▲ Palestinians transport victims of an Israeli bombing launched yesterday on the Deir Balah mosque, in central Gaza, which served as a refuge.Photo Afp
Bel Trew and Nedal Hamdouna
The Independent
La Jornada Newspaper
Monday, October 7, 2024, p. 29
Gaza Strip. In October last year, Israel began the biggest bombing raid in its history on Gaza and put it under siege after Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, according to estimates. Israelis.
Since then, the bombing of Gaza has killed almost 42,000 people, mostly women and children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Another 10,000 are believed to be buried under the rubble and an unknown number have been taken to Israeli prisons. Entire parts of the strip have been leveled.
The Independent spoke to people inside Gaza about what they have had to go through over the past year.
I lost 11 people in my family
Ziad Abdul Dayem, 55, is a paramedic and ambulance driver. In November he spent 12 hours digging through the rubble, trying to rescue nearly a dozen family members who perished in an Israeli airstrike. Every day and night he risks his life to extract survivors from collapsed buildings.
A few minutes after Ziad had dropped his son off at the house where they were staying, he received an emergency call on his radio: the area had been bombed.
His son, also a doctor, had finished a grueling shift at a hospital in Gaza City, treating a large number of wounded from the Israeli offensive. Ziad, whose family had been displaced from the north of the strip, had taken him to rest in an apartment in the Jabaliya refugee camp. The extended family was staying there temporarily. Since Ziad was in the ambulance closest to the bombing site, he had the job of trying to rescue survivors.
The house was bombed along with four others. I dug for 12 hours looking for my relativesrelates to The Independent with a desperate voice. I lost 11 people in my family, including my son, my daughter’s husband and three of their children. The pain and dismay were indescribable.
He tried to bury them in the local cemetery, but the intensity of the bombing made it very dangerous. He had to bury his family in a mass grave with a bulldozer, near the nearby Indonesian hospital. After that, he says, there was no reason to stay in northern Gaza, so he fled to the south and continued working there.
He notes that the biggest difficulty paramedics and ambulance drivers face is being shot at and bombs thrown at them while trying to reach a location, along with a lack of fuel, which prevents them from reaching the injured. There are days when they have to use donkey carts and electric tricycles to transport the injured.
Worse still, there are injured people who are difficult to remove from the rubble. We do not have the equipment or capabilities to reach those still alive among the ruins.continues.
This is a great tragedy and an obstacle we often face. The wounded are alive, but they die under the rubble because we cannot get them out. We sat and cried. We want to help, but sometimes it is not possible.
Ziad has lost 10 colleagues, all ambulance drivers. Israel denies attacking health facilities, but the World Health Organization estimates that since October 2023, there have been hundreds of attacks on medical facilities in Gaza, resulting in 765 deaths.
Ziad feels like he has nothing to live for except his job. “I have no home or shelter, and few family members. This has put me to work all week, always in the ambulance, 24 hours a day.
All I wish is for this war and this tragedy to come to an end. What we’ve been through is enoughhe adds.
The worst thing is not being able to return
Nedal Hamdouna, a journalist from northern Gaza, had to flee his home and shelters five times last year. Airstrikes have killed several of his relatives. Despite this, he continues to work from a tent, with little access to food and water.
If Nedal, 36, had known that the Israeli military was trying to cut Gaza in two, he would not have left his home in the north of the strip a year ago. He lived in Beit Lahia, a city whose adjacent fields were once famous for their abundant strawberry crops.
But after fleeing bombs and bullets five times with his family, he now occupies a tent in what Israel calls the humanitarian zone in the coastal region of Al Mawasi. In reality, it is a beachside wasteland, crowded with tens of thousands of civilians, which has also been bombed multiple times.
Nedal has no idea where the next pamphlets ordering him to move again will fall from the sky, when the bombings will begin, or how long it will be before he is allowed to go home… if his house is still standing.
Keep working despite the dangers. Not being able to return home is the worst thing that feels every day. Our house is a few miles away, and yet I can’t go backhe says in a voice message sent to The Independentin which the pain he feels appears.
Gaza is the deadliest place in the world to practice journalism. Israel has repeatedly denied attacking media workers, but Reporters Without Borders reports that since October 2023, more than 130 journalists have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, at least 32 while working.
The Committee to Protect Journalists claims that the number is so high, that more journalists perished in Gaza in the last 10 weeks of 2023 than all those killed in a single country in an entire year.
Nedal continues working despite the risks. He relates that, the previous time he left the so-called humanitarian zone, two months ago, Israeli drones were heard overhead. Bullets penetrated stores and dozens of people were injured. Many died in the area, which was suddenly close to the area of the Israeli operation, but there were no orders to evacuate. They forced us to flee without being able to take anything. He claims that he saw scenes of pain, fatigue, fearin which most people ran without carrying their belongings.
The streets were crowded; many were waiting for a car or a donkey cart. I got in the car, but I had to get out and continue on foot with my family, because it was faster. There was no fuel. People took to the streets not knowing where to go.. When the operation was finally over, he saw that the stores were riddled with bullet holes, and some of their belongings had been stolen. “In this war we have lost many family members, neighbors and friends.
Another major problem is the scarcity of food and water. The price of food is exorbitant. Vegetables are now 10 times more expensive than before the war. A kilo of tomatoes costs almost 10 dollars. Prices are unstable.
Despite all this, Nedal continues to report from his store. I only dream of returning home. I have no words to express the pain we feel.
We arrive exhausted at the hospital, and to work
Dr. Musa AbuJarad is a pediatrician who was forced to flee northern Gaza when food ran out and shelling intensified. He later escaped from Al Najjar Hospital in Rafah when Israeli forces took control of the area. He has had to help perform surgeries without anesthetic, due to a lack of supplies.
Almost every day, Dr. AbuJarad and his colleagues face impossible dilemmas: Saving the life of a dying patient often requires performing surgeries without anesthesia.
They also have to decide which of a group of injured patients to care for, as there are never enough supplies to help everyone. When you weigh whether one patient’s chance of survival is greater than another’s, you just have to face it.he says sadly.
At the start of the war, Dr AbuJarad was a pediatrician at Kamal Adwan Hospital in the north of Gaza City, but he moved to the south after surviving on just a bit of bread each day.
We fled south, escaping death and seeking to survive and find better conditions and food.he relates. He describes that transfer as one of the most terrible moments of the war. Some of his colleagues were detained by Israeli forces along the way; He has no idea what happened to them. Others perished in attacks.
“We didn’t know if they were shooting at us or someone else. We didn’t know if they would arrest us or not. Even those who were captured by the Israelis in front of us… we still don’t know what became of them. Are they alive? Prisoners? “We have no idea,” he says.
The WHO estimates that at least 214 doctors have been detained by Israeli forces while on duty since the beginning of the war, and the whereabouts of many are unknown. Israel has accused Hamas militants of using hospitals as military bases or command posts, a claim that the Palestinian Health Ministry vehemently denies and is refuted by international aid and human rights organizations.
Half of Gaza’s hospitals are only partially functioning, adding immense pressure on doctors. AbuJarad moved to Rafah, on the southern border near Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had also fled. At Al Najjar Hospital he tried to care for an endless number of patients from across the strip as medical supplies and food ran out. We worked almost 24 hours a dayhe refers.
One is dependent on one’s luck. The road is difficult; one arrives at the hospital exhausted, and immediately goes to workhe points out. There are not enough medications, especially pain relievers. Our people live in difficult conditions, which cannot be described.
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© The Independent
Translation: Jorge Anaya