The road to Beit Hanoun was the same as ever. The local radio stations played songs to celebrate a national holiday as children waved their flags along the street. But as we neared Beit Hanoun the scenes around us began to slip away from normality.
Wreckage
We drove past a gaping hole torn out of a wall where concrete blocks and gravel spilled out onto the street. Further on, two girls tried to walk across the broken stones of a pavement ripped out of the ground by a bulldozer's tracks. In an orchard, nothing remained alive except for a few blades of grass around the uprooted trees.
Many houses were damaged, some were completely destroyed, others were stripped of their front doors. Heaps of rubbish accumulated on the streets around Beit Hanoun.
A Stricken Family
In the town, we headed to the neighbourhood where 21 members of the Al-Athamna family were killed. Children sat on a roof in silence watching passers by. People consoled each other as photographers took pictures and cleaners removed rubbish from the streets.
As I approached the homes of the Al-Athamna family someone came
towards me. I had seen him before in Islamic Relief's Gaza office and
he knew who I was. He showed me to the house of the stricken family and
introduced me to Ra'ed Al- Athamna who told me what happened.
"The
bombs fell at five thirty in the morning. Ours was a large four-storey
house where about 100 of our extended family lived; men, women and
children.
"We tried to escape
downstairs, but the bombs came down fast. Some of us were killed,
others injured. Some lost their limbs, others were hit by shrapnel in
the kidneys, lungs, brains. Our neighbours, the al-Kafarna and Odwan
Families came to help us, but they also became targets.
"In
a single morning, 21 of our family were killed, and forty three
injured. We laid our dead to rest, and the injured are scattered in
hospitals in Gaza and Egypt."
As
Ra'ed told the story, his cousins joined in. They told me about a bomb
which hit a basement where all their family sheltered.
"Mohammed was killed first, then Mahdi, then Samir. Next, our grandmother and Uncle Masoud, Fatima and many others."
Tears
When
we left Beit Hanoun, people were still cleaning up the rubble. In the
corner of my eye I saw a man with greying hair repairing the fallen
walls of his house.
I came closer to him and said "May Allah give you good health." He
looked at me and replied "The dead belong to Allah and they shall
return to Him." The tears in his eyes began to roll down his face, "The
praises and thanks are for Allah" he said as he returned back to his
work.
IR in Gaza
Islamic Relief donors have sponsored 22 children in Beit Hanoun who were made orphans in this attack.
In northern Gaza, Islamic Relief aid workers are delivering medical aid
and repairing damage to hospitals.
IR
has delivered a container of medical disposables to the Odwan hospital
in northern Gaza and work on the roof of the Gaza European hospital is
nearly complete. IR staff are also working with the Al-Shifa medical
complex on rehabilitating their kidney dialysis equipment.
Salem Al Qudwa, Public Relations officer, Palestine Office
For Media queries please email media@islamic-relief.org.uk