Tuesday's Child - Testimonials

On our recent visit to Gaza, Tuesday’s Child met many children and heard their stories of living through the horror of war. These children continue to live in extreme poverty and hardship, they are traumatised and cannot understand why the world seems not to care about them and thousands upon thousands of children just like them living in captivity. The children of Gaza show incredibly bravery in the face of adversity. The inhumanity has to stop and this cruel siege has to end. The future of all of our children depends on it.

Mona’s Story

Mona shows me small pictures of her father and mother, she is holding in her hand

My name is Mona, I am 12 years old and have 6 brothers and 2 sisters. We all lived together with my mother and father and we had a good life. We were a poor family, but we were happy together. One night early last January, I wakened to the sound of bombs dropping all around us. They were very loud we were all very frightened. My father asked all of us to come downstairs into the living room as it was safer there. We sat close together , my parents holding us all to them, until  5 a.m. in the morning. I was very afraid and crying a lot as the bombing continued all around us. It was impossible to sleep, all of us so we just sat here in this room like this. My father asked us all to start praying, but we could not find any water, as the soldiers had shot all the water tanks and we had no water to wash before praying. My father said, it was ok, we could pray anyway, even without water, for God would understand.

At 6 a.m. we were still praying when some neighbours came to our home. They asked if they could stay with us as there house was bombed and they had nowhere to go. They were crying and afraid. Over the next hours, more than 100 neighbours came here to our home and stayed together. All of us lay down flat on the land (floor)  as there was shooting everywhere. Another house close to us went on fire and my father and some of his brothers and neighbours went to try and put it out, but there was not enough water anywhere and the fire became too much and the house burned down. There was bombing now on every side of us and it was very loud. We all stayed down flat on the land, but it was impossible to sleep.

Then there was a very loud knock on the front door of our house. My father answered the door and there were soldiers outside. Their faces were coloured black and green and they were wearing very large hats. There were many soldiers and all around the house, tanks, bombs, fire, smoke and guns. It was very strange.

One of the soldiers asked all of the men to come outside. My father can speak in Hebrew and so he started to talk to them. He said, this is my family, please do not harm any of them. We are just farmers, our wives and our children, we live in peace, we mean you no harm, so please do not harm us. The soldiers ignored my father and asked the men for their jawalls (mobiles) and phone-cards. They collected the phones and phone cards together. There were soldiers all around us and we were very afraid.

Then a big soldier told us we all had to leave our home and walk down to the house of Wael. They took all of us and we were put into the one house, it was very packed. We stayed here for some time, many of the children were crying and they were hungry and thirsty, for there was no food and the water in the water tanks had all gone through the bullet holes.

My aunt found a little water and started to bake bread for all the children, for there was no food, only flour. All of us were very tired as well as hungry, I wanted to sleep but I cannot, I was very frightened. We stayed like this all of us together, and tried to sleep on the land (floor) again, but I was too hungry and afraid to sleep. There was no food. We stayed like this together until 6 a.m. in the morning. Then my father, his cousin and his son went out of the house to collect some firewood to bake the bread my aunt was making.

When they went out of the house to collect the wood, there as a bomb beside them and my cousin, uncle and another neighbour were killed and my brother Sala was injured.
Then there was a second bomb, this time on the roof of the house where we were, people around me blew apart and bits of their body went into the air. I could not count how many people were injured, so many hurt and it was all red with blood, all over the house.

Then there was a third bomb into the side of the house. This third bomb was the loudest and this was the bomb that killed my father and mother. My father was very badly injured and his brain came outside his head. I looked then for my mother and she had lost half of her beautiful face. My brother’s wife was also in a very bad situation, her back ripped open in front of me and then her head blew off her shoulders and it landed in my lap and there was a lot of blood. I could not look at them for everyone was in pieces .  All over the house my parents, my aunts and uncles and my cousins were cut to pieces. I looked for the rest of my mother’s pieces but I could not find them. Then one of my older sisters took me by the hand and outside of what was left of the house. My brother Sala, who is 2 years older than me, shouted for anyone still alive inside to come outside.

We came outside and my uncle put up a white flag and we walked under this to the road towards Gaza city. But the soldiers were shooting at us from the sky and the ground. I had no shoes and as I was running, the glass on the ground cut my feet. My feet were bleeding a lot but I kept running. Around us soldiers were laughing at us and shouting “back to death, back to death”, but I kept running with my brothers and sisters. The tanks were chasing us hard so we had to run very quickly. We got to the roadside and stopped a car and we climbed in and they took us to the hospital. Then we saw ambulances and the rest of the people running got into the ambulances and we all went to Shifa hospital.

I was in Shifa hospital and the doctors made me treatments for my cuts and then I went to stay in my aunt’s house with her in Gaza city. The ambulances could still not get into the area where my dead parents were. The whole area was closed by the Israelis and no-one was allowed to go there. I returned with my family 14 days later and the house was now all rubble  and covered over the bodies. People helped us to lift the rubble and we found the bodies of my parents. My father was burnt black to ash and my mother was in tiny pieces. We collected their bodies and pieces for the burial.
I am one of 60 children in our group of families, 13 of us have lost both of our parents, 17 lost their mother and 30 lost their father. Many of the women who died were also carrying babies.
This is my story, I am telling it to you without any tears for I cannot cry. I am unable to cry. But inside I am crying. Inside my heart is breaking.

Abdallah’s Story

Abdullah aged nine, in front of a poster of some of his family killed in the Zeitoun massacre

The Israeli soldiers surrounded our house, some in tanks, many came from the sky. They shelled our home and 22 people in my family were killed. I was hit and injured my shoulder. I saw the blood covering my body and I thought I was killed. I lost my sense. I ask my father to leave the place with my brother as my father and brother were both injured and they were bleeding and my small brothers were crying and they were very frightened. We were all very frightened. I saw all the people, my relatives, their bodies cut to pieces, there were pieces of body lying everywhere. I asked my father to please leave this place and take my brothers to safety and I will stay for I will die soon.

I spent four days between the martyrs. Me and my friends Ahmad and Yakoob, Talal and Mahmood were all injured. Yakoob tried to help me, he crawled on his stomach and brought me clothes from the house and tried to stop the blood for me. I was crying from the pain and I felt I would die soon. There were six of us together, we tried to encourage each other to stay alive, we found some food and water inside the house, we ate and sat waiting for people to come and rescue us. We were afraid that if the soldiers heard our voices they would come and find us and kill us. We tried to be patient and wait, for me I wanted to cry out as the pain was so big. It was terrible.

Four days later the Red Cross came to this place to help the injured people, they found us and took us to Shifa hospital. In the hospital, I saw my father, it was wonderful to see him as I thought I would never see my family again. My father and my family were also being treated in the hospital for their injuries. I had to stay some days in the hospital. My father was very worried because my wound was deep and it started to smell very bad. The doctors said that I might lose all of my arm, but finally God helped us and we travelled to Saudi Arabia for treatment. I had surgery there and stayed in hospital for one month afterwards to heal my wounds.

When I came back to Gaza, I was still too ill and weak to go back to school. The doctors advised my father that going back to school would be very hard for me, but it should be safe or me to return as and I should not be injured again there. I was not able to go back to school, it was too hard for me and I lost my studying all of this year.

I am now back at school, but I feel I am not understanding the subjects and doing well. I cannot concentrate or learn anything because all the time, I remember the martyrs all around me and the pieces of their bodies, all the time, this is all I see in front of my eyes.

I am still suffering pain in my shoulder and arm and the doctors have told me that I need to have more surgery. However, they cannot do this surgery in Gaza and need to make it outside in another country again. But I cannot get out because the borders are closed and it is very hard for people who need treatment to get it, so I am waiting for help and I pray that God will help me again.

Zaineb’s Story

Zaineb with her brothers and sisters, all orphaned

My name is Zaineb, I am 13 yrs old and live in the Zeitoun area. My story starts the day before the war. It is a Friday. I call it “last Friday”, as I remembered all of my family gathered around the table to have lunch for this day was my mother’s birthday. I picked some flowers and gave them to my mother. She held me and kissed me. I will never forget it as this was the last happy day that my mother held me.

The next day, Saturday, the war started. I was in school when I heard the bombing. There were bombs dropping all over Gaza and the noise was deafening. All the girls in the class were crying. The teacher told us all to be quiet and after one hour of bombing they allowed us to leave school to go home. My father was waiting for me outside and he took me and my brothers home.

We could not sleep on Saturday night as the bombing was so strong and we understood that war had started on Gaza and it was very bad. At two o’clock in the morning (Sunday), all of us went into our mother’s room to be with her and it was safer there. We heard strong bombs all around and pieces starting falling inside our house and bullets and firing in the living room.

On the Sunday morning there was a loud a knock on the front door. My father went to answer the door and we all went behind him. There was a big number of soldiers outside the door. They dragged my father out of the house and started to beat him and drag him along the ground. We started crying and asked the soldiers to leave my father alone and stop hurting him so bad. At the same time, my brother Waleed tried to escape from the other side of the house, then we heard big bombs and my mother screaming from the house that Waleed had been killed. My mother tried to go outside to Waleed but the soldiers told her that if she left the house they would kill her also.

The soldiers asked us to go to my uncle’s house, Jamal, who lived with his wife and their beautiful baby. We stayed with them, were all very frightened and crying and were all sitting near my mother.We stayed like this together until the 5th January.

On the night of the 5th January, the soldiers came again collected us and asked all the families to go to Wa’al’s house. We sat with their children who were crying because they were hungry, thirsty and frightened. Wa’al’s mother started to make some bread for the children and collected some wood to bake the bread. She gave a round of bread and some water to each of us. I did not realise then that so many of us would soon die in this house and come to our end here.

Then my cousin Ibrahim went outside to get some water but the soldiers yelled at him for leaving the house and then they killed him. My father and some of the other men tried to look outside to see what happened as they hoped that Ibrahim might still be alive but then another round of bombing hit the house. My father was injured in his head and another man was killed beside him. My mother tried to stop the blood but it is coming very fast and she can’t. We were crying and me and my sister kept saying please my father don’t die.

Suddenly, there was heaving bombing and then shouting and screaming all through the house. Heavy smoke covered the whole place and I cannot see anything but I feel my hand and it is injured. After some minutes, the smoke cleared and it was easier to see around so I started looking for my family. I found my father first, his head was separated from his body. My mother was near him and I took her by the hand and asked her please not to leave me, she was bleeding and I think she was already dead. I just cannot believe this is happening to us, all is horror.

 I start to look for the rest of my family but everyone I went to was dead. Waal’s mother, Waal’s son and daughter, my brother Twfeek and my cousin Azra. I saw pieces of bodies all around me and I did not know which pieces belonged to which body. Then my uncle said we should leave the house before anymore bombs to protect those of us who are still alive. He made a white flag with some cloth and held it up and took us outside behind him. I took my 2 yr old sister Esra by the hand and started to walk to the main street with others from all the El Samouni families until we reached Gaza city. We met an ambulance and stopped it and they took us to hospital to treat us. Then we went to my grandmother’s house in Gaza city for two weeks with my sisters and brothers and we stayed there.

After this time, my uncle told us that Israel now allowed us to go back to where we lived. I was very happy and very sad at the same time and I hoped to see my parents in case I was maybe dreaming a bad dream what happened and they were still alive.

 When we went back, everything was all changed. There were no trees and most of the houses were destroyed. I was very shocked to see that Israel had completely destroyed Wa’al’s house to cover the crime and the bodies with rubble. The I saw my mother and father under the rubble and I am crying very much.