Qalandiya
It’s about a girl who is still a baby
, called Iman - one of a group of patients returning home to Gaza after hospitalization in the West Bank – that I wish to tell this time.
Iman is 3-years old, and lives in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
She’s not the youngest and sickest of those who left the checkpoint under armed guard. There were those who were younger and sicker.
Perhaps it was those wispy arms she held out to me, or the tiny hand that held mine that made this child the one who symbolizing the many, those few whose exit from the Gaza Strip has been approved by the Sovereign (Israeli authorities) for medical treatment, and the countless ones who have been denied such access.
Iman suffers serious burns in her upper body. Much of her scalp is scarred and most of her head hair has been removed, her face is scarred as is part of her neck.
Beside the treatments and ointments it is crucial not to expose the injured parts to the sun and to provide a sterile environment. Both are absent in Qalandiya Checkpoint’s reality, and who knows what will happen to her later, in the Gaza Strip…
Whenever the patients’ transport takes off and I wave to the people looking through the windows and waving back at me, comes the heavy-hearted moment and the question where am I sending them off to, why do I help them board the vehicle, why do I carry their bags and suitcases?
True, they’re in a hurry to get home, but perhaps the opposite should be done – stall them here where they’re not targeted for shooting nor sniping, here where the water is not polluted.
Perhaps just not there, not to Gaza.
The next day, the radio said that the Israeli Air Force bombed the northern part of the Gaza Strip. Think of them, the children, think about Iman of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
There was also a not-so-young fellow after undergoing surgery at a Nablus hospital, who took up a conversation with me and said that among those boarding the transport vehicle are people who are poor and hungry, and those who cannot afford even the cost of the journey (70 shekels per person) and need the kindness of strangers.
“We have nothing more to lose in Gaza”, he said.
“You have life”, I tried.
“No, not even life. We don’t need empathy. We don’t need solidarity. May all Israelis go to hell.”
