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A father’s radio, a mother’s reassurance – and then, in an instant, darkness and pain. This is life under Israeli attack
A Palestinian child clings to a grave among those of people killed in the Israeli bombardment of Gaza City [Mohammed Hajjar/AP]
Published On 5 Jan 20245 Jan 2024
Gaza City — On the morning that the unthinkable happened, my father was holding the radio close, hoping the news bulletin might bring some kind of relief such as news of a ceasefire. My mother was attempting to strike a reassuring tone following another long and sleepless night in our family home in central Gaza City.
“I am hopeful today shall pass peacefully, or at least be anything unlike last night,” she told us.
That morning – December 7 – after making contact with my news desk in Doha to let them know that we had survived the heavy overnight bombardment, I joined my 65-year-old father, Rafik, who was listening to the news.
None of us had any idea what was about to come.
It happened in a matter of milliseconds. In an instant, the morning’s bright sunshine disappeared, as the entire world turned dark and my two-year-old son, Rafik, my wife, Asmaa, father, mother, Nadia, and sister, Fatma, were all thrust into a black world of choking dust, smoke and fire.
Everything seemed to vanish. All I knew was that pain was coursing through my body and I was trapped under what I later learned was the weight of the ceiling pressed down upon my family and I.
Israel launches attacks across Gaza
In a panic, I screamed the names of my family one by one. Unable to see any of them, I prayed and cried that one of them would answer me.
None of them did.
A few moments later, I passed out.
This picture taken from the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip shows Israeli soldiers viewing Gaza City on January 1, 2024 [Menahem Kahana/AFP]
Total confusion
Hours later, it was the voices that came first.
Muffled shouts of “He’s alive too!” that became, “He’s breathing!”. It didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was finding out if my family were safe.
“They are all OK, don’t worry about them,” a stranger assured me, trying to stop the flow of blood from my arms and my shattered fingers.
“Just, please, don’t make any effort to move – keep your head up,” he instructed as he searched my body for other injuries and wounds.
125 people have been killed and 318 injured in a 24-hour period.
All I felt was absolute confusion. I couldn’t make any sense of what was happening. I didn’t understand who all these people were, or how we had been hit by an air strike that no one had heard coming. I couldn’t tell where my family were, or think clearly about what had happened.
I remember the explanations. It had been two hours since the house had been bombed. All that time, we had remained buried under the rubble, lying there as our neighbours struggled frantically to break through the cement walls of the house to reach us.
As I slowly started to grasp what had happened, the pain I was in seemed to intensify.
We had all sustained injuries during the air strike. I can remember my son, Rafik, screaming, his face matted with blood and dust as strangers tried to clean him up.
How we survived the bombing, the glass and the metal falling upon us as the two-storey building collapsed over our heads, I cannot tell. It still seems like a miracle.
But even though that air strike did not kill us, it destroyed something inside us. It wiped out any last remnants we had of normality and of life continuing. In one tiny instant, it planted the seeds of the mental wounds that we will carry through each day with us for a lifetime.
Israeli soldiers move through the Shujayea district of Gaza City on December 8, 2023 [Yossi Zeliger/Reuters]
A week of unending agony
Our neighbours were able to give us immediate first aid, cleaning and bandaging our wounds. But there was nothing to alleviate the pain that now racked our bodies. No one had any illusions that accessing medical care would be straightforward.
Hospitals and medical facilities have been severely affected by the bombardments. A lack of adequate medical supplies has led to many of the injured later losing their lives to infection. Moving anywhere in northern Gaza brings the serious risk of being targeted by an Israeli sniper or being caught in a barrage of gunfire. Nevertheless, despite the orders from the Israeli forces to leave, this area remains home to hundreds of thousands of civilians, all of whom must endure these risks daily.
For six days, in the ruins of our home, we dreamed about finding painkillers – or something that would, at the very least, allow us to sleep.
There were none.
We were told that we had been lucky to survive the bombing. While that may be true, it offers little comfort during the night, when the pain from your injuries becomes indescribable, depriving you of sleep or any comfort.
Infection is a constant worry. Every time the first trace of contamination appears, the wounds have to be cleaned with scorching water, fluid so hot that it burns the healthy skin around the wound. It was difficult to get Rafik to understand that we weren’t trying to burn him. Still, despite the pain of the searing water being greater than that of any infection, he accepted it.
The alternative isn’t worth thinking about.
Fleeing in terror
One week passed and we started to notice some improvements in our health. All the while, the bombardment continued.
At about noon on December 14, our neighbourhood was subjected to an overwhelming air and artillery barrage. It was unbelievable and appeared entirely indiscriminate. Our neighbours were dying by the minute. Many more were injured.
When the Israeli troops arrived in the wake of the bombardment, those who could, fled for their lives – my family included. I can only describe that point in time as pure terror. Those who had been hit, or were injured as a result of the barrage, were left behind.
To stop and help was to die.
As we zigzagged through the streets amid crowds of terrified people, the pain from our wounds returned with a vengeance.
A Palestinian child looks at the graves of people killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip and buried inside the al-Shifa Hospital grounds in Gaza City, on December 31, 2023 [Mohammed Hajjar/AP]
My wife, our terrified son in her arms, suggested we seek shelter in one of the schools run by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), relatively far from the focus of the bombardments.
There, we joined thousands of others, all of whom spoke of having left scenes of death and carnage behind.
Now we are left with little to live off but the essentials. Food and medicines aren’t available.
There aren’t enough mattresses and blankets to protect against the night’s biting cold. Clean drinking water is a luxury, leaving people with nothing to drink but dirty water, increasing the chances of bacterial infection and stomach disease.
Children, pregnant women, the young and the elderly are all facing the same daily struggle: survival.
Life in this school is about waiting for death.
There is nothing more we can lose. We have lost friends, loved ones, colleagues, teachers and doctors. Everything – absolutely everything we had – is gone.
Even if the war comes to an end now, it will take years for us to start reclaiming something of what we have lost.
When we might again have somewhere we can call home, we have no idea.
Sweden will join NATO under US command next July. Meanwhile, the United States has already entered Sweden. An agreement was signed last December, that gives them unrestricted access to 17 Swedish military bases. Here the United States can deploy its forces and pre-position weapons. Nuclear weapons are not mentioned in the Agreement, but the United States will have exclusive control over pre-positioned weapons, therefore there is the possibility of deploying nuclear weapons in Sweden also.
The USA signed a similar agreement with Finland last December, which joined NATO under US command last April. Finland grants the United States unrestricted access to 15 military bases, including the prepositioning of weapons and the entry of US planes, ships, and military vehicles.
Since the United States has exclusive control over these forces, it can deploy both nuclear weapons and carriers at Finnish bases. Five of the 15 bases are located in Lapland on the Russian border.
At the same time, the United States is deploying the new B61-12 nuclear bombs in Europe. They are deployed in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Turkey to replace the B61 nuclear bombs. The B61-12s may also be secretly located in Poland and other European countries.
While their deployment is underway, the Pentagon announced the decision to develop a further variant of the bomb, called B61-13. It will have a power output of 360 kilotons, much higher than the B61-12’s maximum output of 50 kilotons.
The Pentagon reports that “the B61-13 will provide the President of the United States with additional options against more resistant military targets and targets over large areas”. In other words, the United States is deploying first-strike nuclear bombs in Europe, clearly aimed at Russia, to destroy command centre bunkers and large areas of strategic importance.
Russia’s response is inevitable: it has completed the deployment in Belarus of tactical nuclear weapons capable of hitting US-NATO nuclear bases in Europe. At the same time, the risk of nuclear war is growing in the Middle East, where Israel – the only nuclear power in the region – is preparing, with US support, to attack Iran.
This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.
Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.
By Manlio Dinucci All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram […]
By Dr. Emanuel Garcia All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version). To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here. Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to […]
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