Half-life, half-house: Portrait of a Palestinian family after Israeli raids
The home of 36-year-old former police officer Akram Nassar and his two children is located in the Hammam neighborhood of the occupied West Bank’s Tulkarem refugee camp, which is frequently the target of Israeli raids.
Sewage flows down the side of the house, which is a strewn across from the house.
Closer to the house, Akram’s two sons, five-year-old Rahim and four-year-old Bara, appear. Bara is in shorts and a T-shirt in the mild, mid-September weather.
Because Israeli raids removed their front wall and a significant portion of their home’s side wall, they are visible from the street and are unmistakable.
A single grey armchair, an old computer monitor without casing, and a black-framed mirror hanging on the damaged interior door are all that the family’s exposed front room has.
The floor tiles are broken, there is dust and rubble everywhere.
The two remaining walls’ tiles provide an insight into how the house might have looked and how it might have been looked in the past.
The front of Akram’s house, along with several other buildings on the street, was destroyed on September 2 by an Israeli soldier using a bulldozer.
Akram’s barely standing house, with none of the privacy or protection the idea of home conjures, fits in with the devastated landscape of Tulkarem.
Since October 7, the Israeli military’s “counter-terror” raids have damaged or destroyed most dwellings and infrastructure in the refugee camp.
Every one of Tulkarem’s many narrow alleys is lined with houses and shops missing walls, doors or windows.
Many buildings are completely uninhabitable. Some families, like Akram’s, try to survive in the ruins of their homes, not knowing what the next raid will bring.
Akram appears in the front room, carrying two plastic buckets. The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee’s donation to the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee led him and his two boys to a corner to get some water from.
When they return, Akram enters the small kitchen to make some coffee, but the burning still permeates the air and the scorched marks still appear on the walls.
According to Akram, coffee is a cherished possession in their homes. “Coffee is easy to make, I can still prepare it in my destroyed kitchen”, he says.
“As for meals, we usually eat at my mother’s house, just … in the alley opposite our house”.
After his wife and Akram divorced three years ago, he now has custody of the kids.
He considers the chaos that surrounds him as he makes coffee on a single-burner stove.
“The occupation forces didn’t leave a single thing untouched”, he says.
They deliberately destroyed everything, even the simplest kitchen items, just to make sure we lose everything. “
He claims that because he assumes another raid will soon cause more damage to his house, he no longer removes the rubble or attempts to repair the damaged walls.
As Akram speaks, Bara rummages through a pile of clothes and other ruined belongings, looking for something to play with.
After a while, he lets out a jubilant scream:” I found one of my toys! and travels with a small, vibrant stuffed cat that can be hung on a pram or cot in a mobile.
Bara is excitedly whizzing the cat around while holding on to the tiny handle on its head.
” Rahim and Bara used to spend most of their time playing, but even their play has changed now, “Akram says.
” They lost most of their toys and belongings. They no longer possess any drawing notebooks or colored pencils.
He observes two birds chirping inside a walled cage. These two birds are the only things left from their life before the devastation, “he says”. My children lost everything, except for these birds. “
The children begin accumulating bird feed as Akram sips his coffee as they gather it from the ground. During their most recent raid, Israeli soldiers dispersed it around the house.
” The birds survived, even though the house was filled with smoke after the side room was blown up, “Akram says”. They are the ones who have witnessed everything being destroyed inside this house.
‘ Let our father go! ‘
Since a March raid by Israeli forces, that destruction has been the result of numerous raids.
” That day the army was destroying everything in the camp, and the sound of explosions kept getting closer, “Akram recounts.
He entered his mother’s home with his children out of fear that the army would detain all the men, as it had done in Nur Shams camp a few days earlier.
” Suddenly, the door to my mother’s house was blown open, and soldiers armed to the teeth stormed in. They immediately started breaking everything. They beat me, and then arrested me. “
Rahim, who had been listening to his father’s account closely, jumps to his feet”. They hit him with their guns and tied his hands, “he exclaims, reliving the scene of his father’s assault.
Akram’s arrest was the most difficult part of his entire experience, he says, because of the terror it inflicted on his children.
“The children clung on to me, screaming, ‘ Let our father go! ‘ But the soldiers ignored their cries.”
The children attempted to follow their father and the armed soldiers, but their grandmother held on and brought them home.
According to Akram, he claimed the charges against him were dropped the day after arriving at a makeshift detention facility in a nearby field.
Because the Israeli soldiers had surrounded the Tulkarem camp and refused to let anyone in after his release, he was unable to return home for another day.
Since that day, Akram has been taking the children to their grandmother’s house whenever there is a raid nearby.
His mother’s house has also been damaged, its contents and front door vandalised, but it is still in better condition than Akram’s.
Being near their grandmother comforts and calms the children, he adds.
While the raid in March was perhaps the most traumatic for his family, Akram’s home sustained the worst damage in September, during an Israeli raid – dubbed” Summer Camps “– on refugee camps in the north of the occupied West Bank, including Tulkarem.
The front wall of Akram’s house was completely destroyed by an Israeli D9 bulldozer at the time, leaving the entire structure level and exposed.
Soldiers allegedly razed several homes around their own, attacking everyone and everything they gazed upon.
” When the bulldozer reached our neighbourhood, we were at my mother’s house. He relates that the machine’s explosion and destruction shook the camp in a way that resembled an earthquake.
After the situation calmed, he rushed home when the building’s majority was reduced to rubble, as he does after every raid.
” Less than 10 days after that first demolition]on September 11], the army blew up another side room with an explosive, starting a fire that filled the entire house with smoke, “he adds.
Akram claims that the raids destroyed more than just their home, as they had a say in how they impacted their lives.
Because of the destruction of the roads, the bus that used to take his kids to school can no longer travel there.
So, now that there is a risk of a sudden military raid, Akram has to walk them there every morning and afternoon.
He says it is also harder for the children to visit their mother, who, since their separation, lives in her family’s home in the Sualma neighbourhood, just five minutes away from their house.
” Raids heavily damaged their mother’s house, so it is not safe for them to stay there either, “he says, adding that there is also , the risk posed by raids bulldozers.
As he speaks, Akram looks through a pile of clothes, covered in dust and partially scorched, to see if any of it is usable.
Eventually, he picks out a few items and puts them in a plastic bag”. Thank God, “he exclaims sarcastically” I found half a pair of pyjamas and two shirts. “
Given the constant threats and damage, Akram says”, I’ve stopped trying to repair or even clean the house entirely because, at any moment, the army could raid us again and set us back to square one. “
Akram could be forgiven for thinking of moving his family elsewhere but, he says, he has” no intention to leave”.
” We know the destruction will continue. Now, after each raid, I just remove some of the rubble. Most of the household items are ruined, and we’ve had to get rid of them. “
Because the majority of the house’s windows have been destroyed, Akram claims that sleeping in his house these days is not very different from sleeping on the street.
Dust and dirt constantly contaminate the air, and there is no protection from pests like sewage, which might be present.
For Akram, however, none of this can make him leave.
” If the army comes back and destroys more of my house, or even demolishes it completely, we will stay in our home. We will stay even if the whole thing collapses”.
In an effort to live a somewhat normal life in the ruins of their old home, Akram and the children alternate daily between the living room, the corner where their birds are kept, and the destroyed entrance.
They occasionally stop to greet their neighbors through the gaps that were once their walls as they move.
” Nothing about our lives is normal any more, “he told me.
Source: Aljazeera
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