“Every night we come together to die together”

Gaza has experienced its sixth consecutive night of Israeli bombing. Israel's revenge for the incursion of Hamas militias into southern Israel, in which some 1,300 people died, has already left 1,354 dead in the most ferocious attack in memory against the Strip. With the Rafah crossing, which connects to Egypt, closed and bombed and a “total blockade” by Israel, there is no safe place for civilians. “Every night, my family and I come together to die together. And if we die, we die together. If we save ourselves, we save ourselves together,” he explains to The vanguard Mohammed, a worker for a local NGO that collaborates with the Catalan company Creat, from the devastated city of Jabalia, north of Gaza.

Mohammed, who has agreed to speak to this newspaper on condition of anonymity for security reasons, assures that in his 40 years he has never seen this “madness.” “In the past we knew that there were some areas safer than others. Now we have nowhere to go, we stay at home and wait to see if the bomb falls or not.” The main difference between this war and previous ones, he says, is that the bombings are constant and without warning. “In the past there was a warning. Sometimes a call or a small bomb. Then people had some time to flee. Now they bomb the houses with the people inside,” he says. The same area can be attacked for hours. “My family and I have only slept two or three hours straight since Monday,” he says from his house.

His ex-wife, the mother of his two oldest children, has disappeared under the rubble along with his entire family.

A father of five, his family has already paid a direct price in this war. His ex-wife, the mother of his two oldest children, has disappeared under the rubble along with her entire family. “They bombed his building, which had five apartments, and it collapsed. There are a lot of people under his building, I think more than 100 people,” he says. "My son goes every day to look for her. He doesn't tell me because I wouldn't let him, it's not in my neighborhood and it's dangerous. We were friends, we saw each other often. She wanted to see her children when the attack started, but the transportation "It was not safe. Now she has been murdered or is under the rubble. But after two days... I think she died with her husband and her two children, her father-in-law, her brother, her sister-in-law and her son and other families," she says without knowing. How to help your children in this grief.

His family is traumatized and terrified. “My wife and daughters don't want to take off their clothes because they say that, if they die, they want to die dressed. They are Muslims and do not want anyone to see their body. They think about those terrible things,” she laments. Her house has become a refuge for her sister and her family, who lived in a more unsafe area and are now 16 people in the same apartment. “We all sleep in the center of the house, because it is safer than the rooms facing the street,” she explains. And despite everything, he feels more privileged than many. “We are middle class, my wife and I work and we have money,” he says.

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However, that privilege means less and less in the Strip. The Israeli government has declared a “total blockade” and has cut off the supply of electricity, fuel and water. With all border crossings closed, surviving the lockdown becomes more difficult with each passing hour. “In six days we have only had 4 hours of electricity. Now there is no more water. I have food for four or five days. The supermarkets are empty. Today the bakeries have stopped making bread because there is no electricity or gasoline for the generators…” says Mohammed. “I think that in a week or ten days there will be no food in Gaza. We are drinking dirty water because there is no electricity to purify it and there is no bottled water left in supermarkets. “This is the last thing I have left,” he says, showing two fingers of water inside a small bottle.

“I have a battery, but it will die. My brother has a generator, but we don't have gasoline. And if everything stops I don't know what will happen. The hospitals have power for two more days, then there will be nothing,” she laments. The International Committee of the Red Cross warned this Thursday that Gaza hospitals risk becoming morgues if that happens.

“They need to increase the death toll because they cannot accept that there are more on their side than on the Palestinian side”

Mohammed speaks of a “genocidal” war. “They need to increase the number of deaths because they cannot accept that there are more on their side than on the Palestinian side,” he denounces. “It is a punishment against the population of Gaza, because Hamas militants are underground and in the settlements. Let them deal with them there and not bomb innocent people's houses! ”He implores. Asked what he thinks will happen if Israel begins a ground offensive against the Strip, Mohammed covers his eyes with his hand and sighs uneasily. Still, he sees it as unlikely. “I think they are not going to enter because they are still fighting in their territory and they cannot leave their backs uncovered,” he reasons.

Despite the temperance with which this father relates the situation, he admits that these last six days are breaking his spirit. “I am a strong man. Strong, strong, strong,” he insists. “All my friends, in my neighborhood, know that I am a strong man in the community and mentally, but I can't deal with this, I feel helpless. How do I deal with my children's feelings? What do I do with my sister's family who lives under my roof if I don't have food? What do I do when the food at home runs out? If it is difficult for me, what will it be like for families who don't have money? How can they live without anything? ”He asks himself without finding an answer.

“Now they want Egypt to have the border so that there is a new Nakba. So that we can go to Egypt,” says Mohammed, evoking the great exodus of Palestinians expelled from their lands by the Israelis after the 1948 war. “But I prefer to die at home. My father and mother came from the village of Barbara, near Ashkelon, in the first Nakba. His house is still there. “I will not leave my home to go to Egypt.”