Children traumatized by 10 months of genocide
Abdelkarim became the breadwinner for his family after Israel killed his father.
On October 23, the family home was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. “I don’t know how I got out alive,” said Abdelkarim, 10. With the help of neighbors, Abdelkarim found his mother. She was alive but injured in the head and legs.
His father and two older brothers, both in their twenties, were killed. The surviving family members were forced to flee al-Nafaq, a neighborhood in Gaza City, as Israeli troops approached in tanks.
On their first night in southern Gaza, the family slept on the streets. The next day, Abdelkarim built a tent with sacks of flour and sticks. This is where he will settle with his four siblings and his mother.
Every morning, Abdelkarim wakes up at 6 a.m. He queues for water and searches for food. Sometimes he returns to his family empty-handed. He offers to help people with various tasks – like carrying bags or fetching water – in exchange for a few shekels.
“I would do anything to earn some money,” he says. Working all day, he usually earns the equivalent of $8, which is not enough to feed his family.
“Some days we have nothing to eat,” he said. Abdelkarim’s mother suffers from diabetes and high blood pressure. Some of the medicine she needs costs about $12. Abdelkarim often walked from Khan Younis in the south to Deir al-Balah in the center to find a pharmacy that sold the right medicine.
The walk takes several hours. Each box of medicine lasts only five days. Since he doesn’t have much money, it is not possible to buy several packs at once. Abdelkarim has developed pain in his arms from carrying heavy loads. He wants to scream from the pain. “But I have to work to buy medicine for my mother,” he says.
“I don’t want to die”
Ghazal, a 6-year-old girl, screams when she hears an explosion or any other loud noise. When a bombing takes place at night, she insists on sleeping in her father’s arms.
She is traumatized by the way Israel killed her uncle at the start of the ongoing genocidal war. Ghazal keeps asking: “Where did they take Uncle Basel while he was sleeping?”
In mid-January, the Israeli army surrounded with tanks the Khan Younis school where Ghazal and his family had taken refuge. The Israelis ordered everyone to leave the school within 15 minutes.
“We passed through checkpoints and walked for eight hours, with dead bodies lying on the ground along the way,” Ghazal’s mother said. “I don’t want to die,” Ghazal repeated as she saw the bodies. “I don’t want to die like them. I’m a child.”
Israeli soldiers detained Ghazal’s father as they passed through a checkpoint. Ghazal tried to run after his father, but the Israelis fired shots into the air.
Her father was released in April. Ghazal’s anxiety remains high. She has started wetting the bed again, something she hasn’t done since she was 2. “Ghazal cries when she wakes up, afraid I’ll punish her for wetting herself,” her mother says. “But I always reassure her.”
Omar, a 5-year-old boy, was rescued from the rubble in February. He is the only survivor in his family. When he was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, doctors decided that he would have to have an arm and a leg amputated.
With his parents killed, Omar’s aunt Maha is now taking care of him. He keeps asking where his parents are. Maha doesn’t know what to tell him. Omar recounted how he saw his sister Yasmin headless after the attack on the family.
“He is only 5 years old,” Maha said. “What did Omar do to those soldiers? Why did they destroy his life?” Israel has been attacking Gaza for almost ten months. The pain is horrible for everyone, especially the children.
Razan Abu Salem and Khaled El-Hissy are writers from Gaza.
Translation: AFPS
