戦闘休止のガザ、住民の自宅は廃虚に

【アバサン（パレスチナ自治区）ＡＦＰ＝時事】パレスチナ自治区ガザ地区のイスラエルとの境界に近い村で、チーズのサンドイッチを朝食にする家族。メニューは普段と変わらないが、それを食べる自宅は廃虚と化している。（写真は、パレスチナ自治区ガザ地区ハンユニスの東方にある村で食事を取る住民）
　ガザを実効支配するイスラム組織ハマスとイスラエルの戦闘が一時休止され、戻ったわが家の壁は崩れ、家具や家電はコンクリートのがれきに埋もれていた。
　家族９人で避難していた南部ハンユニスの学校から、自宅のあるアバサンまで徒歩で帰ってきたという女性（４６）は、「家は完全に破壊されていた。２７年間かけて建てたのに何も残ってない」と嘆いた。
　「２日間は食事が喉を通らなかった。でも生き続けなければと自分に言い聞かせた」と言う女性は、子どもたちの方を見ながら「家は壊されても子どもたちは生きている。一度建て直したものなのだから、また建て直せる」と語った。
　通りの反対側では男性が、自宅の跡を見つめて立っていた。「私たちはみんな農民かタクシー運転手だ。レジスタンス（ハマス）とは何の関係もない」
　近くには廃材や布を集めて仮設の小屋を造る男性（４６）がいた。「戦争が終わったら、妻と７人の子どもたち、そして母と一緒にここへ戻って来る」。それぞれ７人の子を持つ兄弟も「血のにじむ思いで建てた家を失った」ため、テントがさらに必要になるだろうと話した。
　息子のアブデサマド君（１２）が、電灯と薪になる木を見つけたと言って駆け寄ってきた。子どもたちは、やはりイスラエル軍に空爆された国連学校のそばで地面に座って遊んでいた。
　「戦争は本当に怖かった。でもいいこともある」と言ったのは、友達のナビル君（８）だ。両親に聞かれたら困ると笑いながら「学校も壊されたから、しばらく行かなくていいんだよ」と話した。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2023/11/30-15:15）

Tea and cheese sandwiches are on the breakfast menu for Taghrid al-Najjar's children. It should be an everyday moment, but their home in the Gaza Strip is now mostly rubble.
The walls have collapsed, with furniture and appliances buried under concrete.
Until the war, the 46-year-old mother had never left her farming village along the border with Israel in the southeast of the Strip.
Since Friday a truce has paused the fighting between Israel and Hamas, allowing them to return to a neighbourhood in ruins.
It is only here that I feel good, she said.
Najjar fled when Israeli bombardments started as it went to war with Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attacks that left 1,200 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Israeli authorities.
For weeks she lived with nine members of her family in a Khan Yunis school converted into a makeshift camp for displaced people.
The Hamas-led government says nearly 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed in the Gaza war, and Najjar said dozens of people in her wider extended family have died.
As soon as the truce went into effect on Friday -- it has now been extended for an additional two days -- she began making her way home to Abasan on foot.
I discovered that my house had been completely destroyed -- 27 years of my life to build it and everything is gone! she said.
For two days I couldn't eat, then I told myself that I had to continue living, she added, looking at her children.
My house is destroyed but my children are alive, so we will rebuild. We have already done it once, we can do it again, she told AFP.
Each night the family squeezes through a window to sleep in the only room where the walls have not entirely crumpled.
- Children 'traumatised' -
Once there is a permanent ceasefire, Najjar said, they will pitch a tent, but only for long enough to rebuild the house.
Her 64-year-old neighbour Jamil Abu Azra's main concern was his four young grandchildren.
They can sleep anywhere, the problem is that they are afraid and they are traumatised, he said.
Even us adults are afraid, but we pretend in front of the little ones.
Across the street, Bassem Abu Taaima contemplated the destroyed building where his family and his four brothers' families had lived.
We are all farmers or taxi drivers. We really have nothing to do with the resistance, he said of Palestinian armed groups, so we don't understand why all this is happening to us.
Wearing a jacket given to him by a neighbour, and shorts despite the biting cold, he said he will wait for the war to end before setting up a tent and starting to clear and rebuild.
He has scoured the debris for warm clothes, although everything he has found has been burned or torn.
- School destroyed -
Nearby, Naim Taaimat, 46, was building a shelter for his family from wood, some fabric and a few nails.
This is where I will live with my wife, our seven children and my mother after the war, he said.
More tents will be needed as his brothers -- each has seven children -- have also lost their homes, he added.
The brothers shed blood to build the houses where the families' possession are now buried under rubble.
Taaimat's first priority was to find his daughter Nivine's trousseau, as she had been due to get married next week. He used a hammer to try to break up the concrete blocks before rummaging around with his bare hands.
Now she's lost her house and her fiance also lost his house. So I have to find something so that she can still be a little happy.
Twelve-year-old Abdessamad interrupted, running in shouting: We found an electric lamp and we have logs for the fire!
Sitting with his friends on a dirt floor near the United Nations school where used to study, now partly wrecked by Israeli bombing, he laughed, sang and joked.
The war really scared us and it was horrible, but there is good news, said his friend Nabil, eight.
Laughing, and hoping his parents couldn't overhear him, he explained: The school's destroyed and we won't be able to go back for a while.