This kind of help is tangible help. It can be weighed, counted, loaded and ultimately distributed. People can be fed and given medicine. But there is another task whose demands are enormous and which will have a profound effect on the future of Gaza.
The war created an unknown number of traumatized adults and children. We recorded several of their stories but know about tens of thousands of others that remain unspoken.
The children faced severe suffering. According to the survey of caregivers of 504 children, for Art British charity “War Child”., external96% of children felt the inevitability of death.
Surveys also found that 49% had a wish to die. Our journalists often heard young survivors say that they would like to join their dead mother, father or brother.
Ten-year-old Amr al-Hindi was the only survivor of an Israeli strike on the building where he lived in Beit Lahia last October. Our colleague from the region filmed Amr in the hospital immediately after the attack.
The floor around him was littered with wounded. The woman was sitting up, bleeding from her ear. A man has just died nearby.
– Where is the Sheriff? Amr asked repeatedly. The nurse told him the Sheriff was fine. “I’ll take you upstairs to see him.” But Sheriff, his brother, did not survive. Neither did his other brother, Ali, or his sister Aseel, or his mother and father. The whole family disappeared.
Right after the ceasefire was announced, we went back to see what happened to Amr al-Hindi. He lived with his grandparents, and it was obvious that they loved him with care and tenderness. After the bombing, the child had three toes amputated, but he walked normally.
Amr sat on his grandfather’s lap and looked directly into the camera. He was still and calm, as if he was watching from behind a thick protective screen. He started talking about his brother Ali and how he wanted to go to Jordan and study to be a doctor.
“I want to become like Ali. I want to fulfill his dream and go to Jordan to become a doctor,” he said. But within the last few words the tears started and he sobbed.
Amr’s grandfather kissed him on the cheek; he said “cute” and patted his chest.
At this moment it is clear that there are many wars.
Some of them paused. Others, for the survivors, will live long into the future.
