Fares Akram

My daughter Somaya's birth is the first light in this darkness

2009-01-16T10:04:42Z

It has been the bloodiest, most violent day yet here in Gaza City. Israeli tanks came in from the south, shelling and bombing in the residential areas. But even with this death, bloodshed and chaos all around us, we are filled with joy. Twelve days after my father was killed by an Israeli airstrike, our first baby has been born, healthy at 3.8 kilos, with dark hair, just exactly as her mother wanted. I couldn't believe my eyes, seeing her for the first time. I kissed and hugged her softly. She cried when I took her in my arms.

On Wednesday evening as Alaa was in labour, there were signs of hope for an end to the conflict; we heard reports that Hamas had accepted the Egyptian plan for a ceasefire. "Perhaps our baby, and peace, would arrive together," I thought.

But overnight the Israelis escalated their attacks, targeting an area of the city called Tel al Hawa which is definitely not a Hamas stronghold. It is an area of big villas and where wealthier people live. I spoke to one of my friends who described terrible scenes, with injured people running into the streets. I called the International Committee of the Red Cross, they said they had suspended operations because tank fire hit the Al-Quds hospital causing panic and terror among survivors of earlier incidents. The UN building, struck by three shells, burned all day.

Alaa had been very frightened at the prospect of giving birth and, to make it even more terrifying, we could hear the bombing as we got in the taxi to the Shifa hospital. Conservative Muslim customs apply in public hospitals so I wasn't allowed in to the labour ward. It was disappointing, but Alaa's sister came out from time to time to tell me how it was going.

I knew the birth would take a long time, the doctors induced the labour. So I went down to the front entrance where the ambulances were arriving. From a civil defence fire engine, I saw eight wounded people taken out, all were civil defence staff still in their fluorescent jackets. A house near their base had been hit by a missile. They had rushed to evacuate the house but then another missile struck. It was a terrible sight. Most of them had their legs cut off from beneath the knee and severe shrapnel cuts.

All day yesterday, the Israelis intensified strikes on Gaza City and, at the emergency wing of the Shifa hospital, away from the calm of the maternity ward, the ambulances never stopped arriving. For 20 minutes, I watched the injured and dying coming in non-stop convoys of ambulances, ordinary vehicles, civilian cars, pickup trucks, anything that could be used to transport the casualties. Some of the wounded were burnt, some were cut very badly. Some were being sent directly to the morgue. I saw three cases where the medics did that. Most of the victims seemed to be women, girls, and children including a very small baby, wrapped in white blankets. Every day has been bad since this war began but this is the worst.

My mother joined us in the hospital. She managed to hold back the tears but I knew she was sad, thinking of my dad who would have been so happy to see his new granddaughter. And yet, I know that as one family member leaves us, another is born. It reminds you that life is a circle, a continuous thing.

We evacuated our home earlier this week, and then our apartment was badly damaged by blasts. After yesterday's violence, I feel we are not even safe in the hospital. I'm afraid for my wife and new daughter. I only hope Somaya's birth will be accompanied by the end of the violence and the killing. For our family, if not for the rest of Gaza, her birth is like a light in the dark.

They killed Akram and now they’re destroying the few belongings he left behind

2009-01-13T22:03:14Z

The sound of explosions and clashes boomed all night and into the early hours and we guessed that Israeli foot soldiers were trying to press on deeper into the city from the south. Whenever the firing salvoes paused for few seconds, we could hear the tank engines. The Gaza Strip was already pretty small before this conflict began, but it has got even smaller after being divided into three isolated sections by the Israeli army.

In the past 17 days of the onslaught, there hasn’t been a night without heavy strikes on Gaza, but last night, the shelling never stopped for more than a few seconds and aircraft, artillery cannons and gunboats fired their missiles into Gaza all at the same time.

It’s OK, it’s still a long way from us, I said to Alaa, who is 9 months pregnant and due in hospital in the morning (Wednesday) when the doctors are planning to induce the birth of our first baby. We’ve been taking refuge at my in laws’ place in the middle of Gaza City

But to the north, where our evacuated apartment building is located, missiles had also been landing.

Alaa fretted and it was difficult to comfort her since there were reports that the al-Andalous tower, a 14-story residential complex that is only 30 from our home had been struck.

When the darkness lifted, I hurried to check on the family home.

Turning right into our street, I saw scores of people gathering under what remained of the al-Andalous tower. The road was filled with stones, dust and smashed glass . One look at our own building from the outside was enough to let us imagine how things would be on the inside. There were no windows left.

Residents of the tower were bringing down what they could save of their damaged pieces of furniture and belongings. The staircase was gone, so they dropped down everything from mattresses and bedcovers to televisions using a rope.

In our building, the doors of the lift had been blown away due to the strong air concussion, the timber doors of my uncles' apartments were blown open and everything was covered in dust and broken glass.

I found my mother at her apartment which is next door to my own; she was showing the local media the destruction and the window frames that had crashed down on my father's bed. "They killed Akram and now they’re destroying the few belongings he left behind” she was saying. It’s just 10 days since my Dad, Akram, was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the day the ground offensive began.

Inside, I retrieved all the baby clothes that we’ve bought for my daughter. It seems we’re going to be away from our home for longer than we imagined.

Later Alaa looked sadly through the photos I took of the destruction at the apartment where we’ve lived for less than a year. She never expected, she told me, that our baby would spend the first days of her life outside of our home moving from shelter to a shelter.

I rushed home in the ceasefire. Our baby's due tomorrow

2009-01-13T13:39:00Z

The temporary ceasefire was earlier yesterday, running from 10am until 1pm, so I used the time to rush back to the family house we've evacuated, to pick up blankets, toothbrushes and clothes. I found our area in the al-Karama district of Gaza City completely deserted except for a few people who had gone to inspect their homes. Some of the houses had been set on fire in the overnight clashes.

I managed to bring back things for the baby: washing products, shampoo, but because it was such a rush, I forgot a lot of things we needed.

I'm supposed to become a father for the first time tomorrow. Alaa, my wife, has a lot of pain and is very tired. We finally got blood pressure medication for her, from an UNWRA clinic. Inshallah, everything will be all right on Wednesday. The problem for Alaa, or for any woman about to give birth in Gaza, is that the Israelis don't announce their true intentions.

We had a call from Amman to say that Bassma, one of my aunts who was suffering from cancer and receiving treatment in a hospital in the Jordanian capital, just died. She was 49, a year older than my father. We'd been expecting her death but never imagined that dad, her younger brother, would die a week before her, wiped out by a missile fired from an Israeli warplane.

My father had been making plans to look after Bassma's youngest unmarried daughter, who is 17, in the event of her death. But that was before this Israeli military campaign. There is no question of bringing Bassma's body back to Gaza in these conditions. For Muslims, the sooner you bury the dead, the better so I think most probably she will have to be buried in Amman.

Al-Nasser, the area of Gaza City we have moved to for safety is overcrowded and people have started going out in the streets a bit more. That's because there are a lot of UN schools harbouring families in the neighbourhood but they can't stay shut in the schools all day.

Air strikes have continued but there isn't much left to attack. The IDF are bombing either sites that have been bombed already, or open spaces. The tanks pushed in from the south side overnight. They always advance in the night. The pattern seems to be clashes with militants, and then the tanks take up new positions. The bombs are still hitting mosques, however. The Israelis claim they could contain stores for weapons. Mosques here are very much associated with Hamas. If you are a Hamas member and you have a problem, you raise a complaint by going to the nearest mosque.

Now, Hamas are very silent. We don't even see Hamas police in the streets. It isn't that they've gone underground, but they are wearing civilian clothes and they don't dare to show their weapons, or drive their blue police cars which are all still parked in the same places they were in when this started.

Not that there is any law and order to enforce. The prisons have been emptied by the bombing and some have taken advantage of the chaos to carry out vengeance killings or to settle clan feuds.

Soon we'll have nowhere left to run. Nowhere in Gaza is safe

2009-01-12T10:01:17Z

We've left our home. Like 60,000 other Gazans, we've taken our belongings and fled. Once again, we've become displaced people. Soon, there will be nowhere to run to, since nowhere in Gaza is safe. In the early hours of Saturday, the bombing got louder and closer to our home, and the rattle of machine-gun fire became more intense. The tanks were not far off.

As I lay in the dark, I heard the sound of small-arms fire and voices in the street outside. Since the Israeli offensive began, our city streets have been deserted during the hours of darkness; even the dogs that usually annoy us with their all-night barking have vanished. The voices were Palestinian militants: "Stay close to the wall!" "Go by the wall!", I could hear them shouting to each other. I didn't dare go to the window, fearing snipers, but tried listening to the radio. The FM stations run by Palestinian factions had no information, just talk about the "heroic actions" of their militants.

My thoughts went to my wife, Alaa, so, at dawn, I phoned her. Alaa is nine months pregnant and we evacuated her last week to her parents' place in the western part of the city. As I expected, she was in a state of panic.

At 6am, I looked out of the window. The entire neighbourhood was leaving. From a residential complex to the west, they were all leaving, carrying bags, mattresses, blankets, personal belongings. Cars were stuffed full of luggage, and everyone was rushing because the sound of bombing enveloped us.

I used to say we would never leave our home, but when you see everyone else on the move, how can you stay? Barely a week since my father was killed by an Israeli air strike on our small northern Gaza farm as the ground invasion began, we were facing another terrible dilemma. I thought of the Samouni family, killed last week while sheltering in a house together, and decided we had to go.

I took Alaa's jewellery, my laptop and phone, my notes and papers, and some clothes. My mother, sisters and their children drove away to take shelter at my sister's house. I walked with the people in the street.

Leaving your home like this is pitiful; you feel almost ashamed. But there's no mercy with the Israelis in this operation. Previously, they weren't so harsh on civilians. But now, although they say they target Hamas, it seems they target anyone.

I am now at Alaa's parents' house. Here, there are 100 people in a building usually occupied by 20. The whole district is overcrowded as most of those who fled other parts of Gaza have come here. But late on Saturday afternoon, the flyers warning of an escalation started landing along with the bombs. "To the residents of the Gaza Strip," the leaflets read. "The IDF will escalate its operations in the imminent period against the tunnels, military warehouses and terrorist elements all over the Gaza Strip. For your safety and the safety of your family you are required not to remain near terrorist elements, the storage of military means, or close to sites from where terrorist operations are launched."

Well, we fled our home because of the militants – or terrorists, as the Israelis call them – but now they were dropping the flyers here too. Gaza is a small place and the Israelis have shut the borders, so we can't escape. Are they simply trying to terrify us further?

In the midst of the chaos, I managed to get Alaa to see a nurse, and then to the hospital yesterday. The nurse said Alaa is going into the early stages of labour. Her blood pressure is slightly up, and she's dizzy. At the hospital, the doctor said they may induce her labour on Wednesday. For a few moments, amid the newborn babies in the maternity ward, Alaa forgot our predicament and looked joyful.

Before sunset last night, the Israeli forces dropped more leaflets urging people to phone them with information about rocket sites. I hear they are also talking about the endgame. And we, the Palestinians, shouldn't lie to ourselves: they have achieved some of their goals. There are fewer rockets being fired across the border into Israel, and we've heard that six Hamas leaders have fled to Egypt by tunnel.

But what they have achieved has been at the expense of the Palestinian civilians. Hundreds of children have been killed or injured. They have seen their parents terrified and powerless to protect them. In the future, who will they turn to for protection? Even if the warplanes are gone by the time our baby arrives later this week, what Israel has done in the past two weeks will keep the flames of this conflict alive for generations to come.

Three fleeting hours of respite – so we rushed out looking for bread

2009-01-08T11:31:47Z

From 1pm, life started returning to the streets. Israel stopped the bombing and shelling briefly after 12 days to allow humanitarian supplies in, and to allow us to stock up on food. People emerged from their houses, many to the hospitals to look for injured family members or the bodies of dead loved ones.

Most people headed for the bakeries, others rushed around with empty containers looking for drinking water. I joined a queue in front of a bakery but unfortunately returned without a single loaf since the bread ran out before it was my turn. Going to the green market was disappointing; there weren't enough vegetables. There were onions and cucumbers but tomatoes, the one thing everyone wants, were scarce. Nor was there any eggplant. There was something on sale that we don't use so much here: sweet pepper, considered a luxury because it's expensive.

Most vegetables are grown in either the southern or northern ends of the Gaza Strip. As Israel has been dividing the territory into three it's difficult to transport produce into Gaza City. Fresh fruit is also something of the past as Israel has not allowed any in since early November last year. Strawberries are the only fruit Gaza is famous for and the Israeli ban on their export at least means we have one fruit in the market.

Everyone looked relieved and we're hoping the temporary ceasefire will be repeated. But it's a sad reminder of the time when Gaza was occupied by Israel before the creation of the Palestinian Authority and we had curfews that the Israelis would lift for two hours so that people could go to the market. Gaza is supposed to be free and unoccupied but in fact Israeli soldiers still have the power to keep us in our homes or let us go to the market.

In any case, the three hours passed quickly. We bought cans of fish, beans, cheese, eggs. I went to see my pregnant wife Alaa who is staying at her mother's house, and then rushed back at five minutes before 4pm, afraid that heavy bombardment would resume suddenly.

Our biggest need is still for cooking gas. We're finding ways to adjust; my mother remembered an old brass stove her father used 30 years ago. It's working well. But the smell of burnt kerosene, mixed with the smell of the food being cooked, and the sound of the burner, leave you thinking we have moved out of the 21st century. Waiting for the tea from this old cooker and holding the laptop in my arm, the two things didn't seem to go together.

You can trace the worst moments for Palestinians with our little brass cooker. My grandfather bought it in the 1950s. All Palestinian refugees depended on kerosene during the 1967 war. And it came into use again in 1991 during the Gulf war when Israel imposed a blockade on the occupied territories and the electricity was knocked out.

By dark last night, Israel had resumed the shelling, targeting a car travelling in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and killing four people inside. Maybe this brief ceasefire was a trial. But before any real ceasefire, you have to withdraw the tanks. The old brass stove will be in use for a few more days, I think.

I heard the news... it's time to evacuate my pregnant wife

2009-01-07T14:53:12Z

Things are getting worse by the day. The streets here in Gaza City have been empty. It's dangerous to go on the balcony but if you risk looking out you can see columns of black smoke rising from the north. The sound of automatic machine gun fire from the Apache helicopters I find most terrifying.

Overnight, it seems the Israeli tanks progressed further into Gaza, and now we've heard about the tank shelling at a UN school in Jabalya camp killing more than 30 people. I found out about that when the electricity resumed for a short time in the evening and I was able to get online. I'm appalled but not surprised: if you have tanks on high ground to the east of Jabalya firing down on such a densely populated area, this kind of bloodshed can be expected.

Personally I've had a big decision to make. I've had to evacuate Alaa from our family home. It's just too risky for a woman who is due to give birth shortly, to stay here in our apartment which is quite a distance from the nearest hospital. I managed to find a taxi driver willing to make the journey, and moved her to stay at her parents' house in Al Masser near the Beach refugee camp which at least is closer to a small clinic. Alaa packed up all the things for the baby – the first aid kit, some diapers, her own clothes. She didn't want to go.

I can't describe how sad it is to be apart from your wife in these circumstances. I want to be with her, but I also have the responsibility of my younger brothers, my sisters and their kids and my mother, especially after what happened to our father, who was killed by an Israeli air strike on our farm in northern Gaza on Saturday. Emotionally my mother has been very strong. But I saw tears in her eyes when Alaa was leaving. Don't worry, I told Alaa, I'll be with you soon. Now I'm very much afraid I won't be able to meet my promise. Even phone contact isn't assured. The Palestinian telecoms company say all our networks will be down soon if Israel doesn't allow fuel into Gaza within 48 hours.

Meanwhile we have no water, not even cold water. There isn't a drop in the taps.

My sister's children and our young cousins have been clustering around a very old kerosene stove we decided to try to use after the cooking gas ran out. We rush to do some cooking in the night if electricity suddenly comes on. We got power back last night for half an hour and made a loaf of bread.

There are seven children under the age of 10 here and they're all pretty scared. They don't stop asking what's going on. Will the Jews come to our house, they ask.

Today I've eaten nothing but dates and some of the bottled water we had brought in before this began. There's no chance of a shower, or getting any sleep. And the nights are so long after dark when you can't read or go online. At least when the electricity is on you feel slightly reassured and relaxed. The dark contributes to your feeling of being completely isolated and afraid.

People are fleeing the north on donkey carts

2009-01-07T14:48:27Z

When we woke up yesterday morning there were people on the streets for the first time in days. Whole families, girls, women, fathers, children. They appeared to be coming from the north of the Gaza Strip, fleeing their homes. The majority were walking, some were on donkey carts. There were a few cars and trucks but each had up to 10 people crushed inside. They were carrying their belongings, such things as mattresses and bed covers.

My grandfather who lives with us, watched for a while and said: "This is exactly like the immigration of Palestinians into Gaza in 1948".

Overnight there were more air strikes, heavy-artillery shelling and the tanks have been coming deeper into Gaza. So you can't blame people for seeking safety.

Alaa, my wife, nine months pregnant, is nervously hanging on and I'm thanking God she hasn't gone into labour yet. Medical check-ups are out of the question as most of the clinics are closed. When she's born, we'll call my daughter Somaya. But, the later the better. I don't want our first baby arriving in these conditions. The thing is I'm afraid this will be a long conflict and every day will be worse than the last.

We're still coming to terms with the death of my father, killed by an Israeli air strike on Saturday as the ground war began. When you're in shock you don't really feel much pain. But when you stay in the house, looking at your father's things, recalling the last conversations you had with him, it is sad beyond belief. I know I'm in the same situation as many, many families in Gaza.

I at least can take some comfort from all the emails I've been sent. Everyone who wrote after reading the report on the front page of Monday's Independent said that they were very moved. I'm happy about that. Telling the story is much better than any revenge.

When the Israelis take complete control of Gaza I think they will launch a large scale detention campaign and arrest the men aged between 15 to 50 to interrogate them for information. Of course all the wanted men have gone underground.

Because we're a family in mourning, neighbours and friends have been coming to the house to offer condolences. They have nothing to talk about other than the crisis. And the overwhelming feeling I get is that ordinary people who find themselves locked in this conflict are angry with Hamas. Hamas is supposed to be the government; they have been provoking the Israelis with their rockets and putting people at risk, yet now their leaders have vanished from sight leaving no plans to provide food, medicines or any kind of security for us. Of course Hamas still has its supporters whose minds will never be changed. But more and more, that is what I'm hearing. The senior commanders of Hamas have gone underground and left their people behind.