Gaza diary part 44: ‘The angel of death is roaming the skies, nonstop’
3am The only thing worse than complete desperation is desperation mixed with hope. It is like someone is putting your head underwater to drown, and then they pull your head up for a couple of seconds to take a breath, then push it underwater again. That is what we are going through, one bitter moment after another with a hint of positivity.
Wide awake, I couldn’t stop thinking of all the tragedies we have been going through. It is like one of those TV shows that run for many seasons and then, when the writers are out of ideas, they come up with an illogical scenario just to kill some characters off, introduce new ones and add some “spice” to the series. It seems that the writers of my own show have gathered and thought to themselves: “How could we make his life more interesting?” Someone jumped in and said: “Well? What about we get him and his family displaced, with little food and other resources? What about putting everything he believes in to the test? Also, why only him? Why not write an event that would affect everyone around him?” It seems that this storyline was approved by the production team and they went with it. All I hope for now is a couple of mundane episodes that could be easily skipped.
Out of all the reasons why I couldn’t sleep, severe cold was the strongest. No matter what I do, it goes directly to my bones. I remember a few days ago, how heavy the rain was. When I went out, the water was running in the street, creating a barrier. You could go deep into water almost up to your knees. All I wanted was to cross the few steps to reach the other side, but could not. So I decided to walk, hoping I will find a way across. I kept walking for a long time until I reached an area far away. I saw a guy I know on the other side trying to come into mine. We started screaming at each other.
“Isn’t life funny?” he said. “I want to come into your side while you are trying to come into mine.”
“Do you remember those riddles about crossing the river?” I yelled. “It seems that this is one of them.”
We kept walking until we reached an area where the water level was low and some people have placed big rocks for others to step on to cross. When he finally reached my side, I asked him what he was doing.
“Well, some of our relatives are staying in a tent,” he said. “I want to go get them to stay with us until the rain is over.”
“Haven’t you told me that you have seven families with you right now?” “Yes, but we have no other option.” I moved aside to let a man holding a child in his arms cross. I kept anxiously looking at him while he stepped over the rocks to the other side, hoping the child wouldn’t fall. After he passed, I exchanged a few words with the guy and then crossed to the other side myself.
6am Manara, the cat we hosted months ago, is pregnant. Very pregnant. Her belly is big and she is sleeping a lot. Since she got pregnant, she started going out less. There is a small tree in the nearby land that she loves sitting under. I have noticed that she yearns for female energy, whether it is my sister’s, the grandmother’s, or the oldest granddaughter’s. Once any one of them is in the room, she would go and sit in their lap. These days, she is eating less, yet more often, and she drinks a lot.
In my culture, when a woman is pregnant and she gets prettier, it means she is having a girl, but if the situation is otherwise, it means she is having a boy. It seems that Manara will have lots of girls.
Every time Manara goes out, she comes back with another stray cat from the street. “I wonder if she goes outside just to bring stray cats to our room,” I said to my sister. “It is like she is telling them there is a place where there is food and a shelter.” We feed them a little and then let them out.
Finding food for the cats has become really difficult. The way we coordinate, search and call everyone to provide them with food seems irrational compared with the events we are going through. “Those are first world problems,” someone once told me. “People cannot have food these days, and you think about animals!” I know that, but those cats are our responsibility and feeding them is a priority.
My sister pointed out to a terrifying fact. Manara went to mate almost two months ago, which means that she might deliver her babies very soon – one thing I don’t think we could handle well. When she wanted to mate, we did our best to keep her inside, we were afraid that the whole nightmare wouldn’t end before she gives birth, and we were right. However, she kept meowing and nagging, nonstop, day and night, which led us, after almost two weeks, to let her out.
I was walking in the street the other day when I saw a guy I knew. “When we evacuated, my sister put our cat in a bag and ran with her,” he said. “It all happened fast. She did not take clothes nor certificates. Only the cat.”
He continued: “But my sister isn’t the craziest one in our family. My father is. He took the hens with him, the hens! Can you imagine that? We were screaming, running and he was collecting the hens to take with him. My family is out of this world.”
After a while, I asked him if they have food for the cat. He said: “Yes, we do feed it any food leftovers or tuna if available.” He was talking while I put my hand upfront to shake his, ready to leave. When our hands shook, he continued talking and said. “We need to take care of the cat, she is blind.” I did not say a word. He smiled, but I did not. There is so much misery in this world. So much misery.
1pm While waiting for a friend, I met a guy I know. He evacuated with his family from the north and is staying in a school. The women and children stay in one of the classrooms; over 60 persons share the room. He said they sleep so close to each other that they couldn’t move. He and the men sleep downstairs in a tent.
“When we first got here, I stopped eating for almost a month,” he told me. “I did not want to have to use the toilet. There is a long wait to get into the toilet, and at the beginning the toilet was filthy. But now, the displaced people worked together to ensure it is hygienic all the time.”
He continued: “Sleeping in the tent during these cold times is awful. Everyone is sick. I had a mattress but gave it to my older brother who suffers from back pain. I put my head on the mattress while the rest of my body is off it.”
Next to us was a man selling some vegetables. A woman approached yet she was hesitant. In our culture, people buy vegetables and fruit in kilos. But the woman took one tomato and asked him to weigh it and tell her the price. Then she added another tomato and did the same. After telling her the price, she opened the small money carrier she had and looked atwhat she had inside.
Then she said that she will take one tomato only. The guy I was talking to went and added three tomatoes, gave them to the woman and paid the seller.
“You know what hurts the most?” he said. “You wouldn’t believe it. It is having to buy lemons. In our land we had many big trees of lemon. We never had to buy any. All the neighbours and friends would come to us to take them. It is true that we lost our homes and everything we have. But losing those trees has a deep effect on my soul. It is just too hard, too hard.”
He said that for the first time in his life he thinks about leaving Gaza for ever. “Even my mother is encouraging me to do so. She asked me, if we survive, to leave and never look back.”
When my friend came, I introduced them to each other. When he knew the guy has no mattress. He said: “I think I could help. I know someone with an extra mattress.” The guy, shyly, offered to wait till tomorrow to go and get it, but my friend said we should go immediately. The happiness I saw on the guy’s face when he held the mattress was unbelievable.
4pm I saw a woman I know – we are not very close, but we are both close friends with another person. The mutual friend has left Gaza and is staying in a foreign country with some family members. After sharing greetings, she asked if it is possible to take a photo together and send it to our friend. I hesitated at first, because I rarely take photos these days, in order, if we make it alive, not to have any reminder of them. I agreed, I put on a big smile and we took the photo. She said she will share it once she has access to internet.
Two hours later, I receive messages from our friend. She told me how happy she is with the photo and how amazing we looked, which I doubt. She told me that she had a dream about the both of us the other day, we were at our favourite restaurant and we were going through the menu that we have already memorised by heart. “We were very happy,” she wrote.
She also shared that she spends a lot of time in the library. “There is nothing to do but watching the news and being worried for my loved ones. I go to the library and read. They have big libraries with lots of books, I am sure you would love it if you were here. But the people are not as sociable as we are. They don’t speak a lot, they barely smile at you.”
Seeing her message brought tears to my eyes. I really miss her and all my friends.
8pm I am sad, exhausted and frustrated. Minutes ago, my sister, Ahmad and I sat down and started sharing who, among the people we know, died recently. A friend’s mother, another friend’s brother and a third friend’s sister. The angel of death is roaming the skies of Gaza, nonstop.
It is very hard when your friends are going through tough times, yet you cannot be there with them to share their sadness. We are too tired to express sadness. I just want to sit in silence and grieve; I want to do nothing and talk to no one.
We heard knocking on the door. The oldest granddaughter peeked through the door and asked: “Would you like to play cards?”
I looked at her, and then said: “Sure, why not? Let’s play cards.”
“One woman miscarried on 14 October. From 5am to midday, no ambulance was allowed to come in and she was not allowed to leave,” said Amro, who has strained his back carrying cooking gas and other supplies from the nearest checkpoint.
The IDF said in a statement that Hebron was not under curfew. It said traffic restrictions were “imposed in accordance with the situational assessment and operational considerations … and with the intention of reducing harm to [the population] as much as possible”, that requests to pass through checkpoints were “examined according to the relevant criteria”, and that it had not instructed schools to close.
It described the claims about the woman who miscarried as “absolutely baseless”.
In four hours walking and driving around the centre of Hebron, the Guardian did not see a single Palestinian outside their home. The only people on its ghostly streets were soldiers and young boys on bikes, recognisable as settlers from their yarmulkes.
“I’ve never seen kids stuck in their homes this long,” Amro said. “Now there are no kids in the street. People are so intimidated.”