Aid Distribution
To give an idea of the families that I have distributed aid to:
A father who is blind in his left eye, he and his wife have eight children, the youngest of which was born on the first day of the Israeli Offensive. His eldest son is blind, deaf and mentally handicapped. When his father or mother leaves his side he starts screaming and crying. As we sat together he stayed crouched between his father’s legs rocking back and forth. I kept wondering what will happen to this boy as he grows older; the family is completely poverty-stricken and cannot afford any medical aid for him. The family’s house was partially destroyed by bombs and parts of the ceiling are continuing to crumble. The wife kept insisting that she wanted to offer me tea, but then I heard her tell her daughter to go and ask the neighbors if any of them could give her some tea to use. This family really has nothing and it was heartbreaking to watch them trying to find a little bit of sugar to offer me with the tea. Their third daughter has the brightest and most beautiful smile I have seen in Gaza.
I was so embarrassed that I could not do more for them.
I spent this weekend distributing aid and clothing to families in the middle area of the Gaza Strip, between Gaza City and Khan Younis. During the Israeli Offensive the attacks carried out in Gaza City were for the most part at specific targets. For example, a friend of mine lives in an apartment where above him a Hamas official was living. The official’s apartment was hit with a missile and was completely destroyed and yet my friend’s apt is unharmed. However in the North, which I wrote about 2 weeks ago, there was the massive destruction of civilian houses so as to remove any obstacles in the line of view of the Israeli security towers. In the middle area as well hundreds of civilian homes were destroyed, not because of any Hamas targets in the area, but because the Israeli military aimed to surround Gaza City, coming from the North downwards, and the middle upwards and these houses happened to be in the way. I went to areas were 35 houses were destroyed within a 10 meter radius within an hour, another area where 140 houses were destroyed, and many where there had been fields and orchards with hundreds of olive trees. There is absolutely nothing left.
