22 February 2009
One family - one shoah (holocaust)
A reporter from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights describes a little of the suffering of one family whose house has been made rubble. PCHR, led by Raji Sourani, has been in the forefront of those who demand justice for the Palestinian people.Aftermath (3) 'Is this not forbidden?' 19 February 2009
In this new series of personal testimonies, PCHR looks at the aftermath of Israel's 22 day offensive on the Gaza Strip, and the ongoing impact it is having on the civilian population.
Maysa al-Louh, 16, sitting on the rubble of her home with the bombed Sakhnin school in the background -Photo Christian Aid / Sarah Malian
Three weeks after the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, 16 year old Maysa al-Louh sits stoically on the pile of sand that consumes half her home in Beit Lahiya. Under the sand, churned up by Israeli bulldozers during incursions into this area on 4 January 2009 lie all her report cards and school awards that were testament to her excellent academic record.
Nearby her grandmother tries to heat water on a pile of ash. The smell of decomposing chicken carcasses is overwhelming: the family's chicken coop that provided them with eggs, as well as their vegetable garden, were all destroyed by the bulldozers and tanks.
Thirty five people lived in the three storey al-Louh house. The contents of home life - a refrigerator, notebooks, framed pictures, and plastic flowers, lie scattered over the area. The adjacent Sakhnin Elementary School was also damaged by artillery shells and some of its classrooms are now a masse of mangled chairs, steel rods, shattered concrete and broken glass. Israel says militants were firing rockets from the school grounds.
'We were trapped in our home for two days while the Israeli army was based in the school nearby and operating in the area,' says Maysa's 32 year old mother Najat. 'I had to give my children water from the toilet cistern to keep them alive. Then they ordered us to leave our house.'
'As soon as we left the house they opened fire on the area and some of our neighbours were killed. My husband and I said our goodbyes to each other when the tanks came,' Najat adds. 'We thought it was the end.'
Najat is three months pregnant with her eighth child. Her youngest daughter Sara who lies listlessly nearby, has been unwell for days, with vomiting and a high fever. They have been unable to get her to a doctor.
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