Monday January 12, 2009

Fear and terror in the Gaza strip

SHAHANAAZ HABIB
Reporting from Rafah, Egypt

Shahanaaz Habib

OUR intrepid war correspondent SHAHANAAZ HABIB has finally found her way to the border of the Gaza strip to bring us news closest to the conflict stricken region. She discovered that even those at the border were shell-shocked.

RAFAH (Egypt): Palestinians have been shocked and awed by Israel’s relentless bombings for more than two weeks.

Even infants have not been spared the terror and fear of war.

Seven-month-old Razah Ibrahim sleeps in a room with dangerously cracked ceilings and walls. She wakes up in fright, shudders and cries each time a bomb explodes about 250m away.

Her house is so close to the Palestinian border that one can look across the wire fence and see the homes on the Palestinian side.

Living in fear: Azizah’s daughter-in-law holding Razah in one of the rooms with a cracked ceiling.

The cracks on the wall and ceiling were not there before. They appeared 10 days ago after an intense day of shelling and bombing. All the light bulbs broke into bits.

And a hot iron fragment came sailing into her house compound through one of the open-air areas. Luckily no one got hurt.

But it was enough to terrify Razah’s grandmother Azizah Salma Barham. She took the family of seven and fled.

“Two days ago, we came back because we have nowhere else to stay. I have been living here for 30 years. We don’t have enough money to go elsewhere. My husband is no longer working because he is ill.

“But I am frightened for my family. It’s really not safe here,”said Azizah, pointing at the cracked ceiling of her house.

She has many relatives in Gaza and fears for them. “I just want this to end. It’s terrible what’s happening,” she said.

Her neighbour, Maryam Farhan, said each time there was heavy bombing, her family would leave and return when there was a lull.

“Sometimes we use a car, sometimes we walk. We get as far as we can from the border because our house is really too close,” said Maryam, who has not had a good night’s sleep for more than two weeks.

A Palestinian boy injured in an Israeli army operation is carried into the emergency room at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Saturday. - AP

She said she was more worried for those in Gaza and Israel because the bombings would only invite retaliation and go on and on.

“When will it all end? I just want peace to come. I want everyone to like each other and for Muslims, Jews and Christians to live together in peace,” she said.

Footnote: Shahanaaz Habib is a senior journalist with The Star. This is not her first time in a war zone. She was the first Malaysian journalist to get into the heart of the Iraqi war in April 2003 and returned to Baghdad again in November 2003.

Her work has also taken her to the war-torn regions of southern Thailand, Sri Lanka and Sudan.