The Electronic Intifada 4 July 2024
Despite all the destruction in Gaza, there are many people wanting to return there.
APA imagesMayar started having neck spasms and headaches at the end of September.
Her mother Mariam brought Mayar to hospital and requested a scan. Soon after that request was made, Israel declared its current war on Gaza.
The family had to flee their home almost immediately. Al-Awda Towers, where they lived, is close to Gaza’s boundary with Israel and the area came under intense bombardment.
All that the family took with them were clothes and their most important documents.
They headed for Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza.
At first, they lived with members of their family. But as Israel’s violence against Jabaliya intensified, they took shelter in one of the camp’s schools, run by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).
Mayar’s health problems deteriorated. As well as the initial symptoms, she started to vomit frequently and to feel dizzy.
With Israel attacking hospitals in northern Gaza, Mariam felt that it was necessary to evacuate southwards.
For the first stage of their evacuation journey, the family used donkey-drawn carts. Then they had to walk for four hours.
Mayar’s head and legs began to hurt.
“There was no choice but to keep going,” Mariam said. “If you stopped walking, you could be shot dead.”
Once they passed through the misleadingly named “safe corridor” that Israel had set up for people moving southwards, the family headed to UNRWA’s logistics base. It is located in Tel al-Sultan, an area of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
By then, Mayar was very ill. She had trouble standing up and moving her head.
Through a relative who worked as a doctor at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, another southern city, a CT scan was arranged for late December. Mayar, 10, was diagnosed with a brain tumor.
Her mother was shocked by that news.
“I collapsed,” she said. “Words cannot describe how I felt as I never imagined such an illness.”
I want to return
As the operation required to remove the tumor could not be performed in Gaza’s hospitals, a referral for urgent treatment abroad was issued.
Doctors instructed Mayar to stay in hospital until her trip could be arranged. She had hydrocephalus, an accumulation of fluid in the brain.
In mid-January, it was confirmed that Mayar and Mariam could leave Gaza for Egypt.
Yazan – Mayar’s 11-year-old brother – and their father were not allowed to accompany them.
Being apart from her son was a dreadful blow for Mariam. “I couldn’t take him, even though he is just 11,” she said.
After they reached Egypt, Mayar had surgery to remove the tumor.
They stayed in Egypt for a couple of months, then went to Jordan for follow-up treatment.
Yazan and his father remained in Gaza.
On 26 May, they were in the Tel al-Sultan area of Rafah, when Israel committed a massacre there. People living in tents were slaughtered.
When Mariam heard of the massacre, she feared the worst for her husband and son. It took a long time before she could make contact with her husband.
Once she eventually got through to him, he assured her that they were still alive.
He and Yazan moved to Nuseirat in central Gaza following the Tel al-Sultan massacre.
If a ceasefire is established, Mariam hopes she can go back to Gaza.
“My son, my husband, my family and my land are there,” she said. “I want to return even if I have to live in the middle of rubble or in a tent.”
Khaled El-Hissy is a journalist from Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip. Twitter: @khpalestined
