SPECIAL REPORTS PALESTINE

FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA - FREE PALESTINE
August wk2 -- August wk1 P2 -- August wk1 -- July wk4 P3 --  July wk4 P4/2-- July wk4P4 -- July wk4 P3 --  July wk4 P2 --   Click here for an overview by week in 2024
 

Special reports: TRIBUTES TO MOTHERS AND CHILDREN Shoroughs' family August 7, 2024: 'My children cry all day from the heat': Life in Gaza’s tent camps... and August 5, 2024: Shorough 'We have nothing left in this world, except our daughter': a young mother on life in Gaza... Alaa al-Nimer  and daughter Nimah July 28, 2024 "My baby girl was born on the street": A traumatic birth in Gaza

July 22, 2024 Ms. Maram Humaid: "A letter to my son: As you turn one today in Gaza, I feel joy and sorrow"  July 12, 2024 Noor Alyacoubi - "I'm fighting to keep my baby alive" and other stories Mothers and children: Boom-And again Boom Special report: July 12, 2024: Scorched Hospitals - Schools -  Housing - Bodies -- fake or fact?

August 7 - 5, 2024 Food for thought: "The Israelis claim it is a safe zone. Why are they shelling the area now? This is all false propaganda." and "Welcome to Hell" and actual news

Click here to go throughout July and earler, 2024

June 14, 2024 Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Hiba Abu Taha sentenced to one year in prison

Related news: July 11, 2024: Media organizations demand access to Gaza July 2 2024: Arrests of Palestinian journalists since start of Israel-Gaza war   Click here for earlier stories/news

May 23, 2024 In commemoration of Roshdi Sarraj and tribute to Shrouq Al Aila

 
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali.

Dear reader, as history always repeats itself in all wars, wherever and whyever they take place, it are always the women and often also (widowed) mothers and (orphaned) children that are targeted and victims first. That is why they need our utmost attention and moreso support and so hear their stories

Al Jazeera - August 7, 2024 - By Maram Humaid
<<'My children cry all day from the heat': Life in Gaza’s tent camps
Displaced mothers share how they try to help their children cope with sweltering, unsanitary conditions.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza - It is around 7:30pm and the sun is setting when Nimah Elyan and her four youngest children return home - a beige-coloured tent in a temporary camp in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza - after trying to escape the heat by going to the beach. "The tent in the summer is hell," says 45-year-old Nimah as she uses a sponge and a bucket of water to wash her children who are under the age of seven. "We cannot stay inside the tent for even five minutes during the day. The heat is absolutely unbearable." To escape the sweltering conditions during the day, Nimah takes her children to swim in the sea, which lies a few kilometres away. Her children look sleepy as they pull off their clothes, their skin reddened from being outdoors all day. Nimah’s four-year-old daughter sits on the ground eating fava beans, leftovers from last night's dinner. "My children cry all day from the heat," she says, explaining how their skin suffers from constant exposure to the sun, a lack of hygiene products and water scarcity. The water they use to bathe and drink is collected by her children from the nearby hospital. "Every day around 11am, when the weather becomes unbearable, we ride on a donkey cart to the sea," Nimah explains. Going to the sea is not easy, but Nimah says the heat gives her no choice. But when there are Israeli attacks, they are forced to stay in the camp and in their hot tent. It costs the family about 20 shekels ($5) for the 40-minute donkey cart ride to the shore and they often have to wait in the sun before securing transportation. Sometimes it never arrives, and they walk to the beach. Once there, Nimah sits on the sand and watches her children. Sometimes she joins them in the water. And when they return home in the evenings, Nimah washes the salt from her children's bodies and then tries to feed them with whatever is available. "The living conditions are very difficult. Because of this daily journey, we miss the food distributed daily by the community kitchen, which makes providing food a problem," she shares. Some days they stay in the camp to collect food from the community kitchen that distributes free meals or food aid parcels.
'Ravaged our children's bodies'
Nimah was displaced from the Nassr neighbourhood in Gaza City in the north to Deir el-Balah in early March, escaping what UN experts are saying is famine that is now spreading in Gaza. Her husband and two older sons were determined not to leave their home, and remained in the north. "I endured dangerous conditions and bombing for about five months, but we escaped extreme hunger in the end," says the mother of nine. "Now we face the war of displacement in tents and a summer that has ravaged our children’s bodies," Nimah adds, pointing to her one-year-old granddaughter whose body is partly covered in a rash. The baby's mother, Nimah's 21-year-old daughter Nahla, lives in a nearby camp and was in her mother's tent after being at the beach with her mother and siblings. "[I] live in a tent made of nylon with my husband, my daughter, and my husband's family of eight," she explains as she holds her baby. They spend most days walking around trying to find a shaded area, she adds. "My daughter suffers from a bacterial rash that has spread all over her body, and medical ointments haven’t helped," Nahla says. She visited Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the lone medical facility operating in Deir el-Balah, where "doctors said it worsens due to the extreme heat and advised cooling her with water, which is scarce". Nahla says that many children in the camp suffer from similar rashes as a result of the unhygienic conditions, lack of water and heat.
More than 150,000 people in the enclave have contracted skin conditions as a result of the unsanitary conditions Palestinians have been forced into since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). As of July 29, the WHO reported 65,368 cases of rash, 103,385 cases of scabies and lice and 11,214 cases of chickenpox since the start of the war.
"I feel sad for our children, but there is no help," says Nimah as she washes her six-year-old daughter. "We are forgotten."
'We are burning alive'
Heba Sheikh Khalil, a 38-year-old mother of eight, sits in a small shaded area opposite her tent with her family, fanning herself with a piece of cardboard. "My face is two colours, as you can see. The burned part sums up all our suffering," Heba tells Al Jazeera, pulling back her veil to show the contrast with her exposed, reddened skin. "We are burning alive," she says angrily. "The intense heat inside the tent is indescribable." According to Heba, coping with the heat, which is most intense between six in the morning and six in the evening, is a daily struggle for people in the camp where they live. "The sun's rays are vertical during the daylight hours," she shares. "My children and I spend the day searching for shade or walking in the streets, hoping for a cool breeze but finding none." Heba's family was displaced from the Shujayea neighbourhood east of Gaza City in October and moved to Deir el-Balah, and then to the Nuseirat refugee camp. Her home had a long living room and five large rooms. "The air played games in it," she says, recalling the fresh breeze in her now-destroyed home. "Now I live in a tent. We are eaten by flies and insects. There is no water, so my children shower at Al-Aqsa Hospital nearby," she explains, adding that her family goes to shower every 10 days. Heba's suffering extends beyond discomfort from the scorching weather to heatstroke, headaches, dizziness and mosquito and fly bites that have proliferated in the difficult conditions. "The tent environment is very miserable. There is no infrastructure or drainage for sewage and wastewater, leading to insect proliferation," she says. Health conditions in the makeshift camps have gotten worse due to piles of rubbish and the accumulation of sewage, risking the spread of infectious diseases, warn United Nations agencies. Meanwhile, the WHO said it was sending one million polio vaccines to Gaza after poliovirus was found in sewage samples. "The suffering is multifaceted: extreme heat, garbage, wastewater, and a lack of clean water and detergents, whose prices have significantly increased," Heba says.
"We are living in hell on earth. Every day I wake up hoping this is a bad dream that will end."
SOURCE: AL JAZEERA>>
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/8/7/my-children-cry-all-day-from-the-heat-life-in-gazas-tent-camps

France 24 - August 5, 2024

Shorouq
France 24 - July 28, 2024
<<'We have nothing left in this world, except our daughter': a young mother on life in Gaza
Shorouq spoke to FRANCE 24 in November about the challenges facing pregnant women in Gaza, which is experiencing severe shortages of both food and medical care. Eight months later, we asked her how she and her family are coping; not only do they face a constant threat from air strikes and shelling, but Shorouq's daughter is suffering from stomach parasites due to dirty water. When FRANCE 24 spoke to Shorouq in November, she was pregnant with her first child and living in a shelter in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. She gave birth in a hospital via C-section two months later, saying she was “very lucky” to have received a spinal anaesthetic. But the very next day she was forced to flee to Rafah to escape a rise in fighting.
"I tried four medical clinics in the hope someone could remove the stitches from the C-section. But I didn't find anyone," she says. "So my mother took the stitches out for me. We had no other choice." Shorouq did not receive any postnatal care, which is defined as the period six to eight weeks after giving birth. For a C-section, postnatal care would have included a health professional removing the stitches using sterile equipment and monitoring how the scar is healing to guard against infection. "Pre-conflict, mothers in Gaza were able to access basic care," says Hiba Alhejazi, from the humanitarian charity CARE International. "For example, they had access to hospitals where they could get their baby weighed, where checks could be done for certain health indicators, and there would be follow-up care for her. On a basic level, that kind of care was available." Research published in May by the Palestinian non-governmental organisation Juzoor, a CARE International partner, found that two-thirds of the Gazan mothers surveyed – all of whom gave birth during the current conflict – did not receive any postnatal care.
'Our apartment has been completely destroyed'
Shorouq has since fled again and is living, under the blistering summer heat, in a tent in the centre of Gaza. "I've had to flee seven times," she says.
All of the clothes and toys she carefully picked out for her baby during her pregnancy are gone. "We've been told that our apartment has been completely destroyed. Right now we have nothing left in this world, except our daughter."
'My baby is in huge pain'
Shorouq had to give up breastfeeding when her daughter was three months old. She did not have sufficient breast milk because she could not access enough food or water for herself to sustain a steady supply. She now bottle-feeds her daughter, but sometimes she is forced to make up the formula with water that she does not know is safe. "We buy purified water for our daughter when we can, but it costs a lot of money and we cannot always find it, so we have to use recycled water," she explains. Unsanitary water has given her daughter intestinal parasites. "My baby is in huge pain in her stomach, she cries a lot. You can see there's something wrong in her stool, her sleep is broken and she never feels rested, she's uncomfortable and suffering," says Shorouq. Desperate, she tried 13 pharmacies before managing to get hold of the antibiotics her daughter needs. She expects the antibiotics to work but knows the parasites will return if she cannot consistently find clean water for her daughter. "All I'm asking is that she recovers from the problem in her stomach and for her to have good health. I pray for her every day," Shorouq says. "Water sanitation facilities have broken down," Alhejazi explains. "There's sewage everywhere. We're in summer so it's hot, which obviously increases the risk of dehydration. Lack of access to clean water is a constant issue. And that's also why you see the spread of so many infectious diseases."
'This war has exhausted us'
The UN estimates that 5,500 women give birth every month in Gaza, or about 180 per day.
During and after their pregnancies, they all face the stress and fear caused by air strikes, helicopters and drones in the skies above their heads.
Israel launched a military offensive on Gaza after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing almost 1,200 Israelis and foreigners and taking more than 250 people hostage. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says more than 39,000 people have since been killed and almost 90,000 injured by Israeli strikes on the enclave.
"I wish that this would end; we're really tired. This war has exhausted us," says Shorouq. "We're strong people in Gaza, but even iron-strong people are tired. None of us know when this will end. Each time they announce that there could be a ceasefire, but nothing changes for us on the ground."
After a six-day pause in the fighting late last year in exchange for the release of 105 hostages, ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas have faltered.
Meanwhile, Shorouq and her daughter are coping as best they can. But Shorouq feels helpless most of the time.
"I would do anything in the world for my daughter," she says.
"You cannot imagine how it feels when your child needs help, but you cannot help them." >>
Source:
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240728-we-have-nothing-left-except-our-daughter-young-mother-gaza-speaks-to-france-24

 Women's Liberation Front 2019/cryfreedom.net 2024