Osama and Ghada Abu Sultan’s home in Bethlehem resembles a sanctuary: in every corner are photos and objects that remember their son, Amyad, murdered by Israel in 2021. He is one of many “martyrs” There are teenagers, almost children, in the West Bank, where more than 150 minors have died since the start of the war in Gaza a year ago. Violence increased in this occupied Palestinian territory as the Israeli offensive continued.
Abu Amyad And Umm Amyad (Amyad’s father and mother) are used to living with pain and loss. She dresses strictly in black and her light eyes express deep sadness. “My whole family is in Gaza, my brothers, my sisters, my uncles, everyone,” explains Ghada. “Every day I wake up, I watch the news and I check if they are still alive,” he explains, and they simply respond: “We are alive, they don’t say anything else, just That “.
The 49-year-old says with relief that today communication with the Gaza Strip is much better than at the start of the war and, especially, since the moment the Israeli army invaded by land at the end of October 2023. “We spent days and weeks without being able to communicate with them,” he remembers.
“I would like to go see my family, but with the war, it’s impossible. All my life I have lived in Gaza, it is my land, where I was born. My whole family is there, my friends, my studies, my work…” explains Ghada, who lives in Bethlehem because her husband has lived in this West Bank city all his life. The woman has no hope of ever being able to return, but she wants the war to end, “right away” if possible.
Her husband does not share the same opinion, he believes that the war will continue and assures that he knew this since the Hamas attack on October 7. Osama doesn’t stop talking and smoking, he seems to want to hide his suffering with this verbiage. “I knew Israel’s reaction was going to be like that, I wasn’t surprised by the bombing campaign and the killings, it’s their way of acting,” he said.
He also has close family in Gaza, where he lived for ten years, apart from his in-laws. “Of course I was worried about them, because I was more aware of what was going to happen” from the outside.
He says it was the first time his family was affected by the bombs falling indiscriminately on Gaza. “They were at home and went to a UN school because they thought they would be protected. “I knew that the Israeli army was not going to respect the UN or civilians, and I called on my uncles to leave this place.” He failed to convince them.
“Shortly after, the school was bombed and my uncle, his son and his daughter, the wife of another uncle of mine, died, a total of six people in the family. In addition, at least ten other people were injured, some lost an eye, a hand… all in an instant,” he laments.
“At first, they couldn’t bury them, they buried them in a temporary place, on land that belonged to them, not in a mass grave,” explains Osama, lighting one cigarette after another and sipping his Arabic coffee. . “One of my uncles who was injured was taken away by the ambulance, but there was no communication and we spent three days without knowing where he was. Then, by chance, I saw it in an Al Jazeera report from the Indonesian hospital,” he adds with surprise. This Qatari television is the one that can be seen on a large screen in the living room of Abu Sultan’s house, on at all hours. “It wasn’t until I saw him on TV that I knew he wasn’t dead.”
Osama says his own relatives in Gaza had no way of communicating with each other and did not know how or where they were. “Thanks to Al Jazeera, we learned that patients from the Indonesian hospital were transferred to the European hospital in Khan Yunis, after Israel besieged it. » Fortunately, in this town in southern Gaza, the telephone connection was better and they were able to speak to their uncle and know that he was fine even though he had lost a hand in the bombing. The other members of his family who were in the northern Gaza Strip did not know it, Osama continues, laughingly saying that his house in Bethlehem became a “center” of communication from the first weeks of the war.
Al Jazeera has become the eyes not only of Palestinians, who, from outside the Gaza Strip, watch with apprehension what is happening to their brothers, cousins, uncles or nephews, but also of the rest of the world, since the international press does not have access to Gaza this year.
Osama, 50, says “one cannot describe” what they have felt in Bethlehem over the past 12 months, during which they have become somewhat accustomed to mass death, after mourning the death of their son. He and his wife feel lucky to have lost only part of their families in Gaza, but not all.
“It’s a strange war,” the man said, because the entire population has been affected. “There have been wars in which many more people have died, but we have never seen a war in which people are locked up and killed. “They can’t escape!” he says indignantly.
During the first months of the offensive, tens of thousands of Palestinians were able to leave the Gaza Strip through the border crossing with Egypt, but since Israel took control of the area in early May, only a few dozen injured or sick children were evacuated to other countries. Even before the war, Gaza was considered the largest open-air prison in the world.
Most of Osama’s relatives are in the town of Deir al Balah in the southern Gaza Strip, where many Gazans have taken refuge and are now living in tents. Deir al Balah is part, with Al Mawai, of the “humanitarian zone” designated by the Israeli army, even if it was not spared from the bombings.
“Those who are not dead live in a tent, on the coast, by the sea. What do they eat, how do they cook, how do they go to the toilet? » asks Osama from his house in Belén. “The only thing they have left of their lives is a few clothes and a little flour to eat, and they live under fire” from Israeli planes and tanks.
“I have spoken with many people who have told me that they prefer to die, because those who die rest,” he says. And he adds that those who die today, amid the devastation in the Gaza Strip, do not receive an honorable burial nor can they be buried with their families: “They do not even know if their loved ones are dead or where their graves are. “.
Osama and Ghada have already experienced this situation, when they were unable to bury their son, until the Israeli army returned his frozen body to them. The father shows a photo of Amyad’s face covered in frost to prove that what he is saying is true, but he goes on to say that at least they were able to celebrate the funeral and say goodbye to him, which others parents from the West Bank couldn’t do it.
