KARAMA
Gaza, Dignity Under Siege
by Adriana Zega
Faiza and Mansour
Qarara, Khan Younis
As usual all of them sit on the ground on a “farshe”, a thin matress. Their eyes are smiling, they are bright and full of life despite the difficulties.
Mansour and Faiza have seven children. The smallest one, Yousef who is two years old, runs away and hides inside to play, we chase him.
They now live in a precarious shack they built after the war. Their house was destroyed during Cast Lead, since then their life has been turned upside down.
They live as if “suspended” in a temporary situation, waiting to regain a normal and dignified life. When we ask if the have hope in the future, 10 years old Mohammed, anticipating his parents, promptly replies: “We will see our future when we will have rebuilt our house”.
Interview:
"Until 2000 we were farming our five dunum of land. They were next to the border and the Israelis intimated us not to go further the 300 meters. From the second Intifada, it became to dangerous to get close to our land. We were living in the buffer zone, 400 meters from the border, close to a checkpoint. Around our house we still had a small piece of land my brothers and I shared where we could cultivate some vegetables for our livelihood.Since Cast Lead war, Israel is impeding our return. Our house was big, made of concrete, it had many rooms. Not like the one where we are now living. Here we feel safer than where we were before. But the whole Gaza Strip is under occupation.”
“Life in the buffer zone had always been risky. When in 2005 the settlers left Gaza we didn’t feel the difference. We felt in danger anyway. Nothing had changed really apart from resistance, which after The Israeli disengagement, began to take action in the border area. They came from outside, from other areas, they would shoot and then leave. We were afraid of both: the Israeli and the resistance. The Israeli army would suddenly begin shooting, even when there was no resistance actions. We feared going out from the house or to allow our children to play freely outside”.
“My father was arrested the first time in 1969. He spent in total 15 years in jail. He got sick during his imprisonment, he felt a strong pain in the chest. Last time he was released was in 1995 and he died only two years after. One of my brothers , who was 23 years old, was killed by the Israeli while my father was in prison . Another of my brother is in prison, he has four children. He was sentenced to eight years. Four years ago the Israeli soldiers came to the area where we were living and arrested all the men. They released them all, except for my brother and another man.”
"Me too, I was arrested and held for one and a half days. They first surrounded us and then entered house by house and checked everything inside. They handcuffed us tightly and blindfolded us. They took more than eighty people, even an old man who couldn't talk or move. We were brought to Kussifim military base, right after the border. They tied our hands behind our back with plastic handcuffs. They forced us to sit on the gravel and they beat us. It was painful. They continued asking us about military and political groups: From where are they coming? Who are they?”.
“When the war started we didn't move from our house for nine days. Oh my God, we were terrified!. Every instant I was expecting that they would attack .I thought that we were all about to die inside there. Children could understand what was happening, they were scared. On The ninth day of war the soldiers screamed at us to leave. They shouted with a megaphone“LEAVE THE HOUSES IMMEDIATELY” calling each family by its name. I was washing the clothes the moment they called us out. We fled. We didn’t take anything, we already had to carry our children. I took only small things, some bread and tomatoes. We thought we were going to come back home soon, after one day or two maybe. We left quickly with almost all the families of the area, around 60 in total. Apart from one family that refused to leave. An old man remained with his son and his children. They didn’t attack them immediately and left them in the house. After two days a sniper shot at the grandfather. His body stayed in front of the children for two days until the ambulance could reach the house to evacuate them”.
“We walked for maybe one hour, I don’t remember exactly, we were scared. We found refuge in an UNRWA school. It was safer, but still we were scared of the bombings. We heard that they had hit the UNRWA school El Fallouji in Jabalia with white phosphorus.
We remained there for 17 days, but after the war they told us we had to leave. We were afraid of going back to our house, so close to the border, it was dangerous. Only my husband and I went, ten days after the end of the war. We were so sad and disappointed. It had not been easy to see the house collapsed on itself. It had been completely destroyed by a bulldozer. Everything gone. We couldn’t take anything, anything from our belongings. We were not the only family, another 85 houses had been completely destroyed in our area”.
“When the war ended we were too afraid to go back to our house. We went there two weeks after, only my husband and I. We found our house completely collapsed on itself, it had been completely destroyed by a bulldozer. We couldn’t take anything, anything from our belongings. Other 85 houses had been completely destroyed in our area”.
“After the war it was difficult to find a place to stay until we could rebuild one with our hands. It wasn’t easy to find a house for rent. Many people had lost their house and the rent prices increased. Some of our old neighbors are also living around here. We will have to rebuild here, on this land we are renting. There is no way to go back to our old house.”
