Gaza- While his body was trapped in the depths of the prison, his mind was imprisoned by the cement ceilings that had been closing in on the body of his martyred daughter for 11 months. Curled up in the corner of the cell, his eyes blindfolded, he saw no light in this darkness except the face of his daughter Raghad.
Raghad (16 years old) calls out, “Do you feel pain, Dad?” She smiles and her face brightens, then his tears come, sneaking out from under the bandage and making their way down his cheeks, without regard for his age, which is over 40.
Since mid-October of last year until today, despite his hands and feet being tied, Saleh Farwana is still running through the corridors of memory without stopping, from the moment the death raid that kidnapped 15 members of his family took place, until the day when they were still unable to retrieve the bodies of 3 of them and the remains of other martyrs. “There are still remains that we haven’t found, and the rest of my mother’s body, which we haven’t buried completely,” he says.
one last hug
Saleh recalls with Tel Aviv Tribune Net the last embrace of his parents, sisters and daughter, who insisted on staying in her grandfather’s house, when he interrupted their embrace by saying, “I hate farewells. I will see you tomorrow, God willing.” He then received the news of their targeting hours after he left, news that came “like a thunderbolt and a heavy dose,” the summary of which was, “The house is gone with everyone in it.”
Three days after the bombing of the family home, 12 martyrs were extracted, and the civil defense crews apologized for their inability to extract the rest due to the lack of heavy equipment needed to lift the concrete ceilings. Saleh did not despair and dug with his fingernails to extract them, but to no avail.
Saleh lost his family, his home, and his job, which he had built with great difficulty. He escaped death three times, and was then arrested from the Al-Shifa complex while he was accompanying one of his wounded relatives inside. Then the occupation released him and deported him from Gaza City to the southern part of the Strip, after a month and a half he spent in a cell, where they blackmailed him with the rest of his children.
“I am in a foreign country, I am not myself, and my homeland is not my homeland. Everything I built over 40 years has evaporated. All I have left is regret and helplessness,” he says.
A disability that binds his hands because of his inability to reach them, a loss that doubles his pain because he was not able to shroud them, bid them farewell, pray for them, and honor them with burial, and a wish that he could return to the rubble of his house and continue to search in his entrails for his loved ones, even with his fingers.
Memory tape
It is Saleh’s wish that borders and barriers prevent from being fulfilled, and Umm Abdul Rahman’s fear prevents her from taking it. For 10 months, this woman has not dared to go to her house or what she described as the “cemetery” that holds the bodies of her family members under its 7 roofs.
Tel Aviv Tribune Net contacted Umm Abdul Rahman, and we were the first to take her to him. She stood far away and then froze in place as if a tape of memories had passed before her. She broke down crying as she recounted the “miracle” that happened to her and to two of her family members who were destined to survive.
She says, “We came out alive after 8 days from under the rubble. We remained unconscious and awake from Friday to Friday, until we followed the air seeping in to us and found a small gap and crawled into it.”
“Divine power,” as Umm Abdul Rahman described it, was given by God to her daughter’s husband (Abu Kamal), who “softened the iron” and separated them so that the gap could widen and they could get out.
Survivor Abu Kamal says, “The occupation booby-trapped the building we were in. It collapsed on us and the roof fell on us. I heard the sound of death when my children breathed their last. Then I lost consciousness for 7 days until life returned to me after my death, to follow the light and air seeping in and to get my wife’s mother and her little daughter out.”
Through the glowing watch on her daughter’s hand, Umm Abdul Rahman confirmed the martyrdom of her husband, her two daughters and their children. Through it, she also searched for food and gave it to her daughter, who crawled on all fours in an area not exceeding 4 meters, searching for anything to eat.
“I drank urine and less than two days before we left we found very old, melted candy that we were dividing between us,” he adds.
The three men’s departure coincided with the occupation’s withdrawal from the Al-Rimal neighborhood, and since then their minds have remained stuck among the rubble, the place of death and survival.
“At first, my daughter Shaima’s body was visible from afar, stuck between two concrete ceilings. Her brother used to come and see her body, but something melted and nothing remained of it but the bone,” she concludes her interview, “Is there a greater grief than this?!”
It is the same oppression that burns inside Umm Hudhaifa Lulu, when she stands on the ruins of her house, in which she lost 20 members of her family all at once, the bodies of 5 of them still stuck under the rubble, they are her husband and the family of her eldest son Hudhaifa.
In an interview with Tel Aviv Tribune Net, Umm Hudhayfah recalls the last question – hours before the targeting – from her son’s wife, who was pregnant with two children: “Is this room safe, auntie?” She replied: “It’s a large grave with no window or door.”
She didn’t know that her answer would be so honest, “A big grave” that would contain their bodies until they melted to this day. She was with those on whom the ceiling collapsed, she was gone from life for more than an hour.
inability
Umm Hudhayfah regained consciousness, but she could not see anything. Dust filled her eyes and mouth, but voices outside shouted, “Is anyone alive?”
This is helplessness itself, you are alive but your voice, like your body, is buried. The sound of her groaning guided the rescuers who followed it until they reached the edge of her veil and completed the digging with their nails until they pulled her out. Umm Hudhayfah holds back the tears in her eyes without releasing them, and her voice trembles as she remembers these details when they snatched her life from the jaws of death.
“They heard my groaning and took me out. Did someone call for help and the rescuers didn’t hear them? Was my family killed twice? Once by a missile, and a second time by the lack of resources the rescuers had?” The first question that Umm Hudhayfah thought of when she received the news of her family’s martyrdom was, “Why did I survive alone?”
The family members’ attempts to retrieve the trapped bodies have not stopped until today. They dig with their fingernails and search with simple equipment for the remains of shattered bodies between the roofs. Umm Hudhayfah adds, “It is very painful that the house that was the family’s peace and sacred memories has been turned into a cemetery containing the bodies of the most precious people in my heart.”
“Does it still hurt you that they are still under the rubble?” Tel Aviv Tribune Net asked her. She replied, “Having them where they are would have been easier for me than having them buried in the streets and roads, but I wish we had honored them and buried them in a place we could visit.” She continued, “But what calms my spirit is that I know that they have nothing to fear and they are not sad.”
Umm Hudhayfah chose to stay in Gaza, the city she loves, and absolutely refused to leave despite the occupation destroying her home, her son, and her father. Although she paid the price of staying, what she fears most is displacement, which they rejected, so they chose death in the bowels of their homes in order not to leave.
Another war is being experienced by the families of more than 10,000 missing people under the rubble. Its violence will intensify when the aggression ends, from the moment the rubble is removed, through the search for scraps and remains, and ending with the burial, funeral, and condolences for the bones of loved ones who died nearly a year ago.