Gaza: remembering the martyred #1

Eva Barlett, In Gaza

December 26, 2009

In Ezbet Beit Hanoun, family and friends of those martyred on 4 and 5 January during the Israeli massacre of Gaza gathered to honour their martyrs, one year later.

"The pain is still fresh, I still can’t get over my sons’ murders," said Sabbah Abd el Dayem, mother of two sons, both in their twenties, both gruesomely murdered by Israeli soldiers.

"Every time I think of them, every time I sit by their grave, I feel like I’m going to crumble. I was so happy with them," she said.

When I met the family just after the massacre, they shared their sorrow:

Jamal Abd al-Dayem, father of the young men, explained the events. "After my cousin Arafa was martyred on 4 January, we immediately opened mourning houses, with separate areas for men and women. The next day, at 9:30am the Israelis struck the mourning area where the men were. It was clearly a mourning house, on the road, open and visible. Immediately after the first strike, the Israelis hit the women’s mourning area." Two strikes within 1.5 minutes, he reported.

"When Arafa was martyred, my sons cried so much their eyes were red and swollen with grief. The next day they were martyred," the father said, shaking his head in disbelief.

"Just like that, I lost two sons. One of them was newly married, his wife eight months pregnant."

Twenty-nine-year-old Said Abd al-Dayem died after one day in the hospital, succumbing to the fatal injuries of darts in his head. His brother, Nafez Abd al-Dayem, 23, was also struck in head by the darts and died immediately.

The surviving son, 25-year-old Nahez Abd al-Dayem, was hit by two darts in his abdomen, one in his chest, and another in his leg.

"I went to the mourning house to pay respects to my cousin, Arafa. When we arrived at the men’s mourning house, there was a sudden explosion and I felt pain in my chest. Very quickly after, there was a second strike. This second attack was more serious as people had rushed to the area to help the wounded. I looked up from the second shelling and saw that my cousins Arafat and Islam had been hit. They were lying on the ground, wounded."

Sixteen-year-old Islam Abd al-Dayem was struck in the neck and died slowly, in great agony, after three days in the hospital. Fifteen-year-old Arafat Abd al-Dayem died instantly.

When Nahez Abd al-Dayem regained consciousness in hospital, he learned of his two dead brothers and two dead cousins. The dart that lodged in his leg was surgically removed, but three darts remain in his chest and abdomen and will stay there, although Abd al-Dayem says they bother him. "When I move at night, I feel a lot of pain," he said. But an operation to search for them is too dangerous and could cause greater injury.

The dart shelling on the Abd al-Dayem and Abu Jerrad houses killed six and injured at least 25, including a 20-year-old nephew paralyzed from the neck down after darts severed his spinal cord. Darts which spread as far as 200 meters from the scene are still embedded in walls of houses...

Source: Uruknet.
Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=61486&s2=27.