PLEASE SEE VLOG BY AMBER POOLE – AVAILABLE ON INSTAGRAM
The five women I write to everyday live in Gaza. They live inside the war. They live inside its grip. They are enslaved, occupied, owned by it. Each step they take, each movement they make, each gesture, each intake of breath, each whisper, every smile and scream are in perfect unison with the beast of war. When it rages and storms, they lose a limb, suffer injury, are burned, or die. When the beast is feeling tranquil or tired, they might rest, eat what they can find, maybe sleep some. But because they live inside it, they are never free from its capriciousness.
THE WOMEN INSIDE WAR
by Amber Poole
Yesterday, Haneen took a walk. Haneen is one of the women I write to everyday and everyday she writes to me. Every morning she asks if I had a restful night. If I slept well. The girls know I’m a senior. They’re very protective in this way, very loving.
She wasn’t long on her walk before helicopters, tanks, quadcopters and soldiers were shooting everyone around her. People were shot dead, and she could do nothing but run, dodge bullets and run some more. She lost her sandals, she ran some more. It started getting dark when she laid down and slept, fitful. She said she didn’t know whether to run back toward her family or run further into the darkness. What was at stake? Her life, her family’s lives? She reunited with them at day break. Her feet were bloodied and swollen but she said even this pain was more bearable than the pain of being homeless once more.
This was the second time this week that Haneen nearly lost her life. The second time she was injured, the second time she was left without any covering. No tent, no blown out building, no lean-to, nothing to provide a roof or sense of safety or protection, nothing to grab hold of...in the grip of her Occupier. She and her mother and her sisters and her sister’s children were exposed. Vulnerable.
Robert Fisk said he hated being called a war reporter. Firstly, he said, because there is an unhappy flavor of the junkie about it. Secondly, because you cannot report a war without knowing the politics behind it.
Is there a way to talk about the exposure of the women and children of war who are at indescribable risk from disease, trauma, death, injury, starvation and mental breakdown without talking about politics?
In my own desperation to understand how we can stand by and watch the murder of so many women and children and elderly and do nothing but offer a corrupt ideology as an excuse or any and all the other ways in which we prefer not to get involved or give it a pass for why it’s happening as this will somehow soothe our conscience, I just want to know if we can we isolate them for a moment? Individually. Can we separate them, the women of war, from the hubris and grandiosity of those who have access to the hyper capital, the money, and the resources to call for and execute an agenda of propaganda that convinces one it is morally acceptable to terrorize, torture, traumatize and ultimately slaughter women and children and the elderly?
I’m going deep underground, below the radar, in attempt to awaken the compassion in those other women, other mothers, sisters, daughters, aunties, awaken their kindness for those women and children living UNDER OCCUPATION who are also mothers, sisters, daughter, and aunties.
I write to five women everyday. Now six. We wake up together, we laugh, we cry, we worry and sometimes, it becomes so perilous that one goes to bed hardly able to contain the fear of what will happen next? They are on the front line and can do nothing. But can I?
I started sending messages on Instagram; honestly, the only thing I can operate on social media. And these five women, now six, are writing to me. We are a group. A small community. I send money when I can but they know I live on a fixed income so they find comfort in our friendship and what I can do to help when I can.
Heba tells me, Heba is one of the women in our group, that some global aid is getting through but for the most part it’s canned food without any way to heat except over an open fire and in these high summer temperatures, with little water, it’s, well, it’s not easy under such circumstances.
Heba is cheerful. She is optimistic, ambitious. In fact, she was working on her master’s degree in software engineering when the war broke out. She was planning to get married. She was dreaming her life into being, as we all do, before everything, before every single thing in her life changed. Before everything was taken away.
I won’t talk about how all the men are arrested and removed from the women and their families, put into prisons, leaving these women of war completely alone because you probably read about this in the news. So I won’t talk about this except to say, that it is part of the everything that changed. So the women are left alone to hide, to run, to gather food, hold the babies, survive, somehow, until they are killed.
I’m just wondering what we can do. We can’t stop the war machine. We can’t stop evil or hatred or bigotry or racism, by means of politics. Surely, we are smart enough to have figured this out.
Did I tell you that Zahraa is a sensible girl? She is determined to be a doctor. She was half way through her studies when war broke out. The war spared nothing in Zahraa’s story. She lost both parents, her mother murdered in front of her... ‘ Make coffee for your father and me, I’m going to find him as she stepped outside, and...she was gone. Her home destroyed, friends, cousins, aunts, uncles scattered like her dreams...her studies. But not her determination. She tells me she will be a doctor.
Dalia is only a girl, but speaks fluent English and is quite active in theater. If you have a bright and happy teenager at home, well...this is Dalia at seventeen.
Roba is a young girl too and is living in the streets with her mother and siblings. All the men are gone. But you know this already.
Suddenly, surrounded by tanks, helicopters, quadcopters and soldiers. There were people being killed everywhere.
Two Days Later, Haneen wrote to me.
Haneen: I’m not okay
Amber: What can I do? I didn’t think you were okay. Honestly, how could you be?
Haneen: I’m very tired and I suffer now from panic and fear.
Amber: My dearest. This is completely normal after what you’ve been through. Try not to expect too much from yourself. It’s a frightful situation. Are you inside someplace? I’m really worried.
Haneen: I don’t know where I am. It’s not safe.
Amber: Is your mother with you? It will take some time before the shock loosens its grip.
Haneen: Yes, my mother is with me. My family is with me. She tries to support me but she is tired too.
Amber: Everything you feel is normal. You should try to be kind and patient with yourself. The fear is very real and you have every right to it. What happened to you is unthinkable. Unimaginable for any of us. I know it may not be a lot of relief, but I am praying and will pray until you are safe. Every day for you.
Haneen: I thank you for being by my side.
Amber: Forever there, by your side. Try to rest, dear. Pay attention to your breathing. You are a daughter of God. Ask the angels to protect you tonight as you sleep. Please write in the morning to let me know you are a little better.
Haneen: I hope to find comfort. Thank you for being there. I am afraid to see the army again. I am very afraid to go out into the street. I don’t want to die.
This is just one story of many – No Mainstream Media Filters.
Reality on the Ground
Please donate. It’s the only way they can get any money. Western Union and Money Gram have been shut down by an Israeli Act of Economic Warfare.
PayPal has restricted their services.
Please. They are dying! Everyday.
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