mograbi. He led us down rutted dirty streets, past the gaggles of bare foot children, to his home in Zeitoun camp. We sat in a small, concrete enclosed courtyard adjacent to a small stable that contained a horse and a small pony. The pony was born just weeks ago, a gift for Baraka.
As the family joins us under martyr posters of the young boy and his neighbors, we learn the story of Baraka’s death.
On Saturday March 17th there was a funeral in Zeitoun for three fighters who had been killed the day before in an Israeli bombing. Baraka was walking in the funeral procession. Many people were firing pistols and Kalashnikovs into the air, as they will during both funerals and celebrations. Suddenly Baraka stumbled to the ground. He was struck in the back of the head by a bullet falling from the sky. He was hospitalized for four days before he died.
Mohammed tells us, “Baraka was a happy child. He did well in school and was always smiling.”
Now, he is gone, but not forgotten.
In Gaza, reminders of war and violence are everywhere. It is normal to hear the sound of drones and F-16’s crossing the sky. The sound of machine gun fire from Israeli gunboats often punctuates a day at the beach or disrupts one’s sleep. Building facades made of plaster and cinder block are scored with large caliber bullet holes, or even larger holes from mortars. Weeds grow around twisted metal and chunks of concrete in lots where buildings were reduced to rubble in Cast Lead, and there are the newly flattened buildings from last week’s attacks.
And often, the bullets find much softer targets. Posters of the newly dead replace martyr posters faded and torn. Then there is the one legged man in the market, the burned woman I pass on the street, the pock marked arms and faces of shrapnel victims, and the men forever bound by wheelchairs.
Now there is a new poster, of a young boy who was killed in an act of senseless violence where violence and destruction seem the norm. His death is just a footnote in the context of the larger systemic violence waged on the people here, but just last week he was not a footnote, he was a smiling vibrant seven-year-old boy who did well in school and had a new horse. He was living.
Baraka’s grandmother appears heartbroken. Baraka’s mother is less than reassured. She is pale and drawn. She is also carrying her fourth child, and on the day Baraka died, she thought she was ready to deliver and was rushed to the hospital, but the doctors sent her home to wait and grieve.
Mohammed smiled.
“Do not be sad,” he said to me, “Baraka is in paradise, it is a better place than here.” Mohammed seemed at peace. “We don’t worry,” he said, “We are a happy family.”
Johnny Bravo is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).
“If there is another war I won’t be moving, even if we die there, I don’t want to go through that again”
Mustafa, Abdel Kareem and Rezeq Ayad (Photo: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights)
On 12 January 2009, the Ayad family home in the Zaytoon area of Gaza City was bulldozed by Israeli forces. Rezeq Ayad, 60, his wife Yusra, 58, and their four sons Mustafa, 16, Muhammed, 20, Abdel Kareem 26, and Khalil, 29, and Khalil’s two daughters were left homeless as a result of the attack. The family had left the area a few days prior to the destruction of their home, as a result of the intense Israeli bombardment of the area.
Speaking to Rezeq Ayad and his son, Abdel Kareem, the relief they feel having put their displacement behind them is clear. Now back in the family home – which they started rebuilding in May 2010 and moved into in October 2010 – the two are glad and thankful that the family are now safe and relatively secure once again. “I remember that time and I just thank God we are all still alive,” says Rezeq.
“We had left the house with nothing but the clothes we were wearing and a few blankets and mattresses,” explains Abdel Kareem, “we lost everything with the house when it was bulldozed.” In the aftermath of the attack the whole family were forced to find alternative shelter. “I and my wife moved to relatives in Asqoula in Gaza City,” says Rezeq, “my son Abdel Kareem was forced to move to the al Samouni neighbourhood and my son Khalil had no choice but to spend two years in a tent camp with his wife and young daughters.”
Rezeq’s son, Muhammed Ayad, who was 17 at the time, built a small structure among the ruins of the family home and stayed there so he could watch over the house and his donkeys, which he kept in the area.
Abdel Kareem and his wife Shaheera, 22, spent a little over a year in a makeshift hut that he built from corrugated iron and plastic. “My wife is from the al Samouni family; after the massacre of the al Samouni’s in that area during the war she didn’t want to move there out of fear of another attack taking place. But we had nowhere else to go.” Abdel Kareem describes the conditions the couple endured over that year as “intolerable.” “During the summer it was unbearably hot, during the winter, unbearably cold.”
Shaheera was pregnant with the young couple’s first child at the time the couple were homeless. “There was no running water or electricity in the hut. Shaheera would have to wait for me to come home from work to bring her water. Her pregnancy was very difficult. I was working selling vegetables and transporting goods to save money to build my house,” says Abdul Kareem, “the day we moved in my wife gave birth to my little girl Ru’al.” Reflecting on the incident Abdul stresses that he would be unwilling to put himself and his family through the same experience once more. “If there is another war I won’t be moving, even if we die there, I don’t want to go through that again.”
Khalil Ayad, his wife Nabila and their daughters Islam, 5, and Gadeer, 4, were also forced into haphazard makeshift accommodation after the attack. “Khalil went to a tent camp in the Zaytoon area of Gaza. There were a lot of families displaced during the war that moved there temporarily. But Khalil’s was the last family to leave. They spent two years there in total” says Rezeq. “They would collect firewood to cook and boil water and they shared a common well with the rest of the camp residents for water.” During this experience, Nabila gave birth to, Rezeq, now 1. Like Shaheera, Nabila’s pregnancy occurred under very difficult circumstances.
Talking of the future, Abdel Kareem’s hopes are simple. “I hope to be strong enough to continue my life and to be a good man” he says. As regards the families complaint with the Israeli government Rezeq and Abdel Kareem are dismissive of any potential for redress; “We don’t expect anything from the case. The house was a small home in a quiet residential neighbourhood. It was clearly not a military target. The soldiers knew what they were doing; they just wanted to destroy it. They will not investigate.”
Discussing how he was able to rebuild the family home following its destruction Rezeq explains that he had savings from his time as a school teacher in a local UNRWA school. Talking about what he had planned to do with the money he had saved over a lifetime, prior to spending it all on repairing the damage caused by the Israeli military, Rezeq says that he had hoped to help his sons with their marriage and their education. “I spent everything I had saved,” says Rezeq with a smile and a shrug of his shoulders, “so now I start again.”
PCHR submitted a criminal complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the Ayad family on 2 August 2009. To-date, no response has been received.
“The bodies of nine of those killed were not found, including the bodies of my wife and my children. I tried my best with the civil defense personnel to find their bodies. All we found were pieces of flesh that were unidentifiable.”
Mohammed al-Dayah (31) with his daughter Qamar (1.5) (Photo: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights)
On 6 January 2009, at approximately 05:45, an Israeli aircraft bombed the al-Dayah family in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City. 22 people, including 12 children and a pregnant woman, were killed. Only one of the family members inside the house at the time of the attack, Amer al-Dayah (31), survived. Amer, two brothers who had not yet returned home from Morning Prayer at a nearby mosque, and two sisters who live elsewhere with their husbands and children are the only surviving members of the al-Dayah family.
Mohammed al-Dayah (31) recalls the day of the attack: “after I finished praying, I stood beside the mosque, talking to our neighbor, waiting for the sound of the airplanes and bombardments in the area to decrease. Then I heard a very powerful explosion. Shrapnel landed where I was standing. I immediately rushed home. When I reached it, I only found a pile of rubble. I began screaming and calling out for members of my family, but there was no reply. They were all under the rubble. Dead.”
Mohammed was not able to bury his wife Tezal (28), daughters Amani (6), Qamar (5), Arij (3) or his son Yousef (2). “The bodies of nine of those killed were not found, including the bodies of my wife and my children. I tried my best with the civil defense personnel to find their bodies. All we found were pieces of flesh that were unidentifiable,” he says. Tazal was 8 months pregnant with a boy when she was killed.
“At the moment I cannot imagine ever being happy again, or celebrating a happy occasion. It reminds me of the old life I used to have with my family. Before, I used to go to many parties. I always danced dabke, together with my extended family in Zeitoun. I led the dancing. Whenever we had a chance to celebrate, we would. Now I cannot bear the sound of party music, of celebrations. It makes me too sad. Whenever there is a party in the neighborhood, I have to leave the house and go somewhere else,” says Mohammed. The holidays are the most difficult time of the year for him: “during Ramadan and the Eid holidays I suffer and think of them even more than usual.”
His brother ‘Amer pushed Mohammed to remarry. “At first I didn’t want to but I was alone and I had to somehow rebuild a life,” says Mohammed. Now Mohammed is remarried and has two daughters, Amani (4 months) and Qamar (1.5 years old), both named after his daughters who died in the attack. “I didn’t make a party when I remarried. Neither did my brothers for their weddings. We simply do not feel like celebrating anything.”
Mohammed works as an electrician with the Ministry of Health, but has had difficulties at his work since he lost his family. “I am not able to sleep at night. The night time is the most difficult part of the day for me as I cannot fall asleep. I have tried everything. Even medicine, but that only made me dizzy. So, at night I just stay up and keep myself busy; eating, taking a walk, sitting in the cemetery, going for a run. Only after sunrise I fall asleep for a few hours, exhausted. Then, how can I go to work in time? I can’t. My boss has given me 10 warnings so far but at the same time I know that he understands and has sympathy for my situation.”
The three brothers rebuilt a house on the same place as the old building. All three of them insisted to return to the same location. “It is where we grew up,” says Mohammed. “The Ministry of Works assisted us in constructing the base and first floor of the house, but the bomb left a seven meter deep hole under the building which affected the foundation and ground water. It took us 3 months to fix the water problem, before we could even start construction of a new building.” However, Mohammed still notices that there are problems with the foundation of the building. “Every time there is a bombing, I feel the house move. It wasn’t like that before. The house is not steady. The base was destroyed by the bomb.”
As Mohammed tries to rebuild a life and a future, he has no hopes that he will see those responsible for the death of his family being held accountable. “I expect nothing from Israeli Courts. They [Israel] prepare a plan and justification first and then carry out their attack. The war crimes are justified before being committed. Crimes could happen anytime again.”
PCHR submitted a criminal complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the al-Dayah family on 18 May 2009. To-date, no response has been received.
“I have constant pain in my head, eyes and ears. I have been having nose bleeds for the past three years. I can still feel the shrapnel move inside my brain”
Amal al-Samouni (11) sitting in front of her house in Zeitoun neighborhood (Photo: Palestinian Center for Human Rights)
On 4 January 2009 at around 6:00 Israeli forces surrounded the house where Amal al-Samouni (11) and 18 members of her extended family were sheltering, in Zeitoun neighborhood east of Gaza City. Israeli soldiers ordered the owner of the house, Amal’s father Attia al-Samouni (37), to step outside with his hands up. Upon opening the door he was immediately killed by shots to the head and chest. Soldiers then started firing bullets into the house, killing Amal’s 4-year old brother Ahmad al-Samouni and injuring at least 4 other people, of whom 2 were children.
Over the following hours, soldiers ordered over 100 other members of the extended al-Samouni family into the house of Wa’el Fares Hamdi al-Samouni, Amal’s uncle. On 5 January 2009 Israeli forces directly targeted the house and its vicinity, killing 21 persons and injuring many others. Amal, who was inside, was wounded by shrapnel to the head and buried under the rubble, lying between injured, dying and deceased relatives. On 7 January ambulance personnel, who were prevented from entering the area until then, evacuated her to hospital.
Between 4-7 January 2009, 27 members of the Samouni family were killed, including 11 children and 6 women, and 35 others were injured, including Amal’s twin brother Abdallah.
Amal survived those 4 horrific days but is left with permanent injuries and trauma. “I remember my brother and father and how they were murdered in every moment,” says Amal as she thinks back on the attacks and the three days she spent buried under the rubble of her uncle’s house without food or water. Amal does not need a lot of words to express how she feels: “before, we used to live together as a happy family. Now I don’t feel happy anymore.”
Amal did not only lose her father; the family’s home was also destroyed by the army. “For one year we lived with the parents of my mother, in Gaza’s Shaja’iya neighborhood. Then we lived in a storage room for 1.5 years. It didn’t have a floor. There was just sand. Since 6 months we are living where our old house used to be. It is not even half the size of our old home. I didn’t want to return to our neighborhood because of what happened. My family didn’t want to either but we had no choice.” Like many other members of the al-Samouni family, Amal’s household now receives some help from relatives living in their neighborhood, but is still struggling to manage financially. The living conditions of Amal and her family have somewhat improved over time, although the house still lacks equipment like a refrigerator, washing machine, and a closet for the children’s clothing. Amal’s father, Attia, was a farmer. He grew vegetable crops on a rented plot, which used to provide the family income.
As the reconstruction of life and livelihoods continues in the al-Samouni neighborhood, Amal continues to struggle with her injuries. The pieces of shrapnel embedded in her brain cause her severe pains. “I have constant pain in my head, eyes and ears. I have been having nose bleeds for the past three years. I can still feel the shrapnel move inside my brain,” she says. Local doctors say it would be too dangerous to remove the pieces, but Amal cannot accept this quite yet. She has a strong wish to travel abroad to see a doctor. “I want to be sure about my situation and have another doctor look at my situation. I want to try everything possible to end my problem and pain. Other children are sometimes able to travel for fun. My wish is serious; I won’t travel for amusement but for medical treatment.”
The continuous pain has a profound impact on Amal’s mood, her relationship with her siblings, and her performance in school. “When I have a lot of pain I become nervous and angry.” Her mother Zeinat (38) adds that “she then easily becomes angry with her younger siblings and beats them. Recently she and I visited a hospital again to see how she could be helped. The doctor prescribed tramal [a sedative] but I will not allow her to take medicine like that.”
“When I am sad I go to my aunt’s house to see my cousins, or I prepare my books for school,” says Amal. “Before the war I was excellent in school. Now my scores are not so good anymore.” While speaking of her dropped scores Amal becomes very emotional. The teacher told her mother that Amal is not able to focus in class. This semester Amal failed two subjects. “I have pain in my eyes when I look at the blackboard,” Amal says, very upset. Despite her difficulties in school, Amal knows what she would like to study for: “when I am older I want to become a pediatrician and help to treat wounded people.”
PCHR submitted a criminal complaint to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the al-Samouni family on 8 May 2009. To-date, only an interlocutory response has been received, noting receipt of the complaint. Despite repeated requests, no further information has been received.
