Jawad Harb is a Palestinian living in Rafah, Gaza, with his wife and six children. Harb has worked with CARE since 2002, managing a program supporting women’s centres in Gaza. Since the conflict began Dec. 27, Harb’s program has stopped operating because of the constant bombing.Throughout the 22-day conflict, Harb maintained a regular blog about his family’s experiences.
30 December 2008 - Temporary forever
07 January 2009 - “Dad, when are we going to die?”
07 January 2009 - For a few hours, life was almost normal
08 January 2009 - At night, we hear screaming and crying
09 January 2009 - Ali Baba and the war on Gaza
12 January 2009 - "Were my friends at school when it was bombed?"
13 January 2009 - The bombs came today, there is nowhere to go
14 January 2009 - Tomorrow is another war day
19 January 2009 - Today, I am hopeful
29 January 2009 - "Dad, why did my friend die?"
30 December 2008 - Temporary forever
"While the Gaza strip is currently facing some of the toughest challenges in the Palestinian territories, I’m writing my own very personal story. But it is also the story of 1.6 million Palestinians living in Gaza.
The 28th of December, 2008, was a day to remember. It was 4:30 p.m. I was sitting with my six kids at my house which is 500 metres away from the Egyptian border. The darkness was surrounding us like a monster, and a few candles were lighting our path to the kitchen and bathroom. It was a moonless night full of unpredictable, unknown fear. I was telling my kids stories to distract them when suddenly it was like an earthquake - six consecutive air strikes shook the house up and down. The house was like a piece of paper swinging in the air. The kids were screaming, running in all directions, seeking to escape the chaos of the airstrikes. It was uncontrollable panic every where.
What made the situation more complicated was the screaming of kids all over the quarter. It was the only thing you could hear after the airstrikes. All the children in the neighbourhood ran downstairs to the main road, crying and screaming in such away I have never witnessed in my whole life. The street was full of parents trying to find their kids and bring them back home. Among this chaos, I barely gathered my own children and went back home.
We sat again in darkness in and I started talking to them again in an effort to calm them down. Yazan, my 12-year-old son suddenly asked, “Dad, are we ever going to live in peace again? I like to climb, I like to swing like a monkey … and I like to fly like a bird, why can’t we play like those children we watch in kids’ TV programs every day?”
A burning teardrop rolled down on my face, and all of a sudden, I was not able to say a word.
He continued, “Isn’t it Christmas holiday now dad? Are we not supposed to have a party and eat some cake?”
As I was trying to answer him, another air strike shook the house again, and this time all of my kids snuggled to me like small birds, my body was grabbed by small hands everywhere, and I wished that moment I had ten hands to hug them all, because this was exactly what they needed.
The last thing I said to them, with pain: “This is temporary.”
My 16 year-old-daughter replied, “Dad, yes, it is temporary forever.”
CARE has been active in relief and development in the West Bank and Gaza since 1948. Since the onset of the current outbreak of violence CARE has been providing food and medical supplies to Gaza hospitals and the Red Crescent Society in Gaza. CARE is pleading with all sides to stop the fighting and allow full humanitarian access to Gaza.
07 January 2009 - “Dad, when are we going to die?”
My child just started crying – she just heard on the news that Israel will start bombing our neighbourhood, because there are allegedly insurgents living here. She has been having nightmares that our house will be totally destroyed, and our family will die under it. She has seen the photos of other destroyed homes on TV.
She said to me, “Dad, if they bomb us, where are we going to go? What do we do? All the houses are targeted. We can’t even run.”
I didn’t have an answer. My brain is totally paralyzed. I have a masters degree in psychology, but I have no idea how to counsel my own family.
For 10 days, the bombs have been falling. The nearest one destroyed a home 300 metres from where we live. My 12-year-old son is becoming an expert at pinpointing the distance of the bombs: “That one was 500 metres away, to the north,” he says to me. He is always right. But this is not the kind of expertise I want my child to have.
I can’t really describe what my children are feeling. They burst out crying when it is dark and cold, at night when we listen to the bombs like thunder.
We live in Rafah, about 500 metres from the border with Egypt. There are tunnels to Egypt nearby, which people use to smuggle food and supplies. So the bombing has been heavy here. Israel is trying to destroy the tunnels.
We don’t have any bread. No fruit, no vegetables, no milk. The last time I ate meat was nine days ago, bought in the market. The market is closed now. There is no more food coming through the tunnels. We have just rice and macaroni for the children. We have no stocks. No biscuits for my children, like they used to eat. We survive, just.
This is the third day without electricity. We used to get electricity for three hours a day, but that stopped with the Israeli ground troops came in. My wife has to go out with the other women to find firewood because we have no electricity to cook. We have a three day supply of cooking fuel, but we are saving it for an emergency.
The water is almost gone. We hope we will get more tomorrow. Without electricity, the water pump doesn’t work. I have a generator that we use a couple of hours a day, to watch the news, charge our mobile phones, and try to work. But the generator is not strong enough to run the water pump. I bought 10 days’ worth of fuel, and it is almost gone.
We ran out of drinking water last night, so my nephew and I went out to the desalination station one kilometre away. We know there are bombs falling, but we can’t live without water. We had to carry the 20-litre containers on our shoulders, because there is no transport. On our way home, a bomb fell nearby and we dropped the containers to take shelter – but we couldn’t leave the water behind. But it is hard to run with a 20-litre container.
We fear everything. Every day, every sound. The children in my neighbourhood – and my kids – are not hoping to live. They don’t think they will live. Instead, they are waiting to die, waiting for the bomb to fall. And they are asking me when it will happen.
07 January 2009 - For a few hours, life was almost normal
My children are all sleeping. They went to sleep three hours ago, when the bombs stopped for the ceasefire. For three hours, it was totally silent. No bombs. They look so peaceful.
Last night, none of us slept at all. The bombs were falling every five minutes. It was a terrible night. You can’t sleep with the war going on.
As soon as the bombs stopped for the ceasefire, the shops in my neighbourhood opened. My neighbours rushed outside to buy food. They ran, because nobody believed that the ceasefire would last the full three hours. They were afraid there would be an airstrike anytime. People bought food – rice, macaroni, cheese, salt, sugar, eggs. These are the only things left in the stores. Food is now very expensive.
We had electricity for four hours today, which means we had water. We washed our clothes, pumped water, and bathed the children. This is the first time I have ever been excited to wash clothing! For a few hours, life was almost normal.
The airstrikes just started again. I can see the smoke through the window, a few hundred metres away. It’s right in front of me – black smoke. I am afraid.
With the bombs, it’s not what you hear, it’s what you feel. It’s like an earthquake. The houses is swinging, left to right. It’s like an underground wave that moves under the houses.
My children are waking up. The ceasefire is over. We will hope again for tomorrow’s ceasefire, when we can sleep for a few hours again. It will be another long night.
08 January 2009 - At night, we hear screaming and crying
This is the 13th day of the attack. It is really more horrible than we could ever describe. We feel like the sky is going to attack us. There is nothing worse than being tired, needing to sleep so badly, but being unable to sleep. We feel if we close our eyes for a moment, we will die.
It is 4:45 a.m. My six-year-old son just woke up, and asked me: “Dad, why is it so loud tonight?” He used to hear the bombing further away, which was quieter. He doesn’t know that they are targeting houses closer to us tonight.
It is the crying of children in the neighborhood with each bombing which hurts us the most. It is unbelievable, and this is the first night we have heard this screaming and crying. Everyone is exhausted.
I couldn’t help but go downstairs, and was surprised to see almost all my neighbours gathered in the main road by their houses.
“It is safer out here. At least we will not be buried under a demolished house," said one of my neighbours.
Another bombing happened when I was in the street, and people raised their hands together simultaneously and looked at the sky seeking the help of God, and it looked like they all agreed to do this at the same time.
The air strikes kept coming, one after another, with people looking to the sky seeking the help of God. Children continued to scream and cry with every bombing, and I continued to recall the words of my youngest son: “Dad, why is it so loud tonight?”
09 January 2009 - Ali Baba and the war on Gaza
This is the 14th day of the attack. It is 4 a.m.
My six children are so worried, restless and unable to close their eyes. With each airstrike, the house shakes right and left, and the children grab one another like cold rabbits seeking warmth. We feel helpless and victimized. There is nothing worse than being unable to protect your children.
Airstrikes are becoming more violent and more horrible. They sound like they are very close to us, chasing us wherever we try to hide. The kind of psychological trauma Gaza’s children have been exposed to is unbearable and incurable.
My sole objective and mission impossible as a father are to put my kids to sleep. During the past 13 days, I finished all the children’s stories my mother used to tell me as a child.
The only story left untold is “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”. My children seem interested to listen.
I reached the part: “Then Ali Baba climbed down and went to the door concealed among the bushes, and said, ‘Open, Sesame!’ and the door flew open.”
Suddenly my six-year-old son opened his eyes, and asked me: “Dad, why can’t Ali Baba appear in Gaza and say ‘End the war, end the war!’ – and then the war would be over?”
12 January 2009 - "Were my friends at school when it was bombed?"
My son’s school was destroyed today in an air strike. Ziad is just six years old – he started going to school in September. He loves it, especially the physical education class, and art class, where he loves drawing.
But for 16 days, since these horrible attacks began, he has not been able to go to school, and he has not seen any of his friends. Throughout all the bombings, and the sleepless nights, the one thing that he looked forward to was going back to school. But now, his school is completely demolished.
Ziad, who was told by his brothers about this news, to my astonishment, stood speechless and still like a statute. This frisky little boy was not able to say a word for five minutes.
“Dad, am I not going to see my friends again at school?” he finally asked me.
“Were my friends at school when it is bombed?” he asked with pain.
I tried all ways to calm him down, but he burst out crying for almost an hour. Then it is night, it is the suffering again, it is the time we all fear. The constant air strikes. As the bombs fell, Ziad’s temperature rose. He vomited on his bed, became pale and he looked sicker than any time I can remember.
It was 3 a.m. when I called my cousin, who is a doctor. But when he checked Ziad, he said there was nothing wrong with him.
Ziad opened his eyes at 8 in the morning, and told me “Dad, I will not go to school any more. I am afraid they will bomb it again.”
I cried for being helpless and as victimized as my children feel. For two weeks now, I have not been able to show my children that I understand how they feel. Nothing hurts more than the horrible feeling that comes when you feel you are losing your child in front of your eyes.
13 January 2009 - The bombs came today, there is nowhere to go
The leaflets came yesterday, telling us our neighbourhood would be attacked. The whole population of the area is terrified. We have nowhere to go. My neighbour checked at the UNRWA shelter but it was full. Overflowing. There is nowhere to go. We waited to be bombed.
The bombs came today. It was terrifying. We have nowhere to run. There was an air strike every five minutes. Thick black smoke 100m-150m away from us. People were scared, ran outside of their houses and gathered together in the street. 300-350 people in the street. The street was the safest place. If our house is bombed, we’ll get trapped and die like the people we saw on television.
My children have seen the dead bodies of children on television. They cry, they are crying now, they are terrified. When will this end? There was screaming. It is dark and cold but most of us are still outside. My family is outside next to the house. We are terrified to go inside.
It is quiet for 20 minutes now but we don’t know if it will start again. What if it is just a short break? We can’t take the risk. My children are shivering. It is getting so cold. Some neighbours went back inside, but they are staying on the first floor, next to the door so they can run outside. We don’t know what will come next. This is the closest it has come to our house. The neighbourhood next to ours was bombed. What do we do? We don’t know. We have nowhere to go. Nowhere to go.
14 January 2009 - Tomorrow is another war day
Today is the 19th day of war on Gaza. Two days ago, Israel warned residents in my neighbourhood to flee their houses near the border with Egypt ahead of planned bombardments of cross-border tunnels.
Yesterday, January 13th, at 3:15 p.m., it was relatively quiet. The air strikes have been every 30-45 minutes at the border, about 500 metres away from our neighborhood. A group of 20 children were playing downstairs together, including three of my kids. I was on the balcony of my house on the 2nd floor, watching the children playing hide and seek.
At 3:30 p.m., suddenly and violently, non-stop air strikes started. The border with Egypt and the nearby neighbourhood was heavily bombed. There was an air strike every five minutes, and thick black smoke 150m away from us.
After the attack started, there was an uncontrollable panic, everybody was trying to escape the chaos. People were running downstairs with whatever they managed to grab from their houses. More than 90 children of all ages were running toward the north, to nowhere, and their parents were running after them.
In the middle of this horror, I was thinking about my 86-year-old paralyzed father, who was unable to run like others.
My wife quickly gathered my children, and my older brother collected some blankets with his oldest sons. I rushed very quickly to the ground floor where my father lives. With the help of my other brother, we carried my father and quickly left the house.
“I was afraid I would be left alone to die under the bombing,” said my father, with his eyes full of tears. “Thank God, I have my sons living with me.”
There, in the road 100 metres away from the neighbourhood to the north, about 50 families – 350-400 people – were gathering in panic, including about 120 children. The air strikes continued shaking the ground under us, hiding the voices of the kids screaming and crying.
We all knew that the UN schools were full and can’t accommodate any more people.
“This evokes the old memories of Nakba,” said Abu Muhammad Shakshak, a 66-year-old retired teacher. “I was six years old when I first experienced a similar event like this. We ran along the beach and the bombing was chasing us faster than the winds.”
It was about 5:15 pm when I received a call from CARE International’s office in Ramallah. All eyes were fixed at me; people thought I had a magic solution for them while I was on phone. During the call, there were two strong air strikes, and I was shouting into the phone.
“It is getting colder here, the children will die from the cold weather,” said a crying mother to me.
I talked with the UN emergency coordinator, who promised to make a shelter camp for people if the air strikes continued and people could not go back home. I was surrounded by the homeless frightened people from my neighbourhood.
It started to get windy and colder now in the street. People started to get more worried and frightened. The bombing had not stopped, and with each air strike, many children threw themselves onto the ground, hiding their faces against the sand like ostriches, thinking if they don’t see the missiles falling, they will not get hurt.
“Are we going to be burned by the bombs like the children we watch on TV?” asked a 14-year-old child from the neighbourhood, horror in her eyes.
Parents - including myself - were hugging the children. Everyone knew I am an aid worker with CARE International, and I was trying to calm people down and letting them know that I was doing everything I could to ensure better humanitarian conditions for them.
“They destroyed everything. They only left one thing - the air to breathe, and now they are contaminating it with black smoke,” said Abu Muhammad Shakshak.
The air strikes ended at 5:45 p.m. We waited outside until 6 p.m., and then people started to move closer to their houses. An hour later, we entered our houses again, and we all packed go-bags of necessary items so we would be ready to run if the bombings started again.
The air strikes commenced again last night at about 10 p.m. and continued through the night, but further away and less intensive than what it was like in the evening. We finally slept at 5 in the morning, and were awake again at 8 am, waiting for another war day.
19 January 2009 - Today, I am hopeful
The first thing I noticed was the quiet. For the first time in three weeks, there were no bombs, no screams. Ceasefire.
Last night, for the first time in three weeks, I was able to sleep for six hours. Our children slept peacefully. They were not worried or frightened. I can watch them sleeping at night, and not worry about a bomb falling on the house. I feel human again.
Slowly, people started moving, to see what the destruction was like in our neighbourhood. The first day, the people were a bit skeptical, not totally relaxed, especially when we heard that there were air strikes in the north, and we could still see planes overhead.
I went out with my children downtown for the first time in three weeks. They really felt sad about the nearby park; it was destroyed during the first week, along with houses. Now there is no place for them to play – that was the only park.
There was a community centre with ping pong, video games and a meeting room for the neighbourhood modern children’s parliament, run by a local organization. The children would discuss issues related to children’s rights. This was the biggest shock for my children, that this was destroyed. It’s just rubble.
We visited my sister in Rafah City, and talked about the people we knew who had died. Our children played together, and my sister and I were listening to their innocent children’s questions.
“Did you cry? I did not cry. I was very strong. Were you strong? Did you sleep well at night? Where did you sleep? Our father was home the whole time. He read us stories. Did your father read you stories?”
It was really funny, in a way, how they were almost comparing notes. But I worry about them, and how they are processing this.
Today, it is very quiet. I went downtown for shopping for the first time since this started. I bought fuel, vegetables, tomatoes, and cucumber. I even found meat. There was no fruit available, but I found a few oranges. Everything is very expensive. I am lucky, because I have a job, and I withdrew money before the conflict started. Most of my neighbours are not so lucky. There is no money in the banks.
The electricity came on for the first time last night at 9 p.m. The repairmen must have started working right after the ceasefire was called. The children watched cartoons on TV, looking like everything was normal. This morning my sons took the football, and went downstairs to collect other children to go play.
The children were supposed to go to school on Saturday, but the schools are being used as shelters now. My older daughters ask me, ‘Dad, where will we go to school?’ They want me to check with the Minister of Education, to find out when they can go back.
I’m on the balcony now, watching the whole neighbourhood. People are sitting outside, enjoying the sun, drinking tea, smiling. It all looks so normal.
Everyone is relieved that the ceasefire is here, but many people are worried about the damage to the people, to the infrastructure, to everything. Many people say the Gazans were abandoned by the whole world. There is so much damage, so many things destroyed.
One hundred dead bodies were discovered yesterday under the rubble. This is very shocking – they were there for weeks. In the silence, people are talking about their sadness. They are recalling their anguish.
It’s not easy to forget the moments of the war. We are happy for the ceasefire, but there are no celebrations yet. We want a permanent peace. The blockade on Gaza must end. We hope that Gaza will open up to the rest of the world, and we can work, and live, just like everyone else. Tomorrow, I will go to work again for CARE. We will start to rebuild.
We are watching, waiting to see what comes next. But today, I am hopeful.
29 January 2009 - "Dad, why did my friend die?"
Saturday was the first day of school for my children. My 12-year-old son Yazan is in the 6th grade. He went to school and realized he lost six schoolmates. One of the boys used to sit in the desk behind Yazan, so every time he turns and looks behind him, the boy he used to talk to, to laugh with, is not there anymore.
The children lived through the air strikes, the danger, the lack of sleep, and now they have a world that they don’t recognize. They can’t understand why their classmates are dead. Yazan asks me, “Why did my friend die? Why was his house hit? What did he do wrong?”
They want to know why children were killed. They know that many adults were killed, but for them, it is more difficult to understand when it is children, children like them, who were hurt, or killed, or were in pain.
For Ziad, who is six, his school was destroyed in a bombing two weeks ago. They haven’t found any place for the kids yet, so they sit in tents surrounded by rubble.
I sent Ziad to the tent school for two days, but I didn’t like it. It’s outside, so it’s very cold, and it’s in the middle of broken glass and brick and debris. I don’t know what’s in the rubble – we have heard that there could be remains of weapons like white phosphorous or depleted uranium, or unexploded bombs. It is not safe. So now, Ziad will stay home. He will miss his first year of school. He just started going to school in September.
He used to be so excited about going to school, but when I told him he would stay home from now on, he didn’t say anything. Some of his friends have gone back to the tent school, but their parents are starting to think twice, too.
There are no temporary spaces for schools, but they will not allow construction material into Gaza. So many houses and schools are destroyed. The houses that remain standing are holding several families. It is a mess in Gaza, until we can start to rebuild. But how can we rebuild, without cement, or glass, or wood?
I can’t tell you how agonizing these stories are that the kids are talking about. They keep talking about it – the war, what they saw on TV, their friends who died. They imagine how they died. Counsellors at the schools are doing activities for the children to talk to their sadness out. I hope these things work. It’s a big trauma for the children. They are so young.
My daughters, who are older, don’t open up to me. Maybe they talk to their mother. All my life I thought girls like to talk, but now I realize that sometimes it is hard to get girls to talk. They look so sad, but they only answer yes or no to my questions. They are still shocked. They smile less than usual.
One of my daughters is trying to write poems. She is talking about her experience in Gaza during the war, and how we Palestinians felt abandoned by the world. She wrote, “We were crying out for peace, we were crying out for help, but no one listened to us.” She is 15 years old.
I am working again. It used to take me 30 minutes to get to work; now it takes one hour. The asphalt is destroyed. We drive slowly. There are holes everywhere.
At first, I was still shocked, especially seeing Gaza City for the first time, and the level of destruction – the houses, the schools, the buildings. At first, I couldn’t work. I was sitting with my colleagues, asking about people, trying to find out who had died, because we couldn’t find out during the war. The one thing we all missed during the conflict was sleeping at night. At least now we are able to sleep peacefully again, and we all hope this will continue.
But there are many things ahead of us. CARE will continue to distribute food, and emergency supplies, and medicine. Gaza will need to rebuild. And children, like my children, will need help recovering from this trauma.