Children Testimonies: We Were Screaming no One Heard Us!

Children Testimonies: Days of Horror

We Were Screaming no One Heard Us!

I am the child ‘Uday Barbakh’ and I saw many ugly scenes caused by the late Israeli occupation forces aggression on Gaza.

My parents and I were displaced from our home to my uncle’s home, so as to feel safe, but I was very afraid of the shells. After some time, the Zionist bombs came close to us again and started falling close to my uncle’s house. We started running away, my uncle is carrying his son who was hit. The shells were falling around us and we were screaming at the top of our voices and no one heard us!

My cousin was bleeding on his father’s hand, until we reached Kherbat Al ‘Adas. My uncle got in the car with one of the drivers to go to hospital. We ran to my aunt’s house in Al Shabbora; we were more than fifty persons in the house, all of us hearing the occupation’s shells and we were very terrified.

After the last truce in the city of Rafah, or the so called ‘Rafah Friday’, I was going with my aunt to check on our house in Al Shawka, and the truce quickly turned to hell, called the ‘hell of the city of Rafah’ and the shells and F16 rockets started falling on us like rain; I saw the corpses on the ground and the blood. As I was running away I did not know what I was walking on blood and corpses. Screaming, fog, whiteness in the atmosphere, and gas, I am not seeing anyone. I do not know where is my aunt who was close to me, is she dead or alive?!

I quickly arrived with others to the hospital of Abu Yousef al - Najjar, but the shells followed us; after minutes they ordered us to leave the hospital. After that we went out with those who were under siege, carrying white flags to leave until we reached the camp of al- Shabbora.

I went to my mother and I found tears filling her sad face. She embraced me and I was not able to stand on my feet; until now I suffer from my feet. We were glad that my aunt arrived safely home.
After that truce I went to our house and found it all on the floor. All my dreams, my pretty things, my toys and books were destroyed and scattered in the sand. I looked for them a lot but couldn’t find anything.

This is the situation with me until now; I sleep in a plastic tent and some nights at a neighbor’s house.

‘Uday Barbakh (12 years)
Al-Shawka- Rafah Library

Translation: H. Ruhayyem