The United Nations stated, quoting local officials in the Gaza Strip, that the recent Israeli bombing operations completely destroyed about 103 homes, while 140 homes were severely damaged.
Najwa Abu Aisha was on the roof of her house in the northwest of Gaza City, when shrapnel penetrated her spine and left her paralyzed, joining the dozens of Palestinian victims who were injured during the recent Israeli raids on the Gaza Strip.
Lying on a bed in Shifa Hospital, west of Gaza City, the woman recounts, “I was on the roof checking the water barrels, when suddenly I heard the sound of an explosion that caused a water barrel to fall on me, and I fell on the neighbor’s house. After that, I did not feel anything until I woke up in the hospital.”
Abu Aisha, 48, is one of 190 Palestinians injured, of varying degrees, in five days of violence, according to the Ministry of Health in the impoverished coastal enclave controlled by Hamas.
And the woman continues, surrounded by her family members in the hospital room, saying: “I am paralyzed, and I suffer from unbearable pain in the rest of my body. I cannot move.” The woman does not remember how the explosion occurred, but one of her family members told AFP that her house is located next to a site for the Islamic Jihad movement, whose symbols Israel is pursuing with assassinations.
Her son, who was with her at the time of the accident, is still unable to talk about what happened, and his mother continues to say: “There are no capabilities in Gaza. I hope that there will be a treatment for my condition outside Gaza.”
The escalation erupted after Israel targeted three military leaders in the Islamic Jihad movement, which responded by firing dozens of rockets at towns in southern Israel. The Israeli attacks resulted in the killing of 33 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and among the Palestinian dead were six children and three women, while two people were killed in Israel, one of whom was a worker from Gaza.
“You destroyed our dreams”
The doctor, Mutasem Al-Nono, who supervises Abu Aisha, explains that her health condition is “somewhat stable, but she suffers from hemiplegia in the lower extremities. The injury was so severe that there was no hope for her to regain movement in her lower extremities.”
Her injury also means cutting off the financial income of the family that supported her through her work in a kindergarten. Hazem Muhanna, 62, who works in collecting antiques, says that the destruction of his house in an Israeli raid on Gaza City “destroyed our dreams and our future.” He says, while carrying old banknotes and a jug inscribed with decorations found among the rubble, saying: “If they destroyed my house and five other houses It would have been easier for me than destroying the artifacts and artifacts I hold dear.” The man, a retired security employee, bemoans the possessions he collected from his salary decades ago to turn his home into an “art museum.”
His elderly mother sits on a plastic chair in the narrow alley, while members of the family try to search for more salvageable items from the rubble.
Muhanna says that his brother received a phone call from the Israeli army on the night of the bombing, warning him of the need to evacuate the house before it was bombed, and he says denouncing: “I don’t know why the house was targeted. My daughters and sons and 50 other people were in the house.”
“we don’t live”
The Israeli forces said they sought to warn Gazans before each imminent bombardment, explaining in a statement that “the buildings were not bombed until after the civilian population was completely evacuated.”
Muhammad Sarsour, 29, was weeks away from his wedding date, but his dreams were shattered when one of his neighbors told him of the need to vacate his house, which he had recently finished preparing for his married life. Shattered glass and deep cracks appeared in its walls, saying: “I came home and did not find anything, not a window, nor a bedroom, nor a door.”
The shocked young man says: “I am devastated. I have nothing left to do in my life. For seven years I have been struggling to prepare the house. I work from early morning until evening, with an amount of shekel (nine dollars), which I collect one shekel for the construction of my future. Gone Everything in a day and a night.”
He still has to pay installments for the equipment of the house, but he has lost hope despite reaching a truce between the Israeli and Palestinian sides.
