Khan Younis, Gaza – The face of Samar Ahmed, 37, shows clear signs of exhaustion.
It’s not just because she has five children, nor because they have been repeatedly displaced since Israel’s brutal war on Gaza began 14 months ago and are now living in cramped and cold conditions in a makeshift tent in Gaza’s al-Mawasi neighborhood. Khan Younis. Samar is also a victim of domestic violence and has no way of escaping her attacker in the cramped conditions of this camp.
Two days ago, her husband hit her in the face, leaving her with a swollen cheek and a bloodstain in her eye. Her eldest daughter clung to her all night after this attack in front of the children.
Samar does not want to separate his family – they have already been forced to move from Gaza City to Shati camp in Rafah and now to Khan Younis – and the children are young. Her eldest, Laila, is only 15 years old. She also has to think about Zain, 12, Dana, 10, Lana, seven, and Adi, five.
The day Tel Aviv Tribune visits her, she tries to occupy her two youngest daughters with their homework. Sitting together in the small tent made of rags, the three of them spread some notebooks around them. Little Dana is cuddled up to her mother, apparently wanting to give her support. Her younger sister is crying from hunger and Samar doesn’t know how to help them both.
As a displaced family, the loss of privacy added a whole new layer of pressure.
“I lost my privacy as a woman and a wife in this place. I don’t want to say that my life was perfect before the war, but I was able to express what was inside me in conversation with my husband. I could scream without anyone hearing me,” says Samar. “I could control my children more at home. Here I live on the streets and the veil of concealment has been removed from my life.
A loud argument between a husband and wife echoes from the neighboring tent. Samar’s face turns red with embarrassment and sadness as foul language fills the air. She doesn’t want her children to hear this.
Her instinct is to tell the kids to go outside and play, but Laila is washing dishes in a small bowl of water and the argument next door brings her own problems back into focus.
“Every day I suffer from anxiety because of disagreements with my husband. Two days ago, it was a big shock for me that he hit me like this in front of my children. All our neighbors heard my screams and cries and came to calm the situation between us.
“I felt broken,” Samar said, worried that the neighbors would think she was responsible – that her husband shouted so much because she was a bad wife.
“Sometimes when he shouts and curses, I stay silent so those around us think he is shouting at someone else. I try to preserve a little of my dignity,” she says.
Samar tries to anticipate her husband’s anger by trying to resolve the problems facing the family herself. She visits aid workers every day to ask for food. She believes it was the pressures of war that pushed her husband into this situation.
Before the war, he worked in a small carpentry shop with a friend, which kept him busy. There were fewer arguments.
Today, she says: “Due to the seriousness of the disagreements between me and my husband, I wanted a divorce. But I hesitated for the sake of my children.
Samar attends counseling sessions with other women, to try to release some of the negative energy and anxiety that has been building up inside her. It helps her to know that she is not alone. “I hear the stories of many women and I try to console myself with what I am going through, through their experiences.”
As she speaks, Samar gets up to start preparing food. She wonders when her husband will return and if there will be enough to eat. A plate of beans with cold bread is all she can prepare at the moment. She can’t light the fire because there is no gas.
Suddenly, Samar falls silent, fearing that an outside voice belongs to her husband. This is not the case.
She asks her daughters to sit down and review their math problems. She whispers: “He came out shouting at Adi. I hope he’s in a good mood.
“It was the war that did this to us”
Later, Samar’s husband, Karim Badwan, 42, sits next to his daughters, crowded into the small tent in which they live.
He is desperate. “It’s not a life. I can’t understand what I’m experiencing. I’m trying to adapt to these difficult circumstances, but I can’t. I went from a practical, professional man to a man who gets angry all the time.
Karim says he is deeply ashamed of having hit his wife several times since the start of the war.
“I hope the war ends before my wife’s energy runs out and she leaves me,” he said. “My wife is a good woman, so she tolerates what I say.”
A tear runs down Samar’s bruised face as she listens.
Karim says he knows what he is doing is wrong. Before the war, he never imagined he could harm her.
“I had friends who beat their wives. I said: “How does he sleep at night?” » Unfortunately, now I do.
“I did it more than once, but the hardest moment was when I left a mark on his face and eyes. I admit that this is a huge failure in terms of self-control,” says Karim, his voice trembling.
“The pressures of war are great. I left my home, my job and my future and sit here in a tent, helpless in front of my children. I can’t find work and when I leave the tent I feel like if I talk to anyone I’m going to lose my temper.
Karim knows that his wife and children have endured a lot. “I apologize to them for my behavior, but I continue to do it. I may need medication, but my wife doesn’t deserve all this from me. I’m trying to stop so she doesn’t have to leave me.
Samar’s despair is compounded by the loss of her own family, whom she left in the north to flee the bombings with her husband and family. Today, she feels desperately alone.
Her greatest fear is that she will completely burn out and become unable to care for her family, as she fears her husband already does.
The responsibility of finding water and food, caring for the children and thinking about their future has taken its toll and she lives in a constant state of fear.
“I try to be strong for my mother”
As the oldest child, Laila develops severe anxiety due to arguments between her father and mother and she fears for her mother.
She says: “My father and my mother argue every day. My mother suffers from a strange nervous condition. Sometimes she yells at me for no reason. I try to bear it and understand her condition so as not to lose her. I don’t like seeing her like this, but it’s the war that did all this to us.
Laila still considers Karim a good father and blames the world for letting this brutal war last so long. “My father often yells at me. Sometimes he hits my sisters. My mother cries all night and wakes up with her eyes swollen from the sadness of what we are experiencing.
She sits in bed for long hours, thinking about their life before the war and her plans to study English.
“I’m trying to be strong for my mother.”
“Unimaginable conditions”
The family is not alone. In Gaza, there has been a marked increase in domestic violence, with many women participating in psychological support sessions offered by aid workers in clinics.
Kholoud Abu Hajir, psychologist, has met many victims since the start of the war in clinics in displaced persons camps. However, she fears there are many more who are too ashamed to talk about it.
“There is a big secret and a big fear among women when it comes to talking about it,” she says. “I have received many cases of violence outside of group sessions – women who want to talk about what they are suffering and ask for help. »
Living in a constant state of instability and insecurity, experiencing repeated displacement and being forced to live in tightly packed tents has deprived women of privacy, leaving them with nowhere to turn.
“There is no comprehensive system of psychological treatment,” Abu Hajir told Tel Aviv Tribune. “We only work in emergency situations. The cases we deal with really require multiple sessions, and some of them are difficult cases where women need protection.
“There are very serious cases of violence that go as far as sexual assault, and that is a dangerous thing.”
The number of divorces has increased – many between spouses separated by the Israeli armed corridor between the north and the south.
The war has taken a terrible toll, especially on women and children, Abu Hajir said.
Nevin al-Barbari, 35, a psychologist, says it is impossible to give children in Gaza the support they need under these conditions.
“Unfortunately, what children experience during war cannot be described. They need very long psychological support sessions. Hundreds of thousands of children have lost their homes, lost a family member, and many have lost their entire family.
Being forced to live in difficult – and sometimes violent – family circumstances made life infinitely worse for many.
“There is very clear and widespread domestic violence, particularly among displaced people…The psychological and behavioral state of children has been affected in a very negative way. Some children have become very violent and violently hit other children.
Recently, al-Barbari discovered the case of a 10-year-old child who hit another child with a stick, causing serious injuries and bleeding.
“When I met this child, he couldn’t stop crying,” she said. “He thought I would punish him. When I asked him about his family, he told me that his mother and father argued every day and that his mother would go to his family’s tent for days.
“He said he misses his house, his room and the way his family was. This child is a very common example among thousands of children.
The road to recovery for these children will be long, al-Barbari says. “There are no schools to occupy them. Children are forced to take on great responsibilities, filling water and waiting in line for food aid. There are no recreational spaces for them.
“There are so many stories that we don’t know that these children experience every day. »