BEIT LAHIYA, Genting Gaza – Apabila malam tiba di utara Gaza, sebahagian besar lanskap bandar bangunan runtuh dan serpihan bertimbun menjadi gelap gelita.
Tinggal di dalam runtuhan rumah mereka, anak lelaki Rawya Tamboura yang masih kecil berasa takut akan kegelapan, jadi dia menghidupkan lampu suluh dan lampu telefonnya untuk menghiburkan mereka, selagi bateri masih ada.
Terlantar untuk sebahagian besar perang selama 16 bulan, Tamboura kembali ke rumahnya. Tetapi ia masih merupakan cangkang kehidupan yang mengecewakan, dia berkata: Tiada air mengalir, elektrik, haba atau perkhidmatan, dan tiada alat untuk membersihkan runtuhan di sekeliling mereka.
Hampir 600,000 penduduk Palestin membanjiri kembali ke utara Gaza di bawah gencatan senjata yang kini berusia sebulan di Gaza, menurut Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB). Selepas kelegaan awal dan kegembiraan kerana kembali ke rumah mereka – walaupun rosak atau musnah – mereka kini menghadapi realiti hidup dalam runtuhan untuk masa hadapan.
“Sesetengah orang berharap perang tidak pernah berakhir, merasakan lebih baik terbunuh,” kata Tamboura.
“Saya tidak tahu apa yang akan kami lakukan untuk jangka panjang. Otak saya terhenti merancang untuk masa depan.”
Gencatan senjata selama enam minggu akan berakhir pada Sabtu, dan tidak pasti apa yang akan berlaku seterusnya. Terdapat usaha untuk melanjutkan ketenangan kerana fasa seterusnya dirundingkan. Jika pertempuran meletus lagi, mereka yang kembali ke utara boleh mendapati diri mereka sekali lagi berada di tengah-tengahnya.
Kerja membina semula secara besar-besaran tiada cara untuk mula
Laporan minggu lalu oleh Bank Dunia, PBB dan Kesatuan Eropah (EU) menganggarkan ia akan menelan belanja kira-kira $53 bilion untuk membina semula Gaza selepas seluruh kawasan kejiranan musnah akibat pengeboman dan serangan Israel terhadap militan Hamas. Pada masa ini, hampir tiada kapasiti atau pembiayaan untuk memulakan pembinaan semula yang ketara.
Satu keutamaan ialah menjadikan Gaza segera didiami. Pada awal Februari, Hamas mengancam untuk menahan pembebasan tebusan melainkan lebih banyak khemah dan tempat perlindungan sementara dibenarkan masuk ke Gaza.
Ia kemudian membalikkan dan mempercepatkan pembebasan tebusan selepas Israel bersetuju untuk membenarkan rumah bergerak dan peralatan pembinaan.
Agensi kemanusiaan telah meningkatkan perkhidmatan, menyediakan dapur percuma dan stesen penghantaran air, dan mengedarkan khemah dan terpal kepada ratusan ribu di seluruh Gaza, menurut PBB.
Presiden Donald Trump meningkatkan tekanan dengan menggesa seluruh penduduk Gaza disingkirkan secara kekal supaya AS boleh mengambil alih wilayah itu dan membangunkannya semula untuk orang lain. Menolak cadangan itu, rakyat Palestin berkata mereka mahu bantuan untuk membina semula untuk diri mereka sendiri.
Perbandaran Gaza City mula membaiki beberapa tali air dan membersihkan runtuhan dari jalan-jalan, kata seorang jurucakap, Asem Alnabih. Tetapi ia kekurangan alat berat. Hanya beberapa daripada 40 jentolak dan lima lori sampah masih berfungsi, katanya. Gaza dipenuhi dengan lebih 50 juta tan runtuhan yang akan membawa 100 trak yang bekerja pada kapasiti penuh selama 15 tahun untuk membersihkannya, anggaran PBB.
Keluarga cuba bertahan hari demi hari
Rumah Tamboura di bandar utara Beit Lahiya telah musnah akibat serangan udara pada awal perang, jadi dia dan keluarganya tinggal di Hospital Indonesia berdekatan, tempat dia bekerja sebagai jururawat.
Selepas gencatan senjata, mereka bergerak semula ke satu-satunya bilik di rumahnya yang separuh utuh. Siling sebahagiannya runtuh, dindingnya retak; peti sejuk dan sinki yang masih hidup tidak berguna tanpa air atau elektrik. Mereka menyusun cadar dan selimut di satu sudut.
Tamboura berkata, anak lelakinya yang berusia 12 tahun membawa bekas air berat dua kali sehari dari stesen pengedaran. Mereka juga perlu mencari kayu api untuk memasak. Kemasukan bantuan bermakna terdapat makanan di pasaran dan harga turun, tetapi ia kekal mahal, katanya.
Dengan Hospital Indonesia terlalu rosak untuk berfungsi, Tamboura berjalan sejam setiap hari untuk bekerja di Hospital Kamal Adwan.
Dia mengecas telefonnya dan telefon suaminya menggunakan penjana hospital.
Ramai saudara-mara Tamboura pulang untuk tidak menemui apa-apa yang tinggal di rumah mereka, jadi mereka tinggal di dalam khemah di atas atau di sebelah runtuhan yang diterbangkan angin musim sejuk atau banjir semasa hujan, katanya.
Asmaa Dwaima dan keluarganya kembali ke Gaza City tetapi terpaksa menyewa sebuah apartmen kerana rumah mereka di kejiranan Tel Al-Hawa telah musnah. Hanya beberapa minggu selepas pulang, dia pergi melawat rumah empat tingkat mereka, kini timbunan serpihan yang rata dan terbakar.
“Saya tidak boleh datang ke sini kerana saya takut. Saya mempunyai imej rumah saya dalam fikiran saya – keindahan dan kehangatannya. … Saya takut untuk menghadapi kebenaran ini,” kata doktor gigi berusia 25 tahun itu. “Mereka bukan sahaja memusnahkan batu, mereka memusnahkan kami dan identiti kami.”
Keluarganya terpaksa membina semula rumah itu sekali sebelum ini, apabila ia diratakan oleh serangan udara semasa pusingan pertempuran antara Israel dan Hamas pada 2014, katanya.
Buat masa ini, mereka tidak mempunyai cara untuk membina semula sekarang.
“Kami perlu mengalihkan runtuhan kerana kami mahu mengeluarkan pakaian dan beberapa barangan kami,” katanya. “Kami memerlukan peralatan berat … Tiada batu bata atau alat pembinaan lain dan, jika ada, ia sangat mahal.”
Keputusasaan semakin meningkat
Tess Ingram, jurucakap UNICEF yang melawat utara Gaza sejak gencatan senjata, berkata keluarga ditemuinya “berduka kehidupan yang pernah mereka jalani ketika mereka mula membina semula”.
Keputusasaan mereka, katanya, “semakin memuncak”.
Huda Skaik, seorang pelajar berusia 20 tahun, berkongsi bilik dengan tiga adik-beradik dan ibu bapanya di rumah datuk dan neneknya di Gaza City. Ia adalah peningkatan daripada kehidupan di khemah-khemah di tengah Gaza di mana mereka dipindahkan untuk sebahagian besar peperangan, katanya.
Di sana, mereka terpaksa tinggal dalam kalangan orang asing, dan khemah mereka dihanyutkan oleh hujan. Sekurang-kurangnya di sini mereka mempunyai dinding dan bersama keluarga, katanya.
Sebelum perang terputus, Skaik baru sahaja mula belajar kesusasteraan Inggeris di Universiti Islam Gaza. Dia kini mendaftar dalam kelas dalam talian dianjurkan oleh universiti. Tetapi Internet lemah, dan elektriknya bergantung pada panel solar yang tidak selalu berfungsi.
“Bahagian yang paling teruk ialah kami baru memahami bahawa kami kehilangan semuanya,” katanya.
“Kemusnahan adalah besar, tetapi saya cuba untuk kekal positif.”
AN-AP
Palestinians struggle to restart their lives in the ruins of Gaza
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip – When night falls over northern Gaza, much of the cityscape of collapsed buildings and piled wreckage turns pitch black.
Living inside the ruins of their home, Rawya Tamboura’s young sons get afraid of the dark, so she turns on a flashlight and her phone’s light to comfort them, for as long as the batteries last.
Displaced for most of the 16-month-long war, Tamboura is back in her house. But it is still a frustrating shell of a life, she says: There is no running water, electricity, heat or services, and no tools to clear the rubble around them.
Nearly 600,000 Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza under the now month-old ceasefire in Gaza, according to the United Nations. After initial relief and joy at being back at their homes – even if damaged or destroyed – they now face the reality of living in the wreckage for the foreseeable future.
“Some people wish the war had never ended, feeling it would have been better to be killed,” Tamboura said. “I don’t know what we’ll do long-term. My brain stopped planning for the future.”
The six-week ceasefire is due to end Saturday, and it’s uncertain what will happen next. There are efforts to extend the calm as the next phase is negotiated. If fighting erupts again, those who returned to the north could find themselves once again in the middle of it.
A massive rebuilding job has no way to start
A report last week by the World Bank, UN and European Union estimated it will cost some $53 billion to rebuild Gaza after entire neighborhoods were decimated by Israel’s bombardment and offensives against Hamas militants. At the moment, there is almost no capacity or funding to start significant rebuilding.
A priority is making Gaza immediately livable. Earlier in February, Hamas threatened to hold up hostage releases unless more tents and temporary shelters were allowed into Gaza.
It then reversed and accelerated hostage releases after Israel agreed to let in mobile homes and construction equipment.
Humanitarian agencies have stepped up services, setting up free kitchens and water delivery stations, and distributing tents and tarps to hundreds of thousands across Gaza, according to the UN
President Donald Trump turned up the pressure by calling for the entire population of Gaza to be removed permanently so the US can take over the territory and redevelop it for others. Rejecting the proposal, Palestinians say they want help to rebuild for themselves.
Gaza City’s municipality started fixing some water lines and clearing rubble from streets, said a spokesperson, Asem Alnabih. But it lacks heavy equipment. Only a few of its 40 bulldozers and five dump trucks still work, he said. Gaza is filled with over 50 million tons of rubble that would take 100 trucks working at full capacity over 15 years to clear away, the UN estimates.
Families try to get by day by day
Tamboura’s house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya was destroyed by an airstrike early in the war, so she and her family lived in the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where she worked as a nurse.
After the ceasefire, they moved back into the only room in her house that was semi-intact. The ceiling is partially collapsed, the walls are cracked; the surviving fridge and sink are useless with no water or electricity. They stack their sheets and blankets in a corner.
Tamboura said her 12-year-old son lugs heavy containers of water twice a day from distribution stations. They also have to find firewood for cooking. The influx of aid means there is food in the markets and prices went down, but it remains expensive, she said.
With the Indonesian Hospital too damaged to function, Tamboura walks an hour each day to work at the Kamal Adwan Hospital.
She charges her and her husband’s phones using the hospital generator.
Many of Tamboura’s relatives returned to find nothing left of their homes, so they live in tents on or next to the rubble that gets blown away by winter winds or flooded during rains, she said.
Asmaa Dwaima and her family returned to Gaza City but had to rent an apartment because their home in the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood was destroyed. It was only weeks after returning that she went to visit their four-story house, now a pile of flattened and burned wreckage.
“I couldn’t come here because I was afraid. I had an image of my house in my mind – its beauty, and warmth. … I was afraid to face this truth,” the 25-year-old dentist said. “They don’t just destroy stone, they are destroying us and our identity.”
Her family had to rebuild the house once before, when it was leveled by airstrikes during a round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in 2014, she said.
For the time being, they have no means to rebuild now.
“We need to remove the rubble because we want to pull out clothes and some of our belongings,” she said. “We need heavy equipment … There are no bricks or other construction tools and, if available, it’s extremely expensive.”
Desperation is growing
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson with UNICEF who visited northern Gaza since the ceasefire, said the families she met are “grieving the lives that they used to live as they begin to rebuild.”
Their desperation, she said, “is becoming more intense.”
Huda Skaik, a 20-year-old student, is sharing a room with her three siblings and parents at her grandparents’ house in Gaza City. It’s an improvement from life in the tent camps of central Gaza where they were displaced for much of the war, she said.
There, they had to live among strangers, and their tent was washed away by rain. At least here they have walls and are with family, she said.
Before the war interrupted, Skaik had just started studying English literature at Gaza’s Islamic University. She is now enrolled in online classes the university is organizing. But the Internet is feeble, and her electricity relies on solar panels that don’t always work.
“The worst part is that we’re just now grasping that we lost it all,” she said. “The destruction is massive, but I’m trying to remain positive.”
AN-AP
