Alaa’s sad Mother’s Day after Israel’s war on Gaza killed her children
It is nearly impossible to describe the feelings of a mother in the Gaza Strip on Mother’s Day.
A mother who has borne the pain of separation from her children, wept at the sight of them slipping into malnutrition and stayed up all night to try to reassure them that they were “safe” as Israel’s planes continued to drop bombs overhead.
‘Mama, try to get us out’
Alaa el-Qatrawi, 33, sits quietly, present in body but it is obvious that her mind is elsewhere. A few months ago, all four of her children were killed …
The PhD holder in Arabic studies is separated from her husband of nearly 10 years, Musa Qandil, and had been able to see the children only some of the time during the war.
Looking around with bloodshot eyes, she recites her children’s names: “Yamen, eight years old. The twins Orchid and Kanan, six years old. And Carmel, three years old.”
In early December, when the children were with their father, who took them to Khan Younis for their safety, Alaa heard that Israeli tanks were getting closer to the house where they were staying. One day, Israeli forces stormed the house and attacked her ex-husband and his brothers. They said the soldiers beat them severely and stole money, mobile phones and gold.
A university-age cousin managed to hide her phone, and on December 13, the children used it to contact Alaa, terrified of the fighting raging around them. “Mama, try to get us out of here,” she remembers them begging.
But Alaa says she was not able to get help from two of the international humanitarian organisations in Gaza, neither of which could get into the area where the house was.
“I would fantasise that I could make myself invisible and go get them out. I didn’t know what to do. … They were asking me for help, but I couldn’t do anything. When I remember their voices, I wish I could die or that this was a dream I could wake up from,” she weeps.
