A Survivor's Story: Rebuilding Hope After Tragedy

I am the aunt of the child, Yamen Ahmed Abu Aita, the only survivor of the bombing that targeted my fa ther's company and his house in the northern Gaza Strip, which murdered the lives of 51 people, including the Yamen’s mother, her fetus, his little brother, his uncles, aunts, grandfathers, grandmothers and all their families. The child was taken out from under the rubble two days after the attack. I was in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, where my family and I were forced to flee several times after my house in the north was bombed and completely destroyed.

Two days after the incident, I received a call from my brother, Yamen’s father, through the Red Cross, saying that Yamen would go to the south of the Gaza Strip, and they refused to let him go with him. He asked me to look for him in the hospitals. After a hard day of searching, we found him lying on the ground in the hospital corridors, as he was unrecognizable. His injuries included bleeding in his head, fractures in his jaws and pelvis, and he was in a cerebral coma.

I stayed with him in the hospital for a full month until he was transferred to Egypt, so I had to go with him and leave my family in Rafah to suffer from hunger, disease, and inhumane living conditions. Yamen’s father has injuries to his feet and fractures throughout his body, he is currently in a shelter and suffers from inflammation of the tissues and nerves and many health and psychological problems. After all the necessities of human life in the north have been exhausted and people are dying of hunger.

The effects of this war on my family;

1- The bombing of my father Abu Aura cheese and dairy company and everything related to it, including distribution trucks, equipment and machinery, which is estimated at millions of dollars,

2- Destroying my father’s five-story house, including the money and gold it contained,

3- 51 members of my family were killed infront of me, including 31 of them under the rubble, including my mother,

4- Completely destroying my house, which is estimated at more than three hundred thousand dollars,

What we need now;

1- Taking my husband and daughters out of Rafah to Egypt,

2- Providing a decent life for my family in Egypt for six months,

3- Helping to provide food, drink and medicine to the child’s father who is in the northern Gaza Strip,

4- Contributing to rebuilding my father’s company, which was a source of income for more than fifty families.

I trust that you lived through this tragedy with me after I told you about it, and you will do everything in your power to bring a smile back to the lips of Yamen and the rest of his family.

All in regards of ,the child’s aunt, Samah Jamal al-Din Abu Aita.

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