‘Bas Al Shugul - Al Ard. Bas’ - The Land Is The Only Work We Have
Zaytoun on January 28th, 2009Report written by Tara, an Australian ISM volunteer
“We have no bathroom, how can we wash ourselves? How can we go to school looking like this?”, implored 13 year-old Shaima al Samouni. It’s a pertinent question, given that schools reopened two days ago for the first time since the Israeli attacks on Gaza started.
With 29 family members killed during the attacks on the Zeitoon neighbourhood in Gaza city, however, it seems a strange concern. But life marches on, and the other children have gone back to school. Tugging at the clothes they were wearing, the children explain that, now, three weeks after their homes were destroyed, what they’re wearing is all they have. And, it seems, they’re not going to school wearing that.
They take us across the dirt, to a half-bombed house. On the way, we walk over the foundations of what used to be the house of Majid al Samouni and his family. The children stop to show us a drum of olives (zeitoon) that was destroyed. We pass by the carcass of a large sheep. Shot by the Israeli army. They show us their two pretty donkeys. “Donkeys quais”, I say in broken Arabic, relieved that they’re not taking us to more animal corpses. There used to be nine donkeys, they explain. But the Israeli soldiers shot seven of them. Then my colleague points out the gaping hole in the shoulder of the brown donkey - also shot by the Israeli army. Donkey mish quais.
One of the young girls, who is nine years old, is desperate for me to understand the extent to which their lives were destroyed. Not in terms of life lost, but livelihood. “Bas al shugul - al ard. Bas” (The land is the only work we have), and the land is totally destroyed. The children catalogue the types of fruit trees they had - lemon, guava, orange, mandarin, and the ubiquitous olive. They don’t talk about the battery-chicken shed that is crushed, chickens still in cages. When i finally ask just how many chickens there were, I find it difficult to believe the answer - two thousand chickens.
Her older cousin goes to great lengths to tell me repeatedly, at every opportunity, that they were just farmers, not Hamas. I know, I reply. See Al Haq report
