Gaza Blog: Flashbacks from the war on Gaza
At the moment that the war started on Gaza I was at the university with some of my associates doing some work, while we were in the middle of our work, suddenly we heard very loud explosions nearby.
I felt a great danger like everyone else, I thought of my family, my mother and the children’s village, then I had a very strange feeling, it’s a mixture of fear and shock, I looked at the ceiling and it was shaking so hard I thought it was going to collapse due to the hard explosions, I looked around for my associates and I couldn’t find them, at this moment I rushed outside.
In the outside I found lots of students and teachers running in a complete chaos and fear, I ran along with them then the strike started a lot harder once again, they lost control and ran back to the same area that they came from, I did the same thing without thinking, all of these horrifying moments it happened without knowing where was the point of the strike or what was the target?
Few moments after the strike stopped I saw smoke coming out of some of the building near by the university. At first I thought it was just an airstrike on some government building and everything is over, so I thought of going to the children’s village which was only five minutes away from the university by car to assure the safety of the people there, but I stopped immediately because the strike started again, I tried to call my family and the village but I couldn’t because the communication network is paralyzed due to war matters.
An hour later there were no jetfighters in the sky, by then we could leave the university. When I got home, I found my wife and my two sons “Amjad & Ashraf” are waiting but my daughter “Farah” has not got back from school yet, we could not contact her and we got really worried about her.
The TV station started to broadcast images of the dead and shredded bodies and demolished buildings; at this moment I felt that I am living a real war by all means.
After many tries I contacted the children’s village and they all were ok, at this moment “Farah” came back from school and we all were glad that she made it safe. In the evening, the strike went on again, by air, land and sea. None of us could go to sleep at that night, we were really scared, and the house was really dark due to the power outage except of a really dim light from a candle that we were sitting around waiting for the unknown.
“Farah” is in ninth grade, she was really scared more than any one of us, she shivers with every explosion; she was frightened and complaining from pain in her joints. We all started to calm her down until she did a little.In the next days the strike gets harder at night and it gets less in the daytime, there is not much you can do.
I was constantly calling “Wael” the children’s village director via the internet and I did a plan to fit the ongoing situation to protect the children and the workers in the village, this plan later did its goal where neither the village nor the people inside it got hurt. It was really hard and I was feeling really tense and afraid all the time, but I was trying to look calm as much as I could.
I had plenty of time to think my life and the others around me, for example; the house that I live in and my family will not stand any tank shell if it was fired toward it and it did not have a an underground shelter or a safe room because it never crossed my mind that there will be a war and I have never discussed with my family the Palestinian and Israeli conflict, we live in a family that is interested in knowledge, learning languages, computer, and humanitarian work, we had many relations that bring the joy to our lives.
One of the nights during the war on Gaza, I can’t exactly remember if it was the 12th or the 13th night? The strike was really close to our house, suddenly! “Amjad & Ashraf” told me with great fear in their eyes “We don’t need to die, we need to live, why they target us, why they shoot all these shells toward us?” …… I had nothing to say to them, I could not answer them why, I felt guilty and helpless because I can’t protect anyone.
During the war, there was a great shortage in water, food and services as well as the lack of electricity and there was no sign of ceasefire, I was really exhausted but I kept looking for water, food, supplies, medicine and electricity.And that how the days went on, after the truce, I went out immediately to the children’s village to check on the people and the buildings then I headed north to Gaza.
In the way I passed by the ministry of education, the Palestinian counsel, ministry of planning, ministry of interior, many mosques, buildings, houses, industrial factories, agriculture establishments, schools and hospitals were completely destroyed, I kept on going until I got to the Rosary Sisters school to look for “Farah’s” back bag where she left it when the war started, unfortunately the school was hit also.
I don’t know what would happen now after the truce, and how is my family’s reaction when they go out and see the mass destructions that happened to Gaza, the most the it worries me is how is “Farah” going to feel after this horrifying experience?
Read more Gaza blogs:
The Village Director and his daily worries
How Farah lived her days during the war
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