On the Front Lines of Rebuilding Gaza

TAMARA ALRIFAI, UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY: I saw an immense amount of distress and an immense amount of pain and an immense amount of destruction. Buildings were destroyed, but people’s lives have been destroyed. So, those who were not killed in the distractions have lives that are scattered. They lost love ones. They lost family members. My — one of my colleagues, Molina (ph), spoke to her sister about cooking plans, dinner plans on the last night of Ramadan, the holy month, and an hour later, the sister had been killed and her building had been destroyed. My other colleague Jamil (ph) went home to find his sister’s building destroyed. The sister, the husband and their two children died, and he is now taking care of the other kids. So, the destruction is immense, but what’s more shocking is that this is not the first time. This is the fourth conflict in 15 years, 15 years of choking blockade on Gaza, so that even reconstruction and rebuilding Gaza infrastructure becomes a difficult task because of the difficulty of bringing construction material in, because of the — the economy is completely choked. Everyone is unemployed. So, even before this conflict, the amount of despair and the amount of hardship was extremely high. Now, with this latest conflict, after a year of COVID, the amount of anger and the amount of despair and the stress is very, very high. And we can hear it with every person we can talk to. Everyone has a story. Everyone who has survived these four wars has lost someone and has a lot of stories to tell.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: And those that have survived, just the mental, emotional trauma is going to last with them for the rest of their lives. And it’s such an important point that you make. It’s not as if this — ruins just happened over the last two weeks. This is something that has been built upon following previous conflicts as well. You touched on some family members and friends and contacts there. And we were struck by something you tweeted recently about a heartbreaking comment that your colleague in Gaza made to you. And I’m going to read it to you and our viewers: “During the height of the bombing, I wondered whether I should have my kids sleep in different rooms in case something happens to one side of the house or whether we should all be together and die together.” It is an unimaginable thought.