Tuesday’s Child Blog

Tuesday’s Child Returns to Gaza – Day 3

Wednesday 8th July 2009

This morning I meet with 3 brothers from the Abu Eida company for concrete and construction materials. This company was one of the largest businesses in Gaza before the war and also a main employer. Operation Cast Lead changed all that. The small industrial area in Northern Gaza was completely obliterated. “We lost everything”, explains Mohammed Abu Eida, “factories, homes, agricultural land, vehicles. Thankfully none of our employees were killed. The first attack happened at the busiest time of the day for Gaza, people were working and children were just about to leave school, it was chaos”. I ask where they were when the war started. “We were here in this office, all of us, in a meeting. The whole building started trembling violently like an earthquake and then the bombs started falling, they were endless. We ran outside and the sky was black with fighter planes and helicopters and there was intensive shelling from the sea, it was coming from all directions and it was terrifying. There was thick black smoke everywhere and it was difficult to breathe, everyone was coughing and the noise was deafening. Our children were at school, but there was no mobile network. It is impossible to describe, there were 120 air attacks from air and sea in the first 5 minutes. My heart was beating so fast and it was impossible to think what or where to go first. It felt like Armegeddon, the end of the world. We got into our cars and drove home to see if our children were there, and then onto schools, with people being killed around us. It was terrible as children were all in different schools”.

Mohammed Abu Eida, Abu Eida Concrete and Construction Company

I ask if any of their families were hurt. “We all survived, thank God, but some of our children are extremely traumatised. They still cannot take it in". Mohammed’s eldest son who is 17 yrs old is still in shock and it is clear to see. "We had a good standard of living for Gaza and they have lost everything, their home gone and they find the transition to a small apartment difficult". I think back to when I was 17 when my father was made redundant. We had to leave our lovely home and it was a traumatic time. I missed my lovely room and nice things and the gardens and the large kitchen most of all and well just everything. Yet my parents turned the rambling home into a business while we moved into cramped rented accommodation. Yes, a traumatic time, without a full scale war, bombing of our home into oblivion and the death of 1400 people including school friends.

I ask about damage and prospects for recovery and I am given a poster that shows picture after picture of complete desolation. The family company lost 7 factories, 3 homes and 2 fruit tree plantations. Saddest of all, the sheer loss of life of people who made what living they could in this area. “Our father built this company up over many years and we, his sons, continued it. He died three years ago and I am glad he is not here for this”, offers an older brother.

Many people come and go to this office this morning and it is clear that Mohammed and his brothers are held in high regard. Mohammed is impeccable, mannered, informed, fluent in English and very kind about my attempts at basic words in Arabic (I am learning 10 new words and phrases a day). He and his brothers have gone from being one of the wealthiest families in Gaza to being in the same boat as everyone else, yet they are determined to start again and this is an inspiration to many. It is a huge setback for all of us, but we did it once, and with the help of God, we will start again. I speak with his other brothers and they tell me they are already starting. A representative from the UN visited the area last week, he shows me the representative's card, I don’t recognise the name but he seems important. He said he had no words just tears and he shed many. They ask me to come and see their recovery work later in the week. I admire their resolve and spirit in the face of such adversity. At least, however, unlike many, they are here to tell their story.

I return to Sabah’s house for lunch with her and her children. They speak again of the war and it is clear it is never far from their minds. I listen. I check my email and there is one from Ireland’s Amnesty group flagging a TV3 programme by Vincent Browne last night in Dublin on Gaza. We sit around my laptop and try to download it but, with the internet connection so poor here, we only get the link in a few sentences at a time, so it is a tedious process, like many things in Gaza. A representative from the Israeli embassy in Dublin, is speaking. He says quite calmly “there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza”. Hello?! Are you living on the same planet as everyone else? How can people holding such positions of office lie so blatantly? And on the subject of cement and building materials, he offers “we cannot send cement and building materials into Gaza because Hamas would use it to build tunnels”. I roar laughing at this point, it is the first good laugh I have had since my arrival and I needed it. There are 2,200 tunnels in Gaza, 1400 hundred of them active and not one of them is built with cement. What point is there in discussion forums and dialogue if people are going to go onto national television and discuss such an important issue without truth. And then another beauty from another twat, whose name I didn’t catch “the Gaza strip is not obliterated”. Fair play to the Aidan O’Loughlin, the Irish journalist on the panel, he underpins lie after lie and concisely so. We switch off, we have heard enough and I regret recommending that we watch it.

We head out to buy more sweets for children and to do some filming. I ask Sabah’s son Mohanned to join us. He came with us yesterday, to visit the families in Beth Lathia and Jabalyia and he enjoyed his new role in helping with the coverage. I tell him he would make a great cameraman and he smiles. It is important to give as much encouragement as possible and always to speak of the future in hopeful terms. I approached a number of press photographers before my trip to travel with me, but no one wanted to know and another wasted much too much of my time. Indeed, on several occasions, some told me I was crazy to go to Gaza. However, there is nothing to fear here now, apart from the inability of these people, to recover from this atrocity. I did manage to find a kindred spirit in Maeve who had no qualms in coming along as photographer and said yes immediately, however we couldn’t get clearance for her in time for this trip. Maeve is from Portstewart and has gone on location with third world charities on a voluntary basis and works at The Big Wheel in Belfast. Thanks for being up for it Maeve! Next time!

We drive to the industrial area to follow-up on this morning’s thread. The smell is nauseating and I cover my nose and mouth. “It’s from carcusses of many dead animals, this was the main agricultural area”, our driver Ahmed explains. In some areas it is impossible to breathe and I am retching, the smell is foul and intense. “This is nothing, when we first came here a few days after the war, there was no road, streets could not be identified, bodies of workers here lay everywhere rotting in the heat, among them many dead animals, cows, goats, chickens and sheep. We had to wear masks and scarves over our faces and there were still fires burning from the white phosphorus. Really, it was like a scene from the worst horror movie”. I ask if all the dead bodies have been removed and am told yes, that the Red Cross cleared the area, although it is thought some still lie unclaimed under the rubble or burned to ash in the intense white phosphorus fires here. I can only imagine the suffering that happened and tears roll freely down my cheeks as I survey the mess.

We drive on and the destruction defies belief. I take endless photos, each one worse than the previous. We pass what was a huge barn for keeping cattle, now a blackened shell. "As the cows ran out of the burning buildings", explains Ahmed, "Israeli forces shot them one by one, laughing and enjoying their game. Whole fields of cows lay dead here, all around, they lay sprawled and bleeding". I picture the scene and wince for I love animals and I don’t want to hear anymore. Even as it is, the state of the hundreds of donkeys in Gaza, is terrible. My friends here often comment on my love of donkeys and joke that I should open a donkey sanctuary in Gaza. Joking apart, animal rights movements would have a field day in Gaza. However, people here can hardly feed and water themselves, let alone their donkeys.

One of the many factory shells in the industrial area

Remnants of another factory

Remains of cattle barn where many cows where shot as they ran from the blaze

“And they shot all the animals in the zoo too”, Ahmed says. “Yes, I read about the zoo”, I tell him, “I would like to visit there”. My mind wanders back to many happy days visiting Dublin zoo with my Mum and brothers and sisters when my Dad was horseracing and having a flutter on a donkey or two of his own. While, Ireland had many raw years of occupation, British forces never came into a zoo and shot all animals dead. OK, yes they had bigger fish to fry like Croke Park 90 yrs ago, but a zoo? What kind of mind would even think of it?

Expanding on the zoo subject, Ahmed asks me if I heard about the lion. “The lion”, I ask? “Yes the lion they brought through the tunnels for the zoo”. I laugh at him suggesting he is pulling my leg, but he explains, “Many people in Gaza were very upset about the zoo and some tried to replace the animals, through the tunnels, but there was a bit of a problem with the lion”. I tell him I have heard of a lion in a wardrobe but never a tunnel; however CS Lewis hasn’t reached Gaza and he doesn’t understand; it is too difficult to explain without bringing a witch into it and so I ask him to tell me about the lion. "Well, it came via Egypt and it was drugged there and brought through in one of the small cars they use in the tunnels, but they didn’t give it enough drug and when it was coming out of the shaft of the tunnel, he wakened and killed his handler and injured a second man". Unbelievable story, however in this instance my sympathy is with the lion. I tell him if someone anaesthetised me, dropped me into a tunnel, then into a car for a 2000 metre drive and then up the same height on a winch, I would be pretty angry too. It seems you can bring anything in via a tunnel, for a price. Gaza is a crazy place. I ask if he will take me to visit the tunnels and we agree to go to Rafah on Tuesday.

I am glad of the lion diversion as it takes my mind off the misery here. I ask Ahmed to put his foot down as I can’t take the smell. About 500 yards on, we meet bits and pieces of self-made houses and families wave as we drive by. I can’t believe how anyone can possibly still live here in the smell and the squalor. "This is where their homes were", explains Ahmed, "and they want to stay near to home". Still this is horrific. As we drive past, children wave through windows and I want to stop and meet them, but Ahmed decides no. "Another time", he says, and we drive on as I click away. One strikes me in particular, it is half home, half tent and has a huge Palestinian flag and looks as if it could fall at any minute for the rubble pile it is built on looks like it could cave in any minute.

Family living near the industrial area

There are many more makeshift homes in this stretch. I simply could not live like this. I would like to stop and knock and say hello, meet these people and listen to their stories. I will return!

As we drive, I reflect on a statement from an interview with John Ging at the end of April stating “the people of Gaza continue to subsist in the rubble of their former lives and the attention of the world has sadly moved on, which compounds their despair”. This sums it up exactly, accurate, concise and to the point. While many wax lyrical on Obama’s speech in Cairo, I prefer the Ging approach as he calls a spade a spade and hits the nail on the head without all the flower arranging. Indeed, when it comes to Gaza, he is the nutshell king. I thought his answer to the night electricity curfews published in one of the Sunday papers at home at the end of January was par excellence “Cutting of power affects mothers, not militants. Militants operate very well in the dark, but mothers don’t” and one that stands out in my mind particularly. It just hits the message home. I can see why the people of Gaza I have met say they would like him for President, for he has taken these people to his heart, has the courage to call it as it is while at the same time refusing to tolerate rocket attacks on Israel.

Makeshift home in the rubble

Another makeshift home

The following pictures show just some of the damage to just a few of the hundreds of homes destroyed by Operation Cast Lead in this area.

Bombed home near the industrial area

Another home destroyed, one of thousands across Gaza

Area where apartment block fell

A little further on we come to one of the many batches of relief camps. In the adjacent plot of land a new cemetery opened during the war, were many of the dead from this area are buried.

Temporary accommodation in relief tents

Relief tents overlooking new cemetery opened during war

Time now to visit more of the families we support through the feeding programme; we drive back to meet up with Sabah and Fowzia. We have 5 families to visit this evening. We go via my hotel to pick up more sweets and also food supplements for children, as every house we visit, we bring both as well as toys. The continual supply of sweets is now nicknamed the sweet factory by Sabah and Ahmed. The toy factory is bigger again. Little treats and toys are very important and the little gifts make little faces light up.

Tuesday’s Child’s “sweet factory”

The first family, this afternoon, Moherub Hwuayhi, lives close to The American School. A family of 5 children with another baby on the way. Their’s is a nice home with a garden, but ruined and shot to pieces. They joined the feeding programme after the war. I ask Mrs Hwuayhi, how her pregnancy is going. She says it is fine, but she is very tired. I ask if she is taking iron and she says no. I ask how long the food lasts the family and she says between 10-14 days. Anaemia in pregnancy here is very common, estimated at 80 percent at cases. Routine iron supplementation in the second trimester is really needed in Gaza, as is pre-conceptual folic acid and also for the first trimester.

We drive to the second family of Sharf Sobh in Beth Lahyia. There are 6 children here and the youngest baby born after the death of his father in the war. The mother has been unwell and in hospital and has returned to her own family with her children. I am also introduced to her grandmother. Again, as with every family we leave some money for their needs. This money is hugely welcomed in every household and so desperately needed. I wish we had more to give each home.

Baby Sobh, 4 months old, father killed in January ‘09

Main living area of family Basel Sobh

Grandmother Sobh

We drive on to another family badly affected by the war. In this house three brothers lived with their mother, all of them with wives and children. All three brothers died in an F16 attack. We meet the Basel Sobh family of 6 first of all, who lived in the bottom floor of the home. Basel explains that her husband was killed when their home collapsed, he was in bed at the time. She brings me into her home and shows the huge window through which the rubble crashed that killed her husband. Behind the checked curtain the window space is packed solid with rubble restrained with whatever the family have found to keep of it from pouring in. The restrained rubble fills the large window space blocking out all light into the home. I can’t believe it has not been cleared, it is dangerous to leave it like this.

Rubble from F16 attack that killed three brothers in Sobh family home

Basel introduces us to her 5 children, and tells us the food lasts about 14 days. She is 7 months pregnant, another child in Gaza that will never know its father.

Basel Sobh with her 5 children

Upstairs we visit her sister-in-law, Rezaqm and her 8 children, standing in what was their former home. Here the two outside walls and the roof have gone completely and she points to show where her husband died.

Rezaq Sobh, mother of 7 children in living room of her former home

Rubble that killed Rezaq’s husband

It is just one heartbreaking story after another. As we move on, I am acutely aware of the sheer trauma and shattered lives we are leaving behind.

Basel and Rezaq’s mother-in-law her lost 3 sons in the one attack

Our next stop is back in Jablayia. We drive through a maze of streets to meet the Siad Eade family. It is too narrow to drive here so we leave the car and walk. There are so many children here and we give out lollipops and sweets as we go along. The word soon spreads on the street and we are surrounded. When we arrive at the family home there must be fifty children behind us all delighted with the treats and hoping for more. Almost every child here is in the bare feet. Supply of shoes for children in Jabalyia, I will add it to the list!

Children of Jabalyia

Children of Jablayia

Children of Jabalyia

Sweets disappear rapidly in Jabalyia

We finally reach the Eade family at the end of a long street, there are over 20 in this family and they have been part of the feeding programme from the beginning.

The Said Eade Family

It is getting quite dark now so we have to call it a day. We return to the car followed by many children, however we are out of sweets for now. Ahmed doesn’t like driving in the narrow streets here in Jablayia with so many children. As we drive off, they still follow the car smiling, waving and still hopeful for more sweets.

We say goodnight to Sabah and Fowzia and drive into Gaza city, stopping to replenish the sweet factory again. We shop quickly for it is late. I notice some lion bars and buy some. In the car, I hand one to Ahmed and he roars laughing; we are still getting mileage out of the lion and the tunnel tale.

I change hotels tonight getting to my new address about 11 p.m. I look forward to a shower but there is no water, nothing. Someone comes up to bleed the taps and still no water. Again, the things we take for granted. This is nothing, many of the families I met today have no water for up to a week at a time. And then a large cockroach pops out to say hello and runs across the bathroom floor.  I squeal, much to the amusement of the kindly porter come plumber. I surmise what he is probably thinking - it is only a cockroach not an Israeli soldier!  At least there is light in this hotel, I couldn’t bear cockroaches in the dark.  The heat is stifling and no air-conditioning here. I am moved to another room about 1 a.m. some water, albeit cold, at last and I am very grateful for it. The hotel is too small for me and the cockroach family, however, and one of us will have to go. I will check out tomorrow!

I reflect on the day and where other people are sleeping tonight. I lift volume one of Direction For Our Times (www.directionforourtimes.com) and after a short prayer open it at a page 158 that says “Children, it is not I who has brought darkness over this world. There is enough food in the world. Medical care, also, can be spread around in a more effective manner. Humanitarian assistance to your poor and less advanced societies is an act of mercy and those who practice it are following My will whether they know it or not...I need leaders now. I need every single one of you to turn your faces to heaven and agree to serve me. The darkness has lost its time now and I will have the world my may. You must see that this happens in your corner”. I thank Him for putting me on this path for it is the most important of work and I consider it is a privilege to be able to help those in need, even in little ways. I just wish I had found it sooner and not wasted so much time chasing twists and turns in what I thought was my vocational career, for in the greater scheme of things, such achievement is not important and, in truth, I was chartering a very shallow course.

If you are in a position to help any of the families we met during our time in Gaza, please contact us at info@tuesdayschild.co.uk or donate online here »

Continue to read Day 4 »