Out in the cold

Out in the cold

Weeks after Israel curtailed its massive offensive on Gaza, thousands remain homeless, including children, sheltering in fragile tents in the brutal winter, writes Saleh Al-Naami

When heavy rain poured into the tent and awakened her, 38-year-old Hanan Al-Attar rushed out in a state of hysteria with her three children. Her husband Ahmed pulled at the tent poles, trying to secure them after fierce winds had knocked them over, and her oldest son filled bags with sand, placing them along the sides of the tent in a desperate attempt to keep it from collapsing. Hanan took refuge with her shivering children in the first house she came across.

The situation this family was in late last week was shared by most of the other families living in Al-Karama Camp, near Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip. The camp is composed of tents that families erected after the Israeli army destroyed their homes in the Al-Atatira and Al-Salatin areas during the recent war on Gaza.

Hajja Fatima Al-Attar, for example, was in the same situation as Hanan -- she couldn't do anything to keep her tent up since she and her family were asleep when cold rains suddenly poured in. The only thing they could do, she told Al-Ahram Weekly, was to leave their belongings behind and head to houses nearest the camp, seeking refuge from the cold and the rain. Camp residents, who lack basic services, can see the ruins of their homes in nearby neighbourhoods.

Some of those left out in the cold, in particular children, had their health compromised as a result, suffering from fatigue, diarrhoea and stomach aches. Aisha, a 33-year-old widow whose husband was killed by occupation soldiers in 2007, says she is still treating her children for severe colds in the health clinic of Beit Lahiya. The main problem facing camp residents is a lack of warm covers, since charitable organisations that distributed blankets there did not provide enough for all families. Silman Khalil, 66, told the Weekly that his family consists of 10 members but that they only received five blankets. Many of the camp's families tried to find blankets among their homes' ruins, but most failed, either because their belongings were incinerated or because what remains is trapped under blocks of crumbled walls.

Since the tents were blown down, children can no longer sleep in the camp. Families with children have placed them with relatives living elsewhere in order to keep them from falling ill, and for fear that more storms will ravage the camp and collapse their tents once again.

Camp residents do not show much enthusiasm for the aid offered by charitable organisations, for they are focussed on rebuilding their homes and dismantling the camp that has reawakened memories for some of leaving their original homes in 1948. Yet even those who found other houses to live in are feeling that their lives have been turned upside down.

For example, 51-year-old Saleh Al-Ayad looks out- of-sorts when his neighbours debate future expectations for the Gaza Strip with regard to the truce, the Shalit case, and the Israeli elections. Al-Ayad, a university guard who loves to discuss politics, has found that he is out of touch because he no longer has a television or the Internet with which to follow the news. Al-Ayad lost his home on the eastern edge of Al-Maghazi Refugee Camp in the central Gaza Strip, including all of his furniture and belongings.

Al-Ayad's three-storey house in which 10 people lived, and which cost him $150,000, was turned into rubble when three Hellfire missiles fired from an Israeli Apache helicopter hit it. By luck no one was home at the time and so the family was saved, but a woman in a neighbouring house was killed when she was struck by flying shrapnel. Abu Ali -- as Al-Ayad is called by his neighbours -- told the Weekly that his family spent several days in the only sports club in the village, and then one of his sisters invited them to stay with her since she has spare rooms. Abu Ali agreed, but soon realised that his family is just too large. He then rented an apartment belonging to his brother who lives abroad.

Abu Ali says that he has lost all of his money, which was stored in the house, as well as his wife's jewellery. His children's official papers and school and university records were also lost. But what pains Abu Ali most is that he lost the only photograph of himself with his father. He had taken special care of it, and had hoped to find it, but when he searched among the house's ruins, he discovered that it had been burnt.

Al-Ayad's oldest son, Ali, is affected by their situation for reasons in addition to the destruction of their home and family belongings. Just a few days prior to the attack, Al-Ayad's parents were busy looking for a bride for him, since his father had finished building his linked apartment and fully equipping it. The building gone, Ali will no longer be able to marry. Yet this is a small sacrifice compared to the suffering of many others. "When I see or hear about people who were killed by their collapsing houses, I sense that God wanted me to keep my family," Abu Ali says.

About a month since the ceasefire began, it is still difficult to take in the scope of suffering that Israel's war has caused Palestinians. One sign of this suffering is the disrupted movement of vehicles in the Gaza Strip, caused by the destruction or damage to many of its roads. Garage mechanic Nur Abu Naim, on Salaheddin Street that connects the north and south of Gaza, can barely fit in all the cars that need repair. He has an influx of customers whose cars have been damaged by potholes dug by Israeli bulldozers.

Anyone who goes to Salaheddin Street will see cars broken down on the side of the road and youth pushing other cars to the nearest mechanic. As Nur told the Weekly, most drivers move slowly so as to be able to brake before driving into holes that pit the streets.

Due to the immense damage wrought to nearby roads, the only way to reach the eastern neighbourhoods of Al-Qarara village in the central Gaza Strip and the town of Khazaa in the southeast is by donkey- drawn cart or by walking. Awad Sulaysil, who lives in Al-Qarara village and walks several kilometres each time he leaves, told the Weekly that the occupation army made a point of bulldozing the beginning of streets and crossroads so as to limit their use.

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