In Gaza, the trauma of an entire generation

Feb 23, 2024

By Cécile Lemoine
Crammed inside a leaking blue tarp in the middle of the courtyard of a UNRWA primary school in Rafah are a family of eight — Amal Abu Hajar, a teacher at the Catholic School of the Rosary Sisters in Gaza, her husband, and their six children. They have been there since December 5, even during the winter rains, until Lama, the youngest, found a solution.

“She became friends with a little pizza seller who lives across from the school,” her mother recounts. “Her family agreed to shelter us when it rains.” Lama is 15, with large, sad, brown almond eyes. “She does her best to help me and her siblings. She’s the calmest,” says Amal, who also sees her eldest son, Ahmad, 14, becoming “stronger and more responsible” in managing a difficult everyday life: “He’s the one who recharges our cell phones, and buys us water and bread.”

These responsibilities weigh heavily on the shoulders of this tall soccer player with a contagious smile. “He doesn’t sleep anymore. He tells me he needs to be able to save his brothers and sisters if there’s bombing. He lost 10 kilos. It’s been three months since we’ve had meat ... even chicken,” Amal whispers. Because her family is taking refuge in a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, they receive a bit of humanitarian aid: three cans and three bottles of water per week. Barely enough for a day. Amal has to supplement, but in Rafah, prices have quintupled due to the scarcity of certain products. “Ahmad tells me every day: ‘I hate canned food, and I hate Rafah.’” /''Israeli bombings forced this teacher, who taught French, and her family to leave their beautiful house in the Al-Katiba neighbourhood of Khan Younis on October 8 for their old apartment in Al-Qarara. On December 1, a bomb destroyed the house across from them. “It was terrible, the screams, the noise of ambulances, death, fear... All that in front of our eyes, in front of the children...,” Amal relates, powerless in the face of the trauma she sees growing in her children.

Her third daughter, Rama, lost many friends in the bombings. “She thinks all the time about death, injuries, bombs. She screams a lot. She wishes she could see her friends again and remembers those who are gone,” Amal whispers. Photos of Lama before and after the war show two different little girls. In her clear eyes, the sweetness of innocence has vanished.

The eldest of the siblings, Jana, 18, a brilliant high school student who wants to become a surgeon, has developed knee pains. “It comes from fear,” her mother says. “The war has made her very nervous. She fears these pains will prevent her from escaping if we’re bombed.” Nightfall is particularly difficult for the children. “Jana cries every night. Ibrahim, my eight-yearold boy, can only fall asleep against me. He’s afraid of the sounds of bombings, the lights that precede them. He hits his sisters.” In Gaza, children no longer go to school. Ilaf, Amal’s bubbly youngest, had just started elementary school. “She was learning to read and write. Now, she’s forgetting everything,” Amal regrets. As a teacher herself, she knows how much of a strength education is. She tried to homeschool them during the first two months of the war, but since arriving in Rafah, it’s been “impossible”. “There are too many people, too many distractions. You can’t imagine what it’s like to share your life with thousands of strangers. We live through the sickness and problems of others without having asked for it.”

Amal is already thinking about the future. “My children can no longer speak, they scream... They’ve lived through the worst four months of their life. I try to face the difficulties with them, but I can’t do it anymore, I have no more energy. They’re going to need a psychologist.” -- LCI (https:// international.lacroix. com/