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Gaza : Like an earthquake zone
Written by: World Vision
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Mohammad El Halabi describes how World Vision helped to repair irrigation lines in farmers' fields when the fighting stopped, salvaging fruit and vegetables destined for markets.
Mohammad El Halabi is a Palestinian living in North Gaza with his wife and children. He is World Vision's Area Development Programme Manager for North Gaza. What I remember going back to the start of the conflict in Gaza three months ago were the children crying, including my son Khalil, as they huddled against the walls of their kindergarten when the F16 fighters struck a target near to the building - just a kilometre from our house. When Khalil saw someone with a severed leg being taken away in an ambulance - that was the point when I was persuaded to move my family to safety - to the house of my parents-in-law. When the planes started to shoot the mosques, we weren't given a choice - there's a mosque just 50 metres away from my house. I stayed at my parents' house on the ground floor, hearing strong explosions and people crying. Living next to the Al. Awda hospital in North Gaza I saw the huge number of fatalities and wounded that arrived to the hospital and also tens of children either burnt by white phosphorous or cut to pieces by shrapnel. During the day, it was so risky to leave the house even during the 3-hour ceasefire which was being breached every day. Every time I went out to see my wife and children I noticed increased destruction, neighbours who had been injured or killed and a changed landscape. One day we narrowly missed a white phosphorous bomb dropped beside our vehicle - that night I stayed with my parents-in-law and had to leave my own parents scared and alone. When I visited my sister's home to see her for the first time after the conflict began, I found her living in miserable conditions with not enough food and water and using seawater for sanitation purposes. But then so were many other people because the shortage of fuel led to electricity and water being cut to just two hours during the day. Tens of people would come to my house asking if World Vision could help them to buy fuel in order to operate a water well. We were able to purchase what was available in Jabalia to operate the main water well for one week and for 5 hours a day. All of us had to do what we could to get by - I followed the news by connecting the TV and radio to a car battery and using a UN wireless communication device up on the roof to update some international news agencies about the humanitarian situation. The timing wasn't easy - getting a good signal and then running downstairs when the planes would hover over the area. A friend called me on the 19th day of conflict asking me to help his wife who was about to give birth. My brother, who is a nurse, was able to pick her up within about five hours and drive her to a near by hospital. The day after the tanks rolled out of Gaza I was shocked to see hundreds of greenhouses, animal farms and agricultural lands totally demolished - World Vision had finished constructing 70 greenhouses just a few months before the war. What was more shocking was the huge number of houses that were destroyed in Jabalia. The scene and smell was similar to earthquake-hit areas of Iran and Pakistan...
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