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Jenny Linnell |
Gaza witness: ‘Children huddle as bombs drop’
VOLUNTEERS from Islington who are working in war-torn Gaza spoke this week of Palestinians’ “paralysing fear” and the screams of children during bombing raids.
Speaking to the Tribune by phone from Gaza, the volunteers revealed they had refused offers to return to safety in Britain in order to stay and witness the suffering of Palestinians.
One of Britain’s biggest relief organisations, Medical Aid for Palestine (MAP), based in Islington Park Street, is launching a major international humanitarian operation in Gaza.
MAP president is QC Helena Kennedy, with supporters including singer Annie Lennox, writer and comic Alexei Sayle, former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn.
The death toll in Gaza was said to have risen yesterday (Thursday) to 700 Palestinians and 11 Israelis since the offensive began 12 days ago. MAP is moving emergency supplies into the region during the brief ceasefires and plans to send in a volunteer force of international doctors to help Gaza hospitals cope with the flood of injuries.
Jennie Linnell, a 33-year-old vegan chef who is a supporter of Islington Friends of Yibna (a refugee camp in Gaza), spoke on Wednesday via mobile phone from a residential area of Rafah, in the south of the Gaza strip.
“We’ve had very heavy bombing all through the night,” she said. “It was ear-splittingly loud and our house was shaking.
“I was with a group of nine, including two families with a six-month-old baby and a little boy and girl.
“The children, as you can imagine, were absolutely petrified. We all huddled together indoors trying to stay calm and were obviously unable to sleep.
“I wondered if we would ever see a new day.
“Now we are being told we must get ready to leave in the morning because they are evacuating the entire area. I’ve absolutely no idea where we are going.”
She added that she had no immediate plans to return to Britain. “Israel has stopped international journalists getting into Gaza, so I feel it is my duty to stay and tell the world what is going on,” she said.
Fikr Shalltoot and her husband, who live in Gaza city, considered themselves lucky to have just the windows of their flat shattered in the Israeli bombing. “When it happened I just screamed,” she said. “We couldn’t see through the window because of the smoke and it was difficult to breathe.
“Our neighbours have children and they were very scared and upset. It’s worse for the children.”
One of MAP’s co-ordinators she said that Gaza has experienced severe attacks before, but nothing on this scale.
“Hundreds of anxious and terrified people are searching hospital wards and the bodies to find sons, daughters, relatives,” she added.
“When a family member is identified among the dead, the family is told they must take their dead relative away – there is simply no space, and more dead and injured are still arriving.”
With no electricity for four days, families are having to rely on tinned produce.
“The shops and markets are mostly closed,” she said. “I was able to buy a jar of jam but no toilet paper, for example. My husband and I make do with one small meal a day of anything we can find.”
Journalist Daphna Baram will speak at a meeting on Gaza organised by the Stop the War Coalition and Islington Friends of Yibna at 7.30pm on Wednesday at St Luke’s Church, Hillmarton Road, off Camden Road, Holloway. |
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