October 1, 2003:
Mohammed's younger brother
Issam was seriously injured
and was taken to the hospital
about a week ago. His leg
was amputated and he is
undergoing medical treatment.

October 18, 2003:
Mohammad's younger brother,
Hussam [17 yrs old], was killed
by the Israeli army today.

Hussam was sitting at home
when he was shot in the face,
chest, back, legs. He had
nothing to do with any violent
or even political movement.

Hussam's crime is that he was
a Palestinian.

— The Webmaster

Rafah Home Demolitions Leave Families Caught Between Displacement and Poverty

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Jan_Feb_2005/0501008.html

Washington Report, January/February 2005, pages 8-9, 75

IN FRONT OF a simple tent he and his family had erected in the middle of a small plot, refugee Ahmed Al Lahwani was sitting with his eight kids, surrounded by walls on all sides. He was speaking to them in an optimistic tone, trying to console them after the demolition six months earlier of their house in the Al Shuaa’t refugee camp, on the southern edge of Rafah Camp.

“Our displacement won’t last so long,” he reassured his children, “and we will build a new house and make it more beautiful than the house that was demolished by Israeli bulldozers. And every one of you will get a separate room,” Al Lahwani promised. “We will get some peace and comfort, which we have missed in the past few months,” he added.

Al Lahwani was interrupted by his 12- year-old daughter, Hanin. Her anger readily apparent on her face, she told her father in a loud voice: “Since the demolishing of our house, you keep saying that you will build a new house instead…we get frustrated from living in that tent, we need a house with walls to protect us from the summer’s heat and winter’s coldness. Why we are not living like other people?”

Al Lahwani kept silent for few moments, then resumed talking. “Sufficient unto us is Allah,” he said, “but I promise you I will build the house you dream of, and will comfort you from the suffering of displacement.”

It was clear that their father’s oft-repeated words and promises hadn’t satisfied Hanin, 12-year-old Yousif, and 11-year-old Amira, who left and went toward the rubble heaped near the wall. There they sat down and began collecting and lining up stones. After working nearly an hour, Yousif yelled, “We have finished!”

Pointing to the stones the children had lined up to represent rooms, Yousif told the others, “I have built a wonderful house for you.

“This room is for you, Hanin,” he pretended, “where you can put your bed and desk and bureau to save your books and clothes. I will give that small room to Amira,” the boy said, “and I will get that big one for myself.”

Their make-believe house—a game they continued for some hours—brought simple smiles to the children’s faces.

As the father stood watching his children play a few feet away, tears began to fall down his cheeks. He asked his wife, Umm Ashraf, to come and see her children. When she saw her children’s game of make-believe she wept as well, raising her hands to the sky in a loud prayer mixed with sorrow: “Allah, help us build our home, us, and punish those who treat us unjustly!”

She then went and hugged her children, saying “We will build a house, and we will never leave this land.”

A History of Tragedy

For 25 years Al Lahwani lived as a refugee in Canada camp, located in the Egyptian half of Rafah. As the result of a re-housing project specified in the 1973 Sinai accord between Egypt and Israel, the family was moved into Palestinian Rafah. There, with the money received as compensation, they were able to buy a house in Al Shauu’t Camp, in the west of Rafah. They lived in what they describe as a happy and caring community of neighbors—before Israeli bulldozers separated them.

“My 10 children, my wife and I were living in a happy house,” Al Lahwani recalled, “but that didn’t last for long. The first disaster waiting for us was a fault in the home’s electricity system, which caused the death of two of my sons.”

“But we were satisfied in Allah’s faith and determination,” he said, “as we continued life in the absence of happiness, and a life full of sorrow and the pains of separation.”

Their suffering had begun.

“When the al-Aqsa intifada erupted four years ago, “ Al Lahwani continued, “our house, located close to the Egyptian border, became a direct target for the bullets of Israeli soldiers with heavy weaponry positioned all around.”

For three years, the Al Lahwani family has lived a life of horror and fear, as bullets targeted their house day and night, changing the children’s lives into a “living hell.”

Daily life continued in that terrifying routine until April 30, 2004—the day Al Lahwani describes as the “turning point of my family’s life.”

As Al Lahwani began to describe the night their house was demolished, his family fell silent.

“We were sleeping when the Israeli tanks and bulldozers approached our house,” he recalled, “and one of the bulldozers began demolishing the outside wall of the house. We all began screaming, but the bulldozer driver didn’t take any pity on us despite our screams and just continued demolishing the walls one after another.

“Then we realized the danger,” he continued, “so we began escaping from the back of the house through a small hole the bulldozer had made. It was only seconds between our escape and the collapse of our house.”

Since then, Al Lahwani has had to rent a small plot of land on which to erect his tent.

Suffering from high blood pressure, diabetes and cancer, Al Lahwani is unable to work. He cannot pay for even the basic needs of everyday life. UNRWA provides him only $400 every six months, he said, not enough to cover food and rent, not to mention his children’s clothes, school books and tuition. Even in the face of his difficult circumstances and poor health, however, Al Lahwani keeps trying to meet his children’s the basic needs, to keep them in school and, eventually, enable them to attend college.

Al Lahwani and his family appeal not only to UNRWA, but to all relief organizations, to support him and homeless families like his so they can meet their families’ daily needs. He also appeals to the Palestinian Ministry of Health to provide medical services, especially psychiatric help. Their father is sure that the demolition of their home, the continued attacks, and the sounds of shelling and shooting during the nights have left psychological scars on his children, and is the cause of their insomnia, night screaming, aggressive behavior, and bedwetting.

“Even now,” he said, “although our tent is far away from the border [with Egypt], the bullets of occupation still chase us.…The shooting and shelling is random, and everywhere the evidence is clear. Wherever you go throughout Rafah Camp, you will find martyrs and injured people.”

Al Lahwani’s dire economic situation prevents him from taking his children to a psychologist. He is afraid their behavior might continue and, in the future, develop into even more serious psychological problems.

But there is no escape from the situation. The Al Lahwanis, like all families in Rafah, are trapped in Rafah, because of the roadblocks Israel has imposed between all Gaza’s camps and cities. The humiliation and insults to human dignity at Israeli checkpoints are too much for anyone to bear.

Realistically, Al Lahwani and his family expect their difficult situation to last, because UNRWA re-housing projects take time. Hundreds of families whose homes were demolished prior to the Al Lahwanis’ still have not received new housing. As the world averts its eyes from Israel’s ethnic cleansing, UNRWA and other organizations are considered the only hope to somehow ease the suffering of homeless Palestinian families.

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