From war to winter: Gaza couple wait to welcome baby in flooded tent

Gaza Strip’s Deir el-Balah – Samar al-Salmi and her family experienced a new disaster as a result of the first heavy rains of the winter season.

As their tired tent in a displacement camp was torn down in the morning, torrents of water slammed into the ground beneath them, bringing them to a murky pool.

Refugited people crowded all around them, attempting to repair what the rain had destroyed, sanding the flooded areas and bringing soaked mattresses into the cold winter sun.

The timing was incomparably bad for 35-year-old Samar.

She is about to give birth, and everything she has got ready for her daughter was wet.

As you can see, the baby’s clothes were completely covered in mud, she says, lifting tiny garments that had brown stains on them. “Everything I prepared was submerged, including the milk formula box and the diapers,” the statement continued.

In Deir el-Balah, where her mother and her siblings reside, Samar, her husband, and their three children reside. Due to Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza, they have all been driven out of their homes in Tal al-Hawa, southwest of Gaza City.

Samar says, “My voice almost breaks,” and she can’t even describe how she feels right now. My mind is going to freeze up, I feel. How is my baby girl supposed to greet me in this manner?

Samar and her husband, along with their brothers, shove sand into the water sources that have encircled their home spaces while Samar tries to salvage clothes and blankets. Unuseable and strewn all over them are clothes, basic belongings, and soaked clothing.

She claims that she thought it would be safe to place the baby’s hospital bag inside my mother’s tent. However, the rain first rushed in and flooded everything, including the bag.

She continues, “I don’t know where to start.” Should I take care of my children because they need to soak in warm water and wash in mud and sand because their clothes are so dirty?

Or do I try to dry the mattresses since it will be so cold? Or should I get ready to give birth at any time? She inquires.

Aid organizations have warned that Gaza’s displaced families would experience catastrophe each time the winter arrived because they are living in thin, tattered tents as a result of Israel’s strict ban on construction materials and caravans entering the Gaza Strip.

According to Samar, “A tent is not a solution.” We flood in the winter and it’s unbearably hot in the summer. There is no life in this. And yet, winter has not yet begun. When the real cold arrives, what will we do?

“At the very least, why weren’t caravans permitted in?” until this is over, any roof to provide shelter for us.

A father is enraged

Abdulrahman al-Salmi, Samar’s husband, is quietly working on the tent repairs with her brothers. He claims he doesn’t even feel like talking to Al Jazeera at first because he is so depressed. But he starts opening up more and more slowly.

” As a father, I’m helpless, “the 39-year-old says”. Our relationship crumbles on one side as a result of my attempts to keep it together. Both during and after the war, that is our life. There hasn’t been a solution for us.

He recalls the call Samar made to him as he arrived for his first day of work at a small barbershop earlier that morning.

He recalls that “she was crying and screaming, and everyone around her was screaming.” Come quickly, she said, “We have our tent in every direction because of the rain.” “

He ran under the rain and dropped everything.

He claims, “The place was completely flooded, like a swimming pool,” with tears streaming into his eyes. People were dumping water from their tents with buckets as my wife and mother-in-law screamed, my children were outside shivering from the cold, and the streets were flooded. Everything was a lot of work.

The rain feels like the end, according to Abdulrahman.

Since the start of the war, “we’ve been struggling in every way, and now the rain has completely ruined our efforts.”

In light of severe shortages and skyrocketing costs, the father expressed his immense difficulty in providing the newborn with necessities.

He claims, “I bought the diapers for 85 shekels ($26),” which is the same price we paid for 13 ($4). The milk formula is 70 ($21). Even the pacifier is pricey. And now everything that we did to prepare for the delivery tomorrow is gone. I’m at a loss for ideas.

The couple’s warm, airy second-floor apartment in Tal al-Hawa, where they once lived a dignified and peaceful life, is all that they can recall.

According to Samara, “The apartment, the building, and the entire neighborhood are destroyed.” Our family homes are all gone. We are left to live in tents.

The couple’s acceptance of their daughter into these circumstances terrifies them the most. Samar will undergo a C-section and then go home.

She softly responds, “I never imagined this.” Under these circumstances, I never imagined welcoming the daughter we had hoped for.

She acknowledges that she occasionally regrets having a baby while serving in the war.

She continues with grief, “In my previous deliveries, I returned from the hospital to my apartment, to my comfortable bed, and I took care of myself and my baby peacefully.”

Any mother in the world would understand my emotions right now, the delicateness of the delivery process, the first few days after delivery, and how sensitive I feel.

Endless entanglement

Samar’s has repeatedly been displaced, moving between Rafah, Nuseirat, and Khan Younis, like most families in Gaza.

I eluded my husband’s family, my uncle’s, and then my family’s home. Everyone is homeless and every house we fled to has been destroyed, according to Samara.

The most severe injuries have occurred to their children, Mohammad, seven, Kinan, five, and Yaman, three.

She says, “Look at them, look at them.” They are shivering because of it. They lack sufficient clothing. And the laundry, which I just washed, is now covered in mud.

After being bitten by insects inside the camp, the children needed to be taken to the hospital a few days ago. Every night, cold and illness stalk them.

According to Abdulrahman, “the older boy couldn’t sleep from stomach pain.” I covered him, but it was ineffective. Nothing is there, just blankets.

Even the ceasefire hasn’t provided any comfort to Samar. She refutes the claim that things have cooled down in the conflict. The war never came to an end, according to her.

They claim that the conflict has ended. What happened now? “Samar asks”. Every day there are bombings, martyrs, and drownings and sufferings. This is the start of a new conflict, not its conclusion.

A call for shelter

The couple only desires dignity above all else.

Even caravans are a temporary solution, Samar claims. We are people. We had homes. Rebuilding our homes is what we demand.

Her final appeal targets humanitarian organizations.

We require blankets, mattresses, and clothes. Everything has been destroyed. Someone must be there for us. We require a place to rest. It’s impossible to continue to live on plastic sheets.

Abdulrahman sums up their reality in one sentence as he spreads yet another layer of sand:

We have lost our souls, to be honest.

Source: Aljazeera