'Dad, why can't Ali Baba end the war in Gaza?'

Dad, why did my friend die?
29 Jan 2009 13:39:00 GMT
Written by: Jawad Harb


Jan. 29 2008

Saturday was the first day of school for my children. My 12-year-old son Yazan is in the 6th grade. He went to school and realized he lost six schoolmates. One of the boys used to sit in the desk behind Yazan, so every time he turns and looks behind him, the boy he used to talk to, to laugh with, is not there anymore.

The children lived through the air strikes, the danger, the lack of sleep, and now they have a world that they don't recognize. They can't understand why their classmates are dead. Yazan asks me, "Why did my friend die? Why was his house hit? What did he do wrong?"

They want to know why children were killed. They know that many adults were killed, but for them, it is more difficult to understand when it is children, children like them, who were hurt, or killed, or were in pain.

For Ziad, who is six, his school was destroyed in a bombing two weeks ago. They haven't found any place for the kids yet, so they sit in tents surrounded by rubble.

I sent Ziad to the tent school for two days, but I didn't like it. It's outside, so it's very cold, and it's in the middle of broken glass and brick and debris. I don't know what's in the rubble - we have heard that there could be remains of weapons like white phosphorous or depleted uranium, or unexploded bombs. It is not safe. So now, Ziad will stay home. He will miss his first year of school. He just started going to school in September.

He used to be so excited about going to school, but when I told him he would stay home from now on, he didn't say anything. Some of his friends have gone back to the tent school, but their parents are starting to think twice, too.

There are no temporary spaces for schools, but they will not allow construction material into Gaza. So many houses and schools are destroyed. The houses that remain standing are holding several families. It is a mess in Gaza, until we can start to rebuild. But how can we rebuild, without cement, or glass, or wood?

I can't tell you how agonizing these stories are that the kids are talking about. They keep talking about it - the war, what they saw on TV, their friends who died. They imagine how they died. Counsellors at the schools are doing activities for the children to talk to their sadness out. I hope these things work. It's a big trauma for the children. They are so young.

My daughters, who are older, don't open up to me. Maybe they talk to their mother. All my life I thought girls like to talk, but now I realize that sometimes it is hard to get girls to talk. They look so sad, but they only answer yes or no to my questions. They are still shocked. They smile less than usual.

One of my daughters is trying to write poems. She is talking about her experience in Gaza during the war, and how we Palestinians felt abandoned by the world. She wrote, "We were crying out for peace, we were crying out for help, but no one listened to us." She is 15 years old.

I am working again. It used to take me 30 minutes to get to work; now it takes one hour. The asphalt is destroyed. We drive slowly. There are holes everywhere.

At first, I was still shocked, especially seeing Gaza City for the first time, and the level of destruction - the houses, the schools, the buildings. At first, I couldn't work. I was sitting with my colleagues, asking about people, trying to find out who had died, because we couldn't find out during the war.

The one thing we all missed during the conflict was sleeping at night. At least now we are able to sleep peacefully again, and we all hope this will continue.

But there are many things ahead of us. CARE will continue to distribute food, and emergency supplies, and medicine. Gaza will need to rebuild. And children, like my children, will need help recovering from this trauma.
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09 Jan 2009 12:42:00 GMT
Written by: Jawad Harb


Jan. 9, 2009 - 4 am, local time

This is the 14th day of the attack. It is 4 am.

My six children are so worried, restless and unable to close their eyes. With each airstrike, the house shakes right and left, and the children grab one another like cold rabbits seeking warmth.

We feel helpless and victimised. There is nothing worse than being unable to protect your children.

Airstrikes are becoming more violent and more horrible. They sound like they are very close to us, chasing us wherever we try to hide. The kind of psychological trauma Gaza's children have been exposed to is unbearable and incurable.

My sole objective and mission impossible as a father is to put my kids to sleep. During the past 13 days, I finished all the children's stories my mother used to tell me as a child.

The only story left untold is "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". My children seem interested to listen.

I reached the part: "Then Ali Baba climbed down and went to the door concealed among the bushes, and said, 'Open, Sesame!' and the door flew open."

Suddenly my six-year-old son opened his eyes, and asked me: "Dad, why can't Ali Baba appear in Gaza and say 'End the war, end the war!' - and then the war would be over?"

At night, we hear screaming and crying
Jan 8, 2009 - 4:45 am, local time

This is the 13th day of the attack. It is really more horrible than we could ever describe. We feel like the sky is going to attack us. There is nothing worse than being tired, needing to sleep so badly, but being unable to sleep. We feel if we close our eyes for a moment, we will die.

It is 4:45 am. My six-year-old son just woke up, and asked me: "Dad, why is it so loud tonight?" He used to hear the bombing further away, which was quieter. He doesn't know that they are targeting houses closer to us tonight.

It is the crying of children in the neighborhood with each bombing which hurts us the most. It is unbelievable, and this is the first night we have heard this screaming and crying. Everyone is exhausted.

I couldn't help but go downstairs, and was surprised to see almost all my neighbours gathered in the main road by their houses.

"It is safer out here. At least we will not be buried under a demolished house," said one of my neighbours.

Another bombing happened when I was in the street, and people raised their hands together simultaneously and looked at the sky seeking the help of God, and it looked like they all agreed to do this at the same time.

The air strikes kept coming, one after another, with people looking to the sky seeking the help of God. Children continued to scream and cry with every bombing, and I continued to recall the words of my youngest son: "Dad, why is it so loud tonight?"

For a few hours, life was almost normal
Jan 7, 2009 - 4:30 pm, local time

My children are all sleeping. They went to sleep three hours ago, when the bombs stopped for the ceasefire. For three hours, it was totally silent. No bombs. They look so peaceful.

Last night, none of us slept at all. The bombs were falling every five minutes. It was a terrible night. You can't sleep with the war going on.

As soon as the bombs stopped for the ceasefire, the shops in my neighbourhood opened. My neighbours rushed outside to buy food. They ran, because nobody believed that the ceasefire would last the full three hours. They were afraid there would be an airstrike anytime. People bought food - rice, macaroni, cheese, salt, sugar, eggs. These are the only things left in the stores. Food is now very expensive.

We had electricity for four hours today, which means we had water. We washed our clothes, pumped water, and bathed the children. This is the first time I have ever been excited to wash clothing! For a few hours, life was almost normal.

The airstrikes just started again. I can see the smoke through the window, a few hundred metres away. It's right in front of me - black smoke. I am afraid.

With the bombs, it's not what you hear, it's what you feel. It's like an earthquake. The houses is swinging, left to right. It's like an underground wave that moves under the houses.

My children are waking up. The ceasefire is over. We will hope again for tomorrow's ceasefire, when we can sleep for a few hours again. It will be another long night. === Fighting in Gaza abates, but truce hopes look fragile Sun, Jul 27 16:18 PM EDT image 1 of 12 By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Maayan Lubell GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Fighting subsided in Gaza on Sunday after Hamas Islamist militants said they backed a 24-hour humanitarian truce, but there was no sign of any comprehensive deal to end their conflict with Israel. Hamas said it had endorsed a call by the United Nations for a pause in the fighting in light of the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, expected to start in the next couple of days. Some firing of rockets continued after the time that Hamas had announced it would put its guns aside and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu questioned the validity of the truce. Israeli artillery guns also fired barrages into the Gaza Strip, Israeli media reported, although the object of the fire was initially unclear. "Hamas doesn't even accept its own ceasefire, it's continuing to fire at us as we speak," Netanyahu said in an interview with CNN, adding that Israel would "take whatever action is necessary to protect our people". Nonetheless, Gaza Strip residents and Reuters witnesses said Israeli shelling and Hamas missile launches had slowly subsided through the afternoon, suggesting a de facto truce might be taking shape as international efforts to broker a permanent ceasefire appeared to flounder. However, Israel's military has said it will need more time to destroy a warren of tunnels that criss-cross the Gaza border that it says is one of its main objectives. Egypt had also destroyed 13 tunnels which crossed into its territory, an Egyptian general said on his Facebook page. It was "a continuation of the efforts by the armed forces in protecting the borders of the state from smugglers and terrorists," Brigadier General Mohamed Samir Abdulaziz Ghoneim said. Israel and the Hamas Islamists who control Gaza had agreed to a 12-hour ceasefire on Saturday to allow Palestinians to stock up on supplies and retrieve bodies from under the rubble. Netanyahu's cabinet voted to extend the truce until midnight on Sunday at the request of the United Nations, but called it off when Hamas launched rockets into Israel during the morning. Palestinian medics said at least 10 people had died in the wave of subsequent strikes that swept Gaza, including a Christian woman, Jalila Faraj Ayyad, whose house in Gaza City was struck by an Israeli bomb. Some 1,031 Palestinians, mainly civilians and including many children, have been killed in the 20-day conflict. A Gaza health ministry official issued revised figures of dead, saying that 30 fewer people than thought had died in the conflict. Israel says 43 of its soldiers have died, along with three civilians killed by rocket and mortar fire out of the Mediterranean enclave. DIPLOMATIC BLOCK Israel launched its Gaza offensive on July 8, saying its aim was to halt rocket attacks by Hamas and its allies. After aerial and naval bombardment failed to quell the outgunned guerrillas, Israel poured ground forces into the Gaza Strip 10 days later, looking to knock out Hamas's rocket stores and destroy the vast network of tunnels. The army says its drive to find and eliminate tunnels would continue through any temporary truce. Diplomatic efforts led by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to end the 20-day conflict have shown little sign of progress. Israel and Hamas have set conditions that appear irreconcilable. Hamas wants an end to the Israeli-Egyptian economic blockade of Gaza before agreeing to halt hostilities. Israel has signaled it could make concessions toward that end, but only if Gaza's militant groups are stripped of their weapons. "Hamas must be permanently stripped of its missiles and tunnels in a supervised manner," Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said, "In return we will agree to a host of economic alleviations," the security cabinet member said on Facebook. Kerry flew back to Washington overnight after spending most of the week in Egypt trying to bridge the divide, putting forward some written proposals to Israel on Friday. Speaking off the record, cabinet ministers described his plan as "a disaster", saying it met all Hamas demands, such as lifting the Israeli-Egyptian blockade completely and ignored Israeli terms, such as stripping Hamas of its rockets. There was no immediate comment from U.S. officials. The obvious rancor added yet another difficult chapter to the already strained relations between Netanyahu and Kerry, whose energetic drive to broker a definitive peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians ended in acrimony in April. DESTRUCTION The main U.N. agency in Gaza, UNRWA, said 167,269 displaced Palestinians have taken shelter in its schools and buildings, following repeated calls by Israel for civilians to evacuate whole neighborhoods ahead of military operations. But in southern Gaza, residents of villages near the town of Khan Younis attacked the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross, torching furniture and causing damage, saying the organization had not done enough to help them. During the lull in fighting inside Gaza on Saturday, residents flooded into the streets to discover scenes of massive destruction in some areas, including Beit Hanoun in the north and Shejaia in the east. An Israeli official said the army hoped the widespread desolation would persuade Gazans to put pressure on Hamas to stop the fighting for fear of yet more devastation. The Israeli military says its forces have uncovered more than 30 tunnels in Gaza, with some of the burrows reaching into Israeli territory and designed to launch surprise attacks on Jewish communities along the border. The military said on Sunday it found a tunnel that led directly into the dining room of an Israeli kibbutz. Other underground passages, the military says, serve as weapons caches and Hamas bunkers. One official said troops had found it easier to operate during the truce as the immediate threat to their safety was diminished. The Gaza turmoil has stoked tensions amongst Palestinians in mainly Arab East Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Medics said eight Palestinians were killed on Friday in incidents near the West Bank cities of Nablus and Hebron - the sort of death toll reminiscent of previous uprisings against Israel's prolonged military rule there. The violence has sparked protests outside the region. Demonstrators in London marched from the Israeli embassy to the Houses of Parliament and Whitehall, blocking traffic throughout the West End. French police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who defied a ban by authorities to march in central Paris. (Additional reporting by Ori Lewis and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem, Noah Browning in Gaza, Ali Sawafta in Ramallah; Writing by Mayaan Lubell and Crispian Balmer; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Stephen Powell) === "أوقاف الكويت" تمنع السويدان من اعتلاء المنابر تموز/يوليو 27, 2014 كتبه وطن الدبور "أوقاف الكويت" تمنع السويدان من اعتلاء المنابر منعت وزارة الأوقاف الكويتية، الداعية الإسلامي طارق سويدان، الموالي لجماعة الإخوان المسلمين من الخطابة في مساجدها. وكان الداعية الكويتي طارق سويدان، أعلن في أكثر من موقف تأييده الكامل لجماعة الإخوان المسلمين، وهو الأمر الذي أدى إلى الإطاحة به من قناة "الرسالة" التي كان يرأسها، والمملوكة لرجل الأعمال السعودي الوليد بن طلال. وكتب سويدان، في آخر تغريدة له عبر "تويتر": "طبعا أفرح بالعيد! فاليوم لنا أبطال يقولون للكيان الصهيوني "لا". واليوم لدينا شباب يصر على الحرية والكرامة، واليوم لدينا جيل ينشد العزة والنهضة لأمته، فتقبل الله تعالى منكم جميعا ، ولأهل ‫غزة بشكل خالص تهاني مضاعفة بعيد الفطر وعيد الصمود وعيد الجهاد وعيد إذلال بني صهيون". ===== Avashin ‏@Avashin · 22h Reports about failed attempt of SAA in brigade 93 to advance towards brigade 17. #Twitter, Retweeted by Wladimir Avashin ‏@Avashin · 27m YPG reinforcement arrived in Hassake. #TwitterKurds آخر تعديل علىالأحد, 27 تموز/يوليو 2014 ====