
A worth-reading story from one of our brothers in Gaza now.....May Allah give them strength......Ameennn...
source : Al-jazeera.net
Gaza diary: Psychological harm | ||||||||||
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| By Mohammed Ali
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At midnight last night, I was sitting by my wife and two children who were fast asleep: there was an hour of quiet; no drones, no attacks. I thought to myself "could this be the calm before the storm?" All of a sudden, I heard 10 missiles in a row and my house began to shake once more. My wife awoke in a panic and my small son looked at me with terror in his eyes, he did not say a word. At 2am there was a total black out in the Gaza Strip, except for the light caused by Israeli attacks. At some point we must have fallen asleep.
As soon as we awoke, we went for breakfast at my parents. My sister told us how her youngest daughter, Nada, who is three-and-a-half had that morning begun to draw. Interested by what her child was creating, my sister asked to look at it and motioned to take the picture for a moment "No!" cried Nada pointing at a drawing of an airplane, "stop, this could kill you!" This caused me to pause for thought at all the immeasurable psychological damage that this conflict has caused children; what have they done to deserve having their precious innocence destroyed? How will this affect them in the future? Thankfully, my children do not understand what is happening. Although they often cry from fear, my son, seeing everyone gathered around, staying up late at night, thinks that we are having a party, he jumps around us and laughs, asking himself, "Why are you all together here?" Every time my phone rings, he dances around to the ring tone. Usually, my wife and I leave him with my mother when we go to work but for a few days straight now we have spent every moment with him. It started raining, I comforted myself for just one moment with the thought that maybe, just maybe, the rain would stop the attacks but of course it didn't, and many more lives were soon lost. As I saw on the news the death toll rise, I thought once again, could we all be next? We live in a constant state of fear that is slowly beginning to kill us. Every time the phone rings, my heart skips a beat, what news will it bring? Will it be a friend's, a colleague's a relative's death, injury?
Sadly, even those who have been killed cannot be mourned properly. I felt immense guilt that I was not able to attend my neighbour's funeral, but few did, fearing that they might be the next victims while grieving for another. Even during the three days of mourning at his family home, the house was almost empty. A few hours ago, I was asked abruptly for my phone by my sister-in-law, she wanted to talk to her family immediately, they had just received a call by the Israeli military announcing that their home might be hit during the next attack. She told her family to come over to the home of ours. They might come, they might not. For a moment today, I stepped outside, I saw people sitting outside their homes, running for cover at every sound of an attack. Overhead were helicopters, I soon went back inside fearing the worst. Our lives have been paralysed.
It is the third consecutive night of the Israeli offensive.
When I fell asleep on the second night of the Israeli offensive, I was afraid that I may never wake again. So I slept with one eye open, in constant fear for my family's safety. I constantly checked on my wife and children, thinking that our home could be the next target of the Israeli jets.
I wanted to buy nappies for my two children. My younger brother went out but struggled to find anything. I thought to myself that it is only a matter of days now until food and fuel becomes unavailable to us all.
I was at home, lying down on my bed. It was 11.30am; a time when students fill the streets on their way home from school. All of a sudden I heard massive explosions, one after the other. The windows in my bedroom began to shake violently. I jumped out of bed and tried to turn the TV on, but there was no electricity. I ran around frantically, not knowing what to do. While I was searching for people to find out what was going on, someone told me: "The Israeli jets are targeting all police buildings and the homes of Hamas leaders." I later realised that the explosions I had heard was the Al Abbas police station, 300 metres from my home, being targeted. We all sat together in front of the television just crying and feeling afraid after every explosion. I tried to pretend that I was fine in order to make my family feel some sort of security, but deep inside I was afraid. | ||||||||||
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