Testimonies

Amana Enzeli, 55

We live in the a-Shamam neighborhood, on the border between Rafah and Egypt, in the area of the smuggling tunnels. My parents fled from Be'ersheba (in Israel) in 1948. They lived in Khan Yunis and then moved to Rafah.

My husband left me, and I live with my two grown sons: 'Abd al-Fatah, 32, who is married with five children, and Bakar, 30, who is married and has a baby daughter. They support me.

Yesterday [7 January], at 8:00 A.M., the Israeli Air Force dropped fliers calling on the residents in our area to leave their homes immediately, and saying that if we didn't, they would bomb the houses with us inside. We didn't have time to get organize. At around 11 A.M., they started bombing houses in the nearby a-Salam and Janineh neighborhoods.

We didn't know what to do. We took a blanket for each of us, some bread, six kilos of flour, three kilos of tomatoes, and three kilos of cabbage, and left the house while the bombing was going on. I saw how they bombed the houses of the a-Duri and the Abu Ghali families, who live near us.

Eleven of us crowded into a single private car. The children had on only the clothes they were wearing. We didn't even take underpants for anybody. We decided to go to the house of Umm Ahmad, a distant relative who lives in the Tel al-Hawa area. Her house is five kilometers from the sea and we thought it would be safer there.

Umm Ahmad lives with her four children and her mother-in-law in a house with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. When we got to her house, there were already ten people from her brother-in-law's family, who had fled from the Yabneh neighborhood. My sons felt more comfortable going to a relative on their father's side, about fifty meters from there, and the women and children stayed at Umm Ahmad's. All together we were twenty-five people in the house.

Umm Ahmad received us very graciously. She is giving us food and drink but even though she is hosting us nicely, we are embarrassed.

It is very hard for me, feeling like a refugee in somebody else's house. We sleep on a mat and a rug, because there aren't enough beds in the house. I am angry and bitter that we have been forced to leave our home. A person's home is his fortress.

My family is dispersed. My sons are far from their wives and children and we can't live under one roof. When there is a break in the fighting, my daughters-in-law will try to meet my sons and take the opportunity to get to our home and bring some things from there.

Nobody knows how long this situation will continue. I'm confused and think only about what might happen. If it continues for a long time, I'll go crazy. I've seen Israelis make lots of incursions into Gaza over the years, but I never saw a war as harsh as this.

Testimony of Amana Salah Enzeli, 55, divorced with two children, resident of Rafah, Gaza Strip, The testimony was given by telephone to Iyad Haddad on 8 January 2009