Days of thunder
By Gideon Levy
Boom after boom, shell after shell, thunder after thunder. The windows of the houses shake, the walls that were cracked during the previous shelling are already threatening to collapse from the blast, the children scream in fear or walk around shocked and silent in the shelled house. One shell after another, every few minutes another one. Sometimes there is a vague and distant noise, and sometimes there is a thundering and very nearby BOOM!!!! The skies tremble, the end of the world. Boom after boom, a shell every five minutes. It is impossible to know where the last one landed, much less where the next one will land. Yesterday afternoon a shell landed on the heads of these children and adults, whose home we are now visiting. Boom after boom, even now, terrible fear.
The fear begins at the Erez crossing, the sounds of war. Afterward, when you cross the deserted checkpoint and travel a little to the south, the noise gradually becomes closer. The never-ending noise. At a certain point one begins to get used to it, just as one gets used to a thunderstorm. But these thousands of shells, which are aimed at 'open areas,' not only sow great and terrible fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of residents, including many children, but they also occasionally hit homes, and then they kill and injure. We don't hear about it much. On Sunday, Israel was totally preoccupied with the festivities of the Final Four basketball championships, but while our American basketball players were aiming at the basket, our artillery was aiming at Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. On the basketball court in Prague there were victors and losers, but not here, in the sandy alleyways. Here there are only losers.
Does anyone among our excellent artillery forces think about the great fear they are causing to the children upon whose homes they are launching their shells? Have they been shown pictures of the destruction they sowed, whether deliberately or not? No Qassam rocket justifies this terrible, disproportionate bombing, thousands of shells in a densely populated area, on its fields and occasionally on its homes; the echoes of this shelling did not reach Israel and did not interest anyone here. Last week we went to bombarded Beit Lahiya, in the row of houses that was shelled there, two dead and several wounded, this week in bombarded Beit Hanoun, three children wounded and dozens suffering from shock.
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Little Meisa walks around barefoot among the ruins of her home, stepping on a carpet of glass splinters. In silence she walks among the ruins, here and there, not knowing what to do with herself. Her gray face expresses shock. Meisa does not say a word, it is impossible to get even a trace of a smile from her. This child is now a victim of shock. Five years old, on Shabbat afternoon, when the shell shook the walls of her house, hit the roof and destroyed it, Meisa was on the top floor of the family's impoverished home. Now she is walking around the house restlessly, hugging to herself a bundle of rags that were her clothes. Meisa does not leave the rags, holds them tightly, so they won't get lost. Abed, her cousin, was on the roof and was wounded. This house is home to 35 people, almost all of whom were at home when the shell landed on the roof. Most of them are small children.
The home of the Abu Ouda family is located at the edge of the town of Beit Hanoun, bordering on the orchards, which the Israel Defense Forces once uprooted as part of its policy of 'exposure,' and which have now been replanted. House No. 16 on a street with no name, with a lovely view of a rural landscape from the roof: the saplings of the orchards and a row of Washingtonia palm trees at the end. The gray patches in the orchard are the craters of yesterday's shells, the town whose houses can be seen on the horizon in the east is Sderot.
Now the shells are landing in nearby Beit Lahiya, one day for Beit Hanoun and one day for Beit Lahiya. The pool of water was destroyed here about a year ago by the IDF, and it is still in ruins. The roof on which we are standing and looking out over the shelling fields threatens to collapse. Two iron poles that they stuck into it for support, several hours after the shell landed, will not hold up these torn pieces of cement for much longer. The walls of the house are cracked, and some of its ceilings are also threatening to fall. The staircase that leads to the roof, which was hit by the shell, is dangling in thin air. The ascent to the roof involves danger to life and limb, everything is liable to disintegrate at any moment. But here they want us to see all the signs of destruction, they aren't letting us skip a single piece of shrapnel. They want us to see the smashed sun-heated water tanks, the shattered television satellite dishes, and the drops of blood on the roof, the blood of the boy Abed, who is now lying on the first floor of the adjacent house with shrapnel in his leg. He was lucky: The neighbor's son, Ahmed Naim, is now lying in Shifa Hospital with shrapnel in his brain. Abed is 13 and Ahmed is 17. They say that the child Mohammed Abu Ouda was also slightly wounded by shrapnel in his throat. He is five years old.
From the roof you can also see the living conditions of these wretched residents: a sea of improvised asbestos roofs, reinforced by gray bricks, the look of a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Brazil or in Sri Lanka. The apartment of Hatem Abu Ouda is half demolished. A little boy sits in shock on the dusty sofa and stares at what is going on. This is 8-year-old Zakaria, who has also not yet recovered from yesterday's shelling. But even now the bombardment continues, one shell after another. The kitchen was badly damaged, as was the bedroom. 'Look a door, look a wall, look a cupboard,' say Ismail Abu Ouda, 28, from the second floor. 'See a bed, see a sofa,' as though we were property tax assessors. The room of Ayman Abu Ouda is scarred as well. He is married with four children, and his wall is about to collapse.
Yihye Abu Ouda, 18, was on the roof when the shell landed. He is a 12th grader, he was preparing for the bagrut matriculation exam in Arabic. At about 11 A.M., the IDF began to shell the orchard opposite them, six shells. Afterward, at about 3:30 P.M., when his cousin, Abed Abu Ouda, went up to roof to fill the black plastic containers with water, and Yihye was immersed in his studies on the roof, the next shell landed. This time it was a direct hit. Yihye lunged toward his cousin, who was bleeding from shrapnel that had penetrated his thigh, and took him downstairs. On the lower floor, there was already great panic. All the members of the family rushed to evacuate themselves to the neighbors' house, maybe there it's safer, they thought. Of course there are no shelters in this neighborhood, no protection and not a single security room; as in all of Gaza, here the shelled residents are left to their fate.
The neighbor Zaki Abu Wahdan says that his grandson has not stopped trembling since yesterday. Their neighbors' car, a Fiat 131, is parked on the street, one of the few cars in the neighborhood, and the windows are shattered from the shrapnel. In the house adjacent to the shelled house, which also belongs to the Abu Ouda family, a one-story hut with a large number of children, the wounded Abed now lies, his mother sits alongside him on the floor. His thigh is bandaged, his voice is weak, he is also still in shock. His mother displays the jeans soaked with his blood. 'A 13-year-old boy. What has he done? He went up to fill the container with water.' The mother, Intisar, has 15 children. 'Why did we receive this punishment?' she asks.
The shell was their dessert: It landed just when Intisar was serving lunch. Abed finished eating first, and went upstairs to get the water: 'I was looking toward the orchard, Yihye was reading a book and I filled the container with water, and then the shell fell, two or three meters from me.' The shrapnel is still in his leg, he will undergo surgery in two weeks. Since yesterday he has not eaten a thing. Will he go up to the roof again? His mother speaks for him: 'Of course he'll go up. Who will fill up the water for us? He is the quickest child in the family. I'm ill and can't go up.'
Shell after shell, the bombardment continues, boom after boom, even now. They say that they stop the Qassam launchers with their bodies, and deny that there has been firing from their neighborhood. 'We fight with them and curse them,' says elderly neighbor Abu Wahdan, 'You want to destroy us, we tell them. I'm 60 years old, all my life I worked so I could build the house, and in one minute they'll destroy it because of the Qassams?'
The IDF spokesman: 'The citizens of the State of Israel have been suffering day after day from indiscriminate terror attacks of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities. The same was true last Shabbat, April 29, 2006, when a number of Qassam rockets were fired at Israel. The IDF operates to defend the citizens of the State of Israel, and in response carries out firing toward the sources and points of launching, while trying as much as possible to avoid hitting populated areas. Unfortunately, the terror organizations are exploiting the IDF's sensitivity in regard to harming civilians, and deliberately operate near and from populated areas, using the Palestinian population as a 'human shield.'
'The IDF regrets any harm caused to civilians or their property, but it is an unavoidable result of the continuing rocket terrorism. The responsibility for this situation falls on the terror organizations and on the Palestinian Authority, which are doing nothing to stop the launching of the rockets. The possibility that a number of Palestinians were harmed by the firing is under investigation, and has not yet been verified.'
By Gideon Levy
Boom after boom, shell after shell, thunder after thunder. The windows of the houses shake, the walls that were cracked during the previous shelling are already threatening to collapse from the blast, the children scream in fear or walk around shocked and silent in the shelled house. One shell after another, every few minutes another one. Sometimes there is a vague and distant noise, and sometimes there is a thundering and very nearby BOOM!!!! The skies tremble, the end of the world. Boom after boom, a shell every five minutes. It is impossible to know where the last one landed, much less where the next one will land. Yesterday afternoon a shell landed on the heads of these children and adults, whose home we are now visiting. Boom after boom, even now, terrible fear.
The fear begins at the Erez crossing, the sounds of war. Afterward, when you cross the deserted checkpoint and travel a little to the south, the noise gradually becomes closer. The never-ending noise. At a certain point one begins to get used to it, just as one gets used to a thunderstorm. But these thousands of shells, which are aimed at 'open areas,' not only sow great and terrible fear in the hearts of tens of thousands of residents, including many children, but they also occasionally hit homes, and then they kill and injure. We don't hear about it much. On Sunday, Israel was totally preoccupied with the festivities of the Final Four basketball championships, but while our American basketball players were aiming at the basket, our artillery was aiming at Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. On the basketball court in Prague there were victors and losers, but not here, in the sandy alleyways. Here there are only losers.
Does anyone among our excellent artillery forces think about the great fear they are causing to the children upon whose homes they are launching their shells? Have they been shown pictures of the destruction they sowed, whether deliberately or not? No Qassam rocket justifies this terrible, disproportionate bombing, thousands of shells in a densely populated area, on its fields and occasionally on its homes; the echoes of this shelling did not reach Israel and did not interest anyone here. Last week we went to bombarded Beit Lahiya, in the row of houses that was shelled there, two dead and several wounded, this week in bombarded Beit Hanoun, three children wounded and dozens suffering from shock.
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Little Meisa walks around barefoot among the ruins of her home, stepping on a carpet of glass splinters. In silence she walks among the ruins, here and there, not knowing what to do with herself. Her gray face expresses shock. Meisa does not say a word, it is impossible to get even a trace of a smile from her. This child is now a victim of shock. Five years old, on Shabbat afternoon, when the shell shook the walls of her house, hit the roof and destroyed it, Meisa was on the top floor of the family's impoverished home. Now she is walking around the house restlessly, hugging to herself a bundle of rags that were her clothes. Meisa does not leave the rags, holds them tightly, so they won't get lost. Abed, her cousin, was on the roof and was wounded. This house is home to 35 people, almost all of whom were at home when the shell landed on the roof. Most of them are small children.
The home of the Abu Ouda family is located at the edge of the town of Beit Hanoun, bordering on the orchards, which the Israel Defense Forces once uprooted as part of its policy of 'exposure,' and which have now been replanted. House No. 16 on a street with no name, with a lovely view of a rural landscape from the roof: the saplings of the orchards and a row of Washingtonia palm trees at the end. The gray patches in the orchard are the craters of yesterday's shells, the town whose houses can be seen on the horizon in the east is Sderot.
Now the shells are landing in nearby Beit Lahiya, one day for Beit Hanoun and one day for Beit Lahiya. The pool of water was destroyed here about a year ago by the IDF, and it is still in ruins. The roof on which we are standing and looking out over the shelling fields threatens to collapse. Two iron poles that they stuck into it for support, several hours after the shell landed, will not hold up these torn pieces of cement for much longer. The walls of the house are cracked, and some of its ceilings are also threatening to fall. The staircase that leads to the roof, which was hit by the shell, is dangling in thin air. The ascent to the roof involves danger to life and limb, everything is liable to disintegrate at any moment. But here they want us to see all the signs of destruction, they aren't letting us skip a single piece of shrapnel. They want us to see the smashed sun-heated water tanks, the shattered television satellite dishes, and the drops of blood on the roof, the blood of the boy Abed, who is now lying on the first floor of the adjacent house with shrapnel in his leg. He was lucky: The neighbor's son, Ahmed Naim, is now lying in Shifa Hospital with shrapnel in his brain. Abed is 13 and Ahmed is 17. They say that the child Mohammed Abu Ouda was also slightly wounded by shrapnel in his throat. He is five years old.
From the roof you can also see the living conditions of these wretched residents: a sea of improvised asbestos roofs, reinforced by gray bricks, the look of a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Brazil or in Sri Lanka. The apartment of Hatem Abu Ouda is half demolished. A little boy sits in shock on the dusty sofa and stares at what is going on. This is 8-year-old Zakaria, who has also not yet recovered from yesterday's shelling. But even now the bombardment continues, one shell after another. The kitchen was badly damaged, as was the bedroom. 'Look a door, look a wall, look a cupboard,' say Ismail Abu Ouda, 28, from the second floor. 'See a bed, see a sofa,' as though we were property tax assessors. The room of Ayman Abu Ouda is scarred as well. He is married with four children, and his wall is about to collapse.
Yihye Abu Ouda, 18, was on the roof when the shell landed. He is a 12th grader, he was preparing for the bagrut matriculation exam in Arabic. At about 11 A.M., the IDF began to shell the orchard opposite them, six shells. Afterward, at about 3:30 P.M., when his cousin, Abed Abu Ouda, went up to roof to fill the black plastic containers with water, and Yihye was immersed in his studies on the roof, the next shell landed. This time it was a direct hit. Yihye lunged toward his cousin, who was bleeding from shrapnel that had penetrated his thigh, and took him downstairs. On the lower floor, there was already great panic. All the members of the family rushed to evacuate themselves to the neighbors' house, maybe there it's safer, they thought. Of course there are no shelters in this neighborhood, no protection and not a single security room; as in all of Gaza, here the shelled residents are left to their fate.
The neighbor Zaki Abu Wahdan says that his grandson has not stopped trembling since yesterday. Their neighbors' car, a Fiat 131, is parked on the street, one of the few cars in the neighborhood, and the windows are shattered from the shrapnel. In the house adjacent to the shelled house, which also belongs to the Abu Ouda family, a one-story hut with a large number of children, the wounded Abed now lies, his mother sits alongside him on the floor. His thigh is bandaged, his voice is weak, he is also still in shock. His mother displays the jeans soaked with his blood. 'A 13-year-old boy. What has he done? He went up to fill the container with water.' The mother, Intisar, has 15 children. 'Why did we receive this punishment?' she asks.
The shell was their dessert: It landed just when Intisar was serving lunch. Abed finished eating first, and went upstairs to get the water: 'I was looking toward the orchard, Yihye was reading a book and I filled the container with water, and then the shell fell, two or three meters from me.' The shrapnel is still in his leg, he will undergo surgery in two weeks. Since yesterday he has not eaten a thing. Will he go up to the roof again? His mother speaks for him: 'Of course he'll go up. Who will fill up the water for us? He is the quickest child in the family. I'm ill and can't go up.'
Shell after shell, the bombardment continues, boom after boom, even now. They say that they stop the Qassam launchers with their bodies, and deny that there has been firing from their neighborhood. 'We fight with them and curse them,' says elderly neighbor Abu Wahdan, 'You want to destroy us, we tell them. I'm 60 years old, all my life I worked so I could build the house, and in one minute they'll destroy it because of the Qassams?'
The IDF spokesman: 'The citizens of the State of Israel have been suffering day after day from indiscriminate terror attacks of rockets launched from the Gaza Strip at Israeli communities. The same was true last Shabbat, April 29, 2006, when a number of Qassam rockets were fired at Israel. The IDF operates to defend the citizens of the State of Israel, and in response carries out firing toward the sources and points of launching, while trying as much as possible to avoid hitting populated areas. Unfortunately, the terror organizations are exploiting the IDF's sensitivity in regard to harming civilians, and deliberately operate near and from populated areas, using the Palestinian population as a 'human shield.'
'The IDF regrets any harm caused to civilians or their property, but it is an unavoidable result of the continuing rocket terrorism. The responsibility for this situation falls on the terror organizations and on the Palestinian Authority, which are doing nothing to stop the launching of the rockets. The possibility that a number of Palestinians were harmed by the firing is under investigation, and has not yet been verified.'