Khalil Khader lost 11 family members in one blast
There is no mistaking what he sees as he climbs across the rubble.
The fabric lies bright against the grey rubble. Khalil Khader picks up the dusty and tattered child's pyjamas and is instantly overtaken by memories.
The toddler in her pyjamas. Rosa, his daughter, 18 months old, the baby of the family.
Khalil shows a video on his phone. Rosa wears the same blue nightwear and is holding the hands of two older cousins. The three of them dance in a circle.
The video was filmed in slow motion, so it seems as if the children are swaying in a gentle breeze. They are smiling. It is playtime and their lives have not yet been overtaken by war.
Eleven members of his family were killed.
They included his four children, his two sisters, his 70-year-old father, his brother and his sister-in-law, and their two daughters. They were wrapped in white shrouds in a courtyard of the hospital.
His wife was badly wounded. She is being treated for burns and other injuries sustained when the house collapsed.
Khalil had known war before in Gaza. The small strip of land - with a total land area of just 141 sq miles (365 sq km) - has seen relentless conflict over decades. Such was the legacy of conflict that he worried about
raising a family there.
"I remember in the 2014 war, my wife was pregnant," he recalls, "and our neighbours were bombed. She was in her seventh month and almost fell down the stairs from the blast. And I was thinking, how can I bring children into this life?"
But he imagined that a better life might be possible for them.
"I had a dream for each of my kids. Ibrahim was first in his school and I dreamed about seeing him as a doctor one day. Amal was very creative, she loved drawing. And she used to show me her drawings, and sometimes I would draw with her.
"Kinan was very playful - everyone loved him. And he used to take care of his little sister. He was always there to protect Rosa, and would say, 'Don't touch her, she's my baby!' And now they are all gone."
Khalil is still searching for the body
of his sister under the rubble. And he must support his wife in hospital. His children are gone.
But as he shows one photograph after another of Ibrahim, Amal, Kenin and Rosa, there is a tenderness in his eyes.
He will always be their father.
Additional reporting by Mahmoud Bassam in Gaza, and Hanin Abdeen, Alice Doyard, Morgan Gisholt Minard, and John Landy in Jerusalem
No comments:
Post a Comment