2023-10-27 21:04:31
MadridMai Al Bayoumi was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in the Sinai desert in Egypt in 1984. His family lives in the Rafah camp in the south of the Gaza Strip – near the only border crossing that begins to open with droppers to let humanitarian aid pass. From a distance, at his home in Madrid, he tries to keep in touch day and night.
How is your family?
— They had to leave their home. A missile fell on the door, which did not explode. Like the whole neighborhood, they had to leave there. Now they live at my uncle’s house. 50 people gather there. I have seven siblings, add that to another family. In a three-room apartment. People are in the dining room. In the first days no one understood what was happening. My mother said to me, literally: “Never – they will kill us all. The bombs will rain and the Gaza Strip will disappear from the map.” I got goosebumps. But at the same time, the Palestinians have felt like a living people, who still have the strength to fight for our land. And I would like to clarify that this is not a war between Hamas, a part of the Palestinian resistance, and Israel. What is happening is ethnic cleansing, an ongoing genocide against Palestinian children, women and grandparents.
How can you communicate with them?
— He hadn’t spoken to her for three days now. I often lose touch with it. But luckily they live in the south, they still have electricity every three or four days because people have generators and everyone plugs into them to charge their phones. I’m on my phone almost even when I sleep, waiting for horrible news. And I am thankful that my family is still alive, but they have killed friends, a teacher, people from the neighborhood that I have known since I was a child. They are martyrs. my people
How do they survive?
— It is horrible what they are living under the continuous bombardment. My sister told me her ears hurt. They can’t anymore. It’s super hard. They begin to despair of living like savages. They told me that there are people who are taking water from the sea because they have no other. I don’t know how they manage to stay alive. No water, no food, no light. And with nowhere to protect yourself. Why move to a school or hospital, if they are also attacked? There is no safe place in Gaza. But they say that “We will not abandon, our land. We keep fighting and here we are. We are united and we will make it.” They are asking for urgent help, but people do not want to leave.
How does he bear this situation, being far away?
— Look, when I talk to my family, thanks to them I have strength. Just knowing they’re alive, that’s enough for me for now. Then we’ll see what will happen to everything we’ve lost. I’m also very angry. I try to keep my normal routine, but I’m not comfortable doing according to what. I focus on going to demonstrations, assemblies, talks, interviews… We also do Palestinian dances. It is important to explain that as much as Palestine is not recognized internationally, it has its culture, a dance, traditional dresses. It’s very important to us that people understand what’s going on. Disprove the misinformation that exists in Europe and inform the people on the street. We have a lot of work.
What would you ask the international community?
— Let him act and remove them [als israelians]. They have to go out [de Palestina], if not, this will continue and they will end Palestine. They must return to their previous positions 75 years ago, when the state of Israel was dismembered.
Do you not believe in the two-state solution?
— I do not agree at all with the two states. There was a peace agreement between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, which Israel did not respect. And they will not respect him. For me the solution is for them to leave Palestine, for Palestine to be freed from Zionism and their plan. Because their Zionist plan is not to live in two states. The plan is to occupy all the land. And then start in other countries. We all need to understand that. The Palestinian cause is not a religious cause, we have nothing against the Jews. There are Jews who support Palestine. We are against the Zionist plan, the military occupation of Palestine. They are using the issue of Judaism and what happened to the Jews in World War II to justify what the state of Israel is doing.
Do you hope to be able to return to Palestine?
– Yes. And I would stay there to live. I miss life there. Go outside and see my neighbors. The most basic, we don’t ask too much either.. My family even told me maybe I was lucky to have been able to visit them [hi va estar 20 dies entre finals d’agost i principis de setembre] to fire them. We only have hope. And we don’t normalize that. People never get used to it. I have always said that I will die in Palestine. I chose to come, but I have the right to return.
#sister #tells #ears #hurt #bombings #Gaza