A Palestinian man sits in front of the rubble of a building following an
Israeli airstrike in the Rafah refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Wednesday,
Jan. 7, 2009. Israel said Wednesday that it 'welcomes' an Egyptian-French
ceasefire proposal for Gaza as long as such a deal guarantees a halt to
militant rockets and weapons smuggling, in a possible sign that a bloody 12-day
offensive could be winding down
AP Gaza reporter finds hometown in rubble
By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer Ibrahim Barzak, Associated Press
Writer – Wed Jan 7, 2:39 pm ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – I live alone in my office. My wife and two young
children moved in with her father after our apartment was shattered. The
neighborhood mosque, where I have prayed since I was a child, had its roof
blown off. All the government buildings on my beat have been obliterated.
After days of Israeli shelling, the city and life I have known no longer exist.
Gaza City, with some 400,000 people, stopped supplying water when the fuel ran
out for the power station driving the pumps. We listen to battery-run radios
for news, even though the outside world watches what's happening to us on
television. The Hadi grocery where we once shopped is closed. Food is scarce
all over town.
Three days after Israel began its airstrikes against Hamas mujahidins on Dec.
27, my apartment building was shaken by bombs aimed at a nearby Hamas-run
government compound.
My brother took a picture of the room where my boys, 2-year-old Hikmet and
6-month-old Ahmed, once slept. Their toys were broken, shrapnel had punched
through the closet and the bedroom wall had collapsed. I don't know if we will
ever go back.
There are other pictures that haunt me. The Israeli army issued a video of the
bombing of the Hamas-run government compound, which it posted on YouTube. In
it, I also can see my home being destroyed, and I watch it obsessively.
Some of my colleagues lost their houses to the shelling as well, and are
sleeping on mattresses spread across the floors of an apartment upstairs from
The Associated Press bureau.
On Tuesday, I stood outside my apartment building but didn't dare enter. I was
worried the remains of the nearby compound might again be shelled.
Othman, the owner of the Addar restaurant where my wife and I bought takeaway
when we were both working, put up aluminum sheeting over the broken windows to
stop looters. On the pavement, phone and power lines were tangled together like
twine.
Driving to central Gaza City, I took the road where Gaza's two main
universities are. It was covered with shards of glass, telephone cables,
electricity wires and flattened cars. This road was once crowded with students,
taxis and street vendors.
The Mazaj coffee shop on Omar Mukhtar street, Gaza's main thoroughfare, was
shuttered. It was popular with wealthy university students and foreigners
working for nonprofit agencies because it served really good Guatemalan coffee
— rumored to have been smuggled in through the same tunnels under the Egyptian
border the militants used to bring in weapons.
Al Dera, a beautiful hotel on the Mediterranean shore, was a place where young
men and women smoked water pipes and flirted, and where families went for
dinner on Thursdays.
Those days are gone now.
On Tuesday, the only shop I found open was the Shifa pharmacy run by my friend
Eyad Sayegh. He's an Orthodox Christian, and I stopped to wish him a Merry
Christmas — Eastern churches celebrate Christmas on Wednesday.
Eyad told me he forgot it was Christmas.
All the landmark buildings I covered as a reporter have vanished.
The colonial-era Seraya was the main security compound for the succession of
Gaza's rulers — the British, Egyptians, Israelis, the Palestinian Authority and
then the rival Palestinians of Hamas.
We used to fear the Seraya, where the central jail was. Now it's rubble.
The Al Shuhada mosque on the eastern corner of the compound, where I prayed
every day, was one of the few in Gaza with good air conditioning. A local
philanthropist who liked Moroccan architecture redecorated the interior with
intricate wooden arabesques and Quranic verses etched on the roof. The roof
caved in when the Israelis bombed the jail next door.
Of the presidential office overlooking the sea, only a few walls remain. For
many Gazans it was a symbol of our statehood, even though President Mahmoud
Abbas, who also heads the Fatah movement, hasn't been there since Hamas seized
control of the territory in June 2007.
Someone planted a Palestinian flag on the building's remains. The huge gate at
the western entrance still stands, giving an illusion of something big behind
it.
And across the city, the Parliament house is half destroyed. It used to tower
above the Unknown Soldier park and the shops that lined downtown Omar Mukhtar
Street.
On Jala Street, one of Gaza's main roads, I saw about 30 boys around a leaky
irrigation tap on a traffic island. They were clutching empty soft drink
bottles and jerry cans, trying to fill them with water.
Samir, who is 9, told me his family has no water at home and he wanted to bring
enough for a bath because he and his brother smell.
That's a problem for most people in Gaza right now.
In my father-in-law's building, residents throw out bags of spoiled food. With
no power, refrigerators don't run and fresh food quickly rots.
There were few cars on the roads, and most of those were media cars, ambulances
and vehicles packed with civilians. Some looked like they were fleeing, with
mattresses tied to the roofs, but who knows where they can go.
Israeli helicopters flew overhead. I heard blasts in the distance. The roads
were ripped apart by explosives.
I drove into downtown Gaza, trying to prove to myself I can still do something
I have done so often before — drive through my city.
I reached the Catholic Latin Patriarchate School I attended, where my late
father — also an AP correspondent — used to bring me every day. The building
was undamaged.
I stood in front of it, wondering if I will ever be able to walk my children to
this school.
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