As Gazans suffer, guilt and fear haunt their families abroad

Like many people around the world with families in Gaza who long for news of their loved ones and wonder if they are alive, hungry or injured, Reem Alfranji is consumed by guilt.

Even drinking a glass of water — a simple act in her home in Jordan, but a luxury for those trapped in the besieged enclave, like her mother — makes her feel guilty, Ms. Alfranji said. “Every time I drink this water, I feel like I would like to pass one cup on to my mother,” she said.

The people of the Gaza Strip have been living under constant bombardment for weeks, cut off from supplies of food, water and medicine. Communications are also often disrupted, so those living outside the territory can only find out about their families there through sporadic WhatsApp text messages or phone calls. They are desperate for any sign that their loved ones are still alive. Some say they hardly sleep. Others barely eat.

Many grew up in Gaza and know what it’s like to flee an airstrike, or how broken glass turns into shrapnel. And while they know they cannot stop the bombings, some said they wish they were there with their families, knowing how much they are suffering.

More than 12,000 people – including about 5,000 children – were killed in Gaza as of November 22, according to the enclave’s health ministry. Israel launched its military campaign against Gaza in response to terrorist attacks by Hamas, the group that controls the enclave, on October 7. Israel says those attacks killed about 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 hostages.

Israel, aided by Egypt, has restricted food, water, medicine and fuel to the strip, although some aid and fuel has trickled in. Almost all residents are not allowed to leave the area.

Some hope of a reprieve came Wednesday, when the Israeli government and Hamas announced an agreement to pause fighting for at least four days so that 50 of the hostages in Gaza could be released.

In the meantime, however, citizens have been sickened by polluted water, dying in hospitals that cannot treat them, and living on scraps of bread – if they can find them.

“Here I get what I want,” said Mohammed Salah Arafat, a resident of Washington, DC, who still lives in Gaza with a brother. “When it comes to food, when it comes to freedom, when it comes to rights, when it comes to freedom of movement, the guilt drives me crazy,” said 30-year-old Arafat, who left Gaza in 2018.

Faress, Arafat’s brother, volunteered as a nurse at Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, which the World Health Organization says has run out of basic facilities to treat patients and is no longer functioning.

He lived on a can of beans a day, which he heated by dipping a cotton ball in alcohol and setting it on fire, Mr. Arafat said. When the beans ran out, he survived on an electrolyte solution that the hospital normally gave to patients. Mr. Arafat said his brother had left the hospital, which was raided by Israeli forces last week.

“I cried almost every day since the war started, until two weeks ago. I became numb and emotionless, but I no longer know how to suppress my sadness,” Mr. Arafat said.

Iman Ayman, a 29-year-old woman living in England, can barely hold back her tears as she tells how her sister gave birth in a hospital in Gaza without painkillers.

Her sister was pregnant when the war broke out, Ms. Ayman said, and had just finished decorating the nursery. She had studied to be an oncologist, Ms. Ayman said.

On October 17, her sister’s waters broke and she had to go to a hospital, Ms Ayman said. But the roads were full of rubble and the cars had no fuel. So her sister walked for almost an hour with her mother and her brother by her side, only to wait eighteen hours for a bed when they finally reached a hospital.

Ms. Ayman’s brother waited in a blood-spattered hallway, she said. He told her he had closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the dead bodies and body parts that medical workers brought with them.

Ms Ayman, who did not want to give the names of her siblings for fear they could be targeted by Israeli forces, said her sister needed an episiotomy – a surgical incision to help remove her child.

The doctors cut into her as she screamed.

“They had to take my mother out,” Ms. Ayman said. “The doctors didn’t want my mother to see this.”

Ms. Ayman and Ms. Alfranji have both lived in Gaza. Both women have numerous relatives there, including Ms Alfranji’s parents, whose home was destroyed early in the war. They lived in her uncle’s house in southern Gaza, along with her brother, his wife and dozens of other relatives.

Explosions at night have terrified Ms Alfranji’s father, who has Alzheimer’s disease.

“My mother says that sometimes he is fine and he doesn’t really understand what is going on around him, but sometimes he gets really scared because of the voices and the noises,” Ms Alfranji said. “In one room, four or five people are all sleeping together, so he finds one of my cousins ​​and he puts the blanket over her, and he says to my mother, ‘This is your daughter, this is Reem, so please keep her hot. .’”

Another family member suffered from kidney failure during the first days of the air raids. He tried Al-Quds Hospital, but there was no room there. He tried Al-Shifa but was also rejected. Two days later he was dead.

Ms Alfranji said the family was lucky to be able to bury his body as even graves are difficult to find. She no longer starts her text messages with “How are you?”

“We are waiting for our turn to die,” says everyone in Gaza,” Ms. Alfranji said.

Mohammed Al Abadla says he hears the same from people he knows.

Mr. Al Abadla lives in Dubai, where he spends his days watching the news, as it is often the only way to find out if his parents are alive. Have more emergency vehicles entered? Is there clean water? Has their neighborhood been bombed?

“It’s obviously very difficult to see these images and videos and know that your family is not safe,” he said.

Mr. Al Abadla lived in Gaza in his teens and early 20s. His sister, her husband and their two-year-old child still live there, along with other family and friends.

In early November, a friend texted him to say his wife and two children had been killed in an airstrike. It’s difficult to know how to respond to these updates, he said.

“I’m just telling them to stay strong,” he said. “May they rest in peace.”

WhatsApp is the only way Mr Al Abadla and many other people can communicate with their families, but even those messages are sporadic. Sometimes he hasn’t heard from his parents for more than a day.

And so he sits, glued to the news, lucky if he gets two hours of sleep because fear keeps him awake at night. He thinks his father and mother survived on dried fruits, such as figs and dates, but he is not sure. When he gets through it, he doesn’t offer help because he knows he can’t. They know it too, but they don’t want him to worry. They tell him they are doing well. He knows it’s not true.

“They are no different from other parents. They care about us, about their children, about being good, about being happy,” he said. “They just tell us, ‘Don’t worry about us, whatever happens, this is our fate.'”