Cut off from the world
Today is the 18th of December and for almost 3 days we have been completely cut off from the outside world as we had no internet or phone connection. In today’s blog post I’ll be explaining what it means to be living through a war with no communication at all, including mobiles, telephones or the internet.
We have had zero contact with anyone for quite a few days. For us this meant that a massacre was going to happen and it turned out to be true. A few massacres happened and in all of them people died but for us the worst one of all was the killing of people in Kamal Adwan Hospital in the North. Tanks and tractors entered into the hospital courtyard and started running over and crushing anything in their way. Many tents were knocked over with the people inside them and the tanks were just crushing them.
A lot of people were unable to escape and people who were still alive ended up being buried with those who were already dead in the sand together. This was a nightmare for everyone. We knew for sure that people were going to die in big numbers during this communications blackout. During that time my uncle was also killed together with two of my cousins whom we couldn’t get in touch with. We only heard the news because it happened on one of the days on which we briefly got a connection to the internet and immediately my sister who lives outside Gaza (in Ankara) got in touch to inform us.
We couldn’t call them or call anyone. We couldn't give condolences to his wife and children. We couldn’t speak to my aunt to check on her.
Immediately after my uncle and cousins were killed, phosphoric bombs were thrown on my aunt's apartment and she’s now displaced - but we don’t know where she is now. We couldn’t speak to anyone to find out what’s going on. Initially we didn’t know if he had been buried, and if he had been, then where he was buried. Two days after this happened we learned that his body was torn apart in the explosion - they found his hand in one place, his head in another place, his leg in another place. They connected his body parts and put them together into a shroud and buried him.
Although we got to know that, we still don’t know where he is buried. The same applies to my two cousins who died - we don’t know where they are now. Like I said before it also means that we couldn’t give condolences to anyone and no one could call us until right now because if we had internet connection they didn’t and vice versa.
The lack of connection also affects small aspects of life. For example when my brother is out and I want to call him and ask him to pick something up on his way back I can’t. We have to wait for him to come home and then ask him to get that thing. I do go out and get things myself as well and recently I’ve ended up going out more than usual. I used to have my car but I can't use it anymore because there is no fuel. So I have to walk long distances to get what I want. It also means that when I want to go see my sister or she wants to come and see me we do it now without calling each other - we just go to each other’s place and that’s it.
We had to depend on the old way - the way people lived before phones and the internet - if they are not at home we go back to where we came from. The thing is that going and coming back is not an easy thing because it’s hard to get transport. There are so many people in Rafah now and it’s very difficult to find transportation.
You can also forget it if you want to get anything delivered to your place - that does not exist anymore because you cannot call others. We used to do this through the internet and we only got internet access back late the day before yesterday (and I didn’t even realize that the internet came back because I got used to living without it actually).
Simple things became so hard to do. For example I wanted to ensure that all my pets’ papers and vaccinations were in order so I had to go and search myself for the veterinary department in the Ministry of Agriculture. Searching for the place was really difficult - usually I would have just checked online for the location of the center but I couldn’t do that. Once I found it and did what I had to do it was then really difficult to get transportation to go back home. By the way, not all the required vaccines are available for the pets - and nobody knows when they will be and nobody now cares as there are bigger priorities to worry about. I’m actually now part of a group in the West Bank and Gaza trying to get food for animals into Gaza. It has not been available at all - but I’ll talk about that some other time.
The lack of communication meant that I didn’t know what was going on with my friends and loved ones. I have a friend who I speak with almost every day but we haven't’ spoken for over a week now. It means that we don’t know what’s happening with each other. I always hear that there are bombings and explosions in her area and I’m sure she hears what’s happening in my area but we cannot communicate.
At least so far in the war we have been able to communicate via WhatsApp but in the last few days even that has not been available. I can’t even check if family members and friends are doing well or not. I was told that one of them had been staying in the kitchen, since it was presumably the safest place in the house, for five days and is starving now. We don’t know what’s happening with her or her family. The fact is that in this situation you’re left completely blind about what’s happening with others - you have limited access which means that you cannot speak with everyone. For me personally, since the war started I can only make on average 2 phone calls a day when we have the connection of course and each call doesn’t last more than 3 minutes before getting cut off. This has been repetitive with me all the time and with many people.
We are completely in the dark on what’s going on and what’s happening around us, of the people suffering and we have to physically move to wherever we want to get the news of what’s going on or to get something or to speak with somebody. It seems that the days in which we used to watch videos - Facebook videos or Snapchat, Instagram or Youtube - are just beyond us. For me it seems like something that existed a lifetime ago. Netanyahu is doing exactly what he said: “We will take them 50 years back.”
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