By Minaz Kerawala, Communications and Public Relations Advisor
Our Advent stories this year are harrowing yet heartening accounts sent to us from the Holy Land by our partner, Caritas Jerusalem. As the world has stood by watching, nearly 45,000 people have been killed and more than 104,000 have been injured in Gaza over the past 14 months. But even with Israeli bombs raining around them, obliterating life and all that sustains it, Caritas Jerusalem has vowed, “We remain committed to our mission of peace and hope.” These are the stories of their staff, who surmount unimaginable challenges to deliver aid and succour, an effort enabled in part by the generosity of Development and Peace ― Caritas Canada’s supporters.
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
― 2 Corinthians 5:1
You are in the middle of Advent, deep in the Holy Land, not far from where that babe in the manger transformed humanity for all time. Ordinarily, everything around you should be festive. But it’s 2023, and nothing is ordinary. Rubble is no setting for revelry.
That’s how it was for Ahmad Al-Daya last December. Two months earlier, the Israeli occupation forces had ordered his family and thousands of others to evacuate northern Gaza. He moved into a relative’s friend’s home in Khan Yunis, in southern Gaza. With few essentials and fewer comforts, the family had settled into a hardscrabble version of “normalcy” made possible by the generous hospitality of their southern neighbours and the northerly focus of the Israeli offensive.
But even that was taken away on Tuesday, December 12. At 4 a.m., an Israeli shell struck the rooftop room in which Ahmad, his brother and some of their friends were sleeping.
“I did not hear, feel or see anything. All I knew was that my ears were ringing,” Ahmad recalled. He was the first to rise from the rubble and fumble his way downstairs in the dark. People were already rushing upstairs from the lower floors to help.
Ahmad saw that his injured father had been helped to descend, but he could not find his brother. He asked desperately, “Where did they take him? Why isn’t he here?” Told that he was in an ambulance in the street, Ahmad rushed to check on him and made a gruesome discovery.
The young man lay writhing next to his own severed leg. “He had lost so much muscle in the other leg; I could see his bones,” he said numbly, adding, “We were taken to the European Hospital in the east of Khan Yunis. From that moment on, the war changed for me, and my family and I became a significant part of this profound suffering.”
Displacement after displacement after displacement…
Ahmad’s very first displacement from northern Gaza had been distressing enough, evoking painful memories of the Palestinian people’s first great uprooting decades ago. “We felt what our grandparents had felt before,” he recounted. “We experienced what it was like to leave our homes, our neighborhoods, our streets, our friends, our family, and the place where we were born and lived our whole lives.”
With the Khan Yunis house they were sheltering in also destroyed, the family was displaced once again, this time to a tiny one-room hovel they rented in Rafah.
Meanwhile, Ahmad remained by his brother’s bedside in the European Hospital. For two agonizing months, the doctors did all they could, with Israeli blockades having severely limited the resources available. Finally, the maimed man was approved for treatment outside Gaza (leaving the territory even for lifesaving medical procedures is a “privilege” granted only at the whim of Israeli authorities).
Then, an Israeli attack destroyed the Rafah house, too, injuring Ahmad’s uncle and aunt. They sought refuge in a tent in the hospital compound, where they remained for five months. Ahmad said, “During our time at the European Hospital, I do not recall having a single day without issues due to the spread of diseases and the lack of medicine and sanitation.”
When Israel invaded Rafah, even the hospital compound became unsafe. The family was displaced yet again to a camp in Khan Yunis. There, Ahmad said, “The situation was even more challenging due to the lack of water, bathrooms, and the absence of our personal belongings, including clothes, mattresses, blankets and a tent.” So, they moved once more, to a friend’s abandoned house in Hamad City.
Unfortunately, Ahmad said, “Just as we began to feel comfortable and settled in, we received warnings to evacuate. We left everything behind and moved to Deir al-Balah.” But when they returned a few days later, they found that the house had been targeted and they had lost their meagre belongings.
Bereft, but not bitter
You could be forgiven for pitying yourself or cursing your fate if you had suffered such privations. But Ahmad, who is cut from a different cloth, found things to be grateful for!
“Thank God we work at Caritas, allowing us to serve people in the most challenging conditions,” he said, adding, “This organization helps us make our voices heard, which has brightened our days.”
In the squalor and darkness, Ahmad found grace in his work. “How beautiful it is to see a mother or child come to you for help and to be able to provide them with support in the most difficult circumstances.”
An oasis of hope
Caritas Jerusalem represents the best of Palestine’s small, tenacious Catholic community, which Pope Francis has extolled as “a seed loved by God.”
Over the past year, this “seed” has borne lifesaving fruit, providing shelter, food, essential supplies, bedding, clothes, medicine, medical services and psychosocial support to thousands in Gaza. And delivering this all have been people like Ahmad, who have dodged bombs, overcome deprivation and sublimated grief to serve with a smile.
The primary ingredient in their recipe of hope has been the courageous spirit of the Palestinian people. But the dish could not have been prepared without the solidarity and generosity of people like you who refuse to be unmoved by their suffering.
Ahmad’s aspirations, like those of his compatriots, are simple. “I hope this ordeal ends so we can go back to rebuild Gaza, our children’s future, our country and our organization. That’s what I want to share with you.”
In this sacred season, as you adorn your homes to welcome the King, please consider making a donation, so that our partners like Caritas Jerusalem can offer shelter and comfort to displaced and dispossessed people in the Holy Land and around the world.
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