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Still in shock, Gazan women tell their stories Women
in the Gaza Strip gave first-person accounts of the ordeals they suffered
in the 22-day war that ended 17 January. Eman Mohammed reports
from THERE
may be a ceasefire in 'We've
seen horror movies before but nothing looked more real than this one,'
Kawther Abed Rabo, who lives in the northern city of Rabo is the mother of three young girls, two of whom she says are now dead, killed by Israeli soldiers. She spoke to Women's eNews service near the rubble of her destroyed house. She says that when the Israeli land operation started, she and her husband and mother-in-law were in their house, looking for a safe room in which to take cover. Then a voice on a loudspeaker coming from a tank outside ordered them to evacuate. 'They
asked us to line up in front of the doorstep. I was helping my mother-in-law
to walk while Khaled was holding the girls' hands: Amal, 2 years old;
Sua'ad, 7 years old; and She
said two soldiers were staring at them eating chips and chocolate. 'Suddenly
a third one got out of the tank with an M16 and began shooting my girls.
Sua'ad and Amal fell dead immediately. I didn't know about Khadra Abed Rabo, Kawther's neighbour, confirms the account, saying she witnessed the shootings from her balcony window.
On
23 January the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in International
rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International,
have called for an independent investigation for possible war crimes
of both On
28 January, Richard Falk, an independent investigator with the United
Nations, announced that he believed there was evidence of war crimes
committed by Israeli troops during the 22-day siege on The women interviewed for this article did not seem aware of any such investigations. They appeared to be suffering from shock. They were all interviewed during the last week of the war and the week following the 17 January ceasefire, while Women's eNews travelled to various parts of the country with a group of photographers. Most of those interviewed had taken shelter in UN schools. But some spoke as they stood beside houses that had been reduced to rubble.
Manal Al Samoni, 39, lives in Al Zaiton, an area in the eastern part of the Gaza Strip. She spoke with Women's eNews three days after the truce, while checking on her family's damaged house. She said she gave birth on 8 January, two months early, while listening to tank fire and missiles exploding. She said her mother - who lived with a son a few houses away - left her home to come to her daughter's after she told her she was going into early labour. 'My daughter-in-law Sana'a kept calling the hospital to send us an ambulance, but no ambulances could make it to our area since it was too dangerous and the Israeli army was opening fire on everything moving.' Sana'a Al Samoni, Manal's daughter-in-law, confirmed the account. She said the premature baby wound up being delivered in a large room in the house with dozens of other family members crammed in, all of them trapped inside the house. 'We were forced to deliver the baby, depending on our poor skills in these issues,' said Sana'a Al Samoni. 'About 60 men and women were trapped with us in the same room where Manal was having her baby. We covered her with a blanket and began urging her to push. At last, when we succeeded to deliver the baby, Manal started to get cold and so did her newborn daughter. The battery of the cell phone ran out and I couldn't know what to do other than pray. I remember my hands shaking when I had to cut the umbilical cord.' Not far from Sana'a sat the new mother's own mother, Majeda Al Samoni, 67. She was mourning over a wide spot of blood left by the body of the son with whom she lived. She said he had been brought there by another son who found him shot to death in their living room, killed by tank fire. She had been with him hours earlier, when he was still alive.
'He is really gone! If I knew they would shoot my only son while I'm helping my daughter to deliver I swear I would never have left him. I thought he ran away with his family not knowing he was bleeding for four hours screaming for help... Oh, my beloved son!' Medical
workers from the Al Shifa Hospital in In one of the UN schools serving as a temporary shelter in the Al Atatra area of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, Sieda Al-Atar spoke to Women's eNews on 19 January, describing how she and her family fled their home on 7 January as rocket fire from a tank began hitting the house. She was carrying her newborn baby. Her brother was shot and was bleeding but she kept running, leaving him behind. 'I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I couldn't turn my head back in fear that I might get shot or my baby would. I only took a look back for a second and was shocked to see my brother Omar lying there, motionless and bleeding. It took me a minute to realise that I couldn't go back to rescue him. So I just continued running in tears for hours till I found myself in the middle of the city near one of the hospitals.' Sieda Al-Atar said she waited at the hospital for hours to see if any ambulance would come from the north with her brother's body. 'I waited till night in the E.R. for my brother to come, but he didn't. I still wake up at night, hearing his cries for me to help him. I couldn't breastfeed my baby anymore. My health and hers aren't good, but it all seems meaningless now anyway.' Eman
Mohammed is a freelance journalist in This article is reproduced from the Women's eNews website <www.womensenews.org>. Women's eNews is the definitive source of substantive news - unavailable anywhere else - covering issues of particular concern to women and providing women's perspectives on public policy. *Third
World Resurgence
No. 221/222, January-February 2009, pp 44-45 |
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