Beit Lahiya, Gaza, Palestine – In the middle of lots of reckling and imposing destruction, mother of five of Fasten Abu Haloub, his family and his parents-in-law installed adjacent tents on the ruins of what was formerly their extended family home.
The parents of her husband Karam – Dalal, 60 and Nasser, 65 – have eight children, three sons and five daughters, two of whom still live at home.
The house is now the small tent next to Karam and Fate’s with a home in front and “zones” of fortune.
There is the kitchen – no more than a few wooden plates to rest cooking utensils and their meager food supplies – near the fire.
On the side is the bathroom, a hole bordered by stone dug in the sand which serves the latrine with more stones marking a tiny bath area, the whole section protected draped blankets on sticks stuck in the ground.
Taken everywhere are water jugs and buckets to collect water, which has become the daily struggle of the family.
Severe water shortages tormented the area, which has become more apparent since the displaced residents began to return home when the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began on January 19. Oxfam says the besieged enclave destroyed water and sanitation infrastructure.
WATER FIGHT
Fateten, 28, and Karam, 39, start their mornings wearing their buckets to fill common pipes or any other source of water they can find.
Sometimes Karam’s parents join them to transport and seek water, something unknown in traditional Gaza society, in which the ancients do not carry out tasks that are so physically demanding. Young family members generally do them.
However, war has turned all conventions upset. With stretched resources and on survival at stake, everyone, including the elderly and small children, is forced to contribute.
The two brothers of Karam who live in nearby tents carry the main responsibility for the security of water, but when the water is exhausted, the whole family comes out in all directions to look for more.
Throughout the War of Israel at more than 15 months against Gaza, Faten’s family had stayed in the North, braving the intense bombing until they were forced to flee west of Gaza City in October when a large -scale Israeli terrestrial offensive in the North began and lasts three months.
“We didn’t want to leave. … We were among the last people to stay in the North, ”explains Fateten.
“But in the end, we couldn’t stay. As soon as the ceasefire was announced, my husband immediately returned to see our house, “says Faten when he was sitting on a stone near the home and making a gesture towards the rubble around her.
“I did not recognize the area or where we found our house. The level of destruction was shocking.
“How can people live in a destroyed place?” No essential, no infrastructure, no water, no sewers, no electricity, ”explains Fate. “Sometimes I think we would have been better to die in war.”
Sometimes a water truck arrives, she says, and everyone in the family takes place to try to get a place in the filling queue. But sometimes the ABU Haloubs have no room, and sometimes the water runs out.
Fateten notes that no one provides regular water supply and, although it knows that municipalities are unable to restore pipes in the middle of destruction, she hopes that someone involved in the help process – Local authorities, international aid organizations or humanitarian groups – may be able to help.
No relief in sight
To say that water has become an obsession for the family is to put it lightly.
“We strictly reject it. We fear waste a single drop, ”says Fateten, laughing while her mother-in-law joins the conversation.
“I spend the whole day shouting my daughters-in-law and my daughters on the use of water,” explains Dalal.
“I have established strict rules. No more than one person can bathe per day. The bath is limited to once every 10 days. A single family can do the laundry per day, “explains Dalal while she sits near the fire, preparing tea and coffee for her interviewers.
“We used to have 5,000 liter water tanks (1,320 gallons) at home and electricity to pump water,” she recalls.
“We have never lived like that before. I used to bathe my children daily or every two days, ”accepts Fateten.
“Children become dirty and need constant care, but it’s almost impossible now.”
Karam interrupts while rushing the hands and faces of his children sparingly. “My back is broken in the transport of water.”
But they had to do, said Fateten, telling how recent storms presented an unexpected boon.
“When the storm struck, the water trucks disappeared, so we started collecting rainwater in all the containers, buckets and baths that we could find.
“At first, the people around us were skeptical, but soon they followed our example. We used rainwater for everything. It has become a perfect alternative.
Dreaming of basic comfort
“Having a tap running water seems to be an impossible dream. An appropriate bathroom with running water is also a dream, ”explains Fateten.
“The pipes, the pipes and the taps with the water – these are dreams for us now.”
When they lived in tents in the west of the city of Gaza before the ceasefire, they dreamed of small comforts, especially when they heard that mobile houses would be brought as part of the ceasefire .
“We were so happy. … People even started to argue for those who get these caravans, ”says Fateten laughing.
“We were told that families of more than six members would receive them, and I said to myself:” If only I had two more children so that I can qualify for one! “”
“But the reality was different,” she said. “No caravans, no services, no reconstruction, no water, no rubble of rubble. Nothing. We have just returned to live in the middle of destruction. »»
“War is not over. We always live it. His shadow has never left our lives. »»
