The badger in a headscarf in Gaza!

All opinions in this blog are strictly mine and are absolutely no reflection of my employer.

‘Ladies and gentlemen in 30 minutes we will enter Israeli airspace, after which you will be obliged to stay in your seats with your seatbelt securely fastened until the flight has landed. ‘ It is not the first time I have flown into Israel or visited Palestine but this announcement is a nice little reminder that you are entering a rather volatile area. It is also a nice little reminder to order that glass of wine to provide the dutch courage needed to deal with the immigration questions on arrival at Tel Aviv.

And so it begins: where are you going? Why are you working with Palestinians? Why have you been to Lebanon? You have been to Africa, have you been exposed to Ebola? My passport full of stamps is like cat nip to an immigration officer. Within 10 minutes of questions, I am escorted off to a room by an armed guard and left for an hour. Finally someone comes to get me, mainly to ask me where my father was born and where his father and fathers father was born. Two hours later and I am free to leave!

First stop is Bethlehem. A beautiful city filled with old winding streets, stunning buildings and a lot of Christian tourists strolling around in yellow caps (not sure why!!)On night one I am invited to join my hosts as a Palestinian wedding. The hair dresser arrives and after 20 minutes expresses his extreme disappointment at the lack of volume he is able to create with my useless hair.

We arrive at the venue where men are women celebrate the wedding separately. So us women are in a rather brightly lit room all sat around tables waiting for the Bride to enter. Dressed in a huge Disney style dress she finally arrives with her husband. They dance for us and then the groom leaves to join the men in another room. For two hours various guests are called up to dance with the bride. Then the groom returns, they do another dance, the cake is cut and the wedding is over!!

Our next destination is the old city of Hebron. Anther beautiful city but one which is less relaxed. An Israeli compound has been built right within Hebron and with some of these settlements built over the houses of Palestinians and the main market square. Many streets have been restricted with no access to the Palestinians by the Israeli’s and this means that the Palestinians who live in houses on these streets must now enter their property through their back door, if they have one or through a window at the back of their house through the main market street if they do not have a back door.

As you walk through the market there is netting and material hung everywhere possible from above. It becomes apparent why, as rubbish and human waste is thrown from the compounds above onto the Palestinian market below. On expressing my shock to this I was informed that it is not uncommon for bleach or worse to be tipped down on the streets  also. It is like a scene out of a terrible BBC adaptation from year gone by.

The next morning it is time to set off for Gaza. As we arrive at the Erez border there is a mix of emotions running through my mind and in all honesty the only one I could focus on was- keep calm, you can do this. After 20 minutes of immigration questions I am ushered through to a gate where I am then left. There are no signs just a series of doors and gates with not a soul in sight. I work my way through this maze to find 1.5km of no mans, covered in cage, to walk along. Camels and sheep graze on the grass on either side of the cage as I stroll through! All very surreal.

I am greeted warmly on the other side by colleagues and taken to meet Hamas immigration. My passport is taken from me, something that is now becoming a regular occurrence on this trip, my bag is searched for contraband (booze mainly!) and then I am in Gaza! Head scarf dutifully out on we begin the second part of my Palestinian adventure.

There are 23,338 Palestinians taking shelter in schools and make shift camps. 

1.5 million people in Gaza have limited or no access to water supplies.

26 health facilities were damaged and are seriously low on vital medications.

16,792 homes have been totally destroyed or severely damaged, and 5,635 homes have suffered major damaged but are still inhabitable and yet families have no choice but to live in them still.

Gaza is about a quarter of the size of London and over the next 3 days I saw pretty much every part of it. Absolutely everywhere you look there are buildings that have been bombed, empty spaces and holes filled with debris where homes once stood and those buildings that are still standing are pocked with bullet holes. But this is six months after the war and life continues. The streets are full of people, markets stalls, and children coming or going from school, the call to pray resonating around.

There is the most horrendous smell in the air and it is the sewage plant that was bombed in August 2014 but due to a lack of building materials allowed into Gaza no reconstruction can be done so sewage is spewing out of the plant and into the sea. The sea where the fishermen are only allowed to fish up to one kilometer out to sea and therefore the meager catch is contaminated with human waste.

As you drive through each area there are either green, red or black flags hanging but mainly green ones. Green representing Hamas and therefore the government of Gaza: Red the Shia’s: black the Jihads. Each area also representing the many many training grounds for their soldier. At one point, the driver decides to turn around and take a different route, explaining it is a Jihad area and with my British passport we could have trouble. REMAIN CALM AT ALL TIMES!

We visited many families whose houses had been destroyed. Various aid agencies have been and now gone, to another war zone to start a process which is not finished in Gaza. Families live in either the remains of their damaged houses or in tents next to them. Food is scarce and expensive and you can see that these people are literally starving and at a complete loss of what to do about their situation. At each house you are greeted and the people desperately want to tell you their story, who they lost, how much damage was done, praising God that they are still there even if they have nothing.  Children are playing in the rubble of destroyed houses as if they are their new play grounds.

One house which clearly used to be 2 stories high is now reduced to rubble and yet a family still live underneath the collapsed building. We see another house which has been reduced to rubble where the family has to climb up over the devastated building to climb through a window and get into the only part of the house which is not completely collapsed. We met an elderly couple whose house is completely destroyed who now live in a small metal container next door to shell of their former house. All their container has inside is a fridge and two thin mattresses on the floor. These sights and stories are endless.

No one asked me for anything other than to hear their story and share their story with others outside of Gaza.

One evening I am sat with some Palestinians telling me their stories when Youssef said he would arrange for me to see a tunnel. I thanked him but said really it was not necessary. ‘You must, you must, we can take you all the way to Egypt underground, you have insurance right?’. Having assured them I was really ok NOT seeing their tunnels the conversation returns back to the war and the current political situation.

But now to tell you some more positive stories!! One of the things the NGO I work for does is provide a loving home for orphans or abandoned children. It is not institutional care but villages all around the world where children grow up in a house with a mother and siblings. Our village in Gaza has 75 children living there.

Two of those children are brothers who were living in Gaza city. Their house was bombed and all of their relatives were killed. They were found a day later hiding in a wardrobe. When they first came to our village they had to have extensive surgery on their injuries. They did not speak for the first few months and had repeated nightmares. Through the work with our mothers, child therapy and being in a safe environment they have progressed so well in the 6 months since they arrived. To anyone who did not know their story they are just normal boys running around and getting into mischief. They were both very proud of their hairstyle which were loaded with hair gel but for me was just the most beautiful ‘normal’ thing in the world.

There were so many cases of children in our village which were similar and the impact of the work we are doing there felt so vital and important. Providing a chance for these many children to actually be children was amazing. To really add perspective to this any child over the age of 6 in Gaza has now lived through 3 wars.

In addition to our normal work in Gaza we are also running an additional Emergency program to help support children in the aftermath of the war. We are working with local grassroots organizations to help identify those children most in need. Although these children may have lost their parents they are likely to have extended family but are currently not connected with them. We are setting up a short term ‘home’ for these children to ensure they have somewhere safe to live and access to a good education . Whilst they are living with us we will work to find their extended families so that they grow up with their relatives.

We are also providing a medical outreach service which will work across Gaza to support those children whose families are suffering and cannot afford or get access to medical care. When you are on the ground in Gaza meeting families you see the real urgent need for this service.

There is very limited psycho social professionals in Gaza and so many children that need support and play therapy. We are now providing this support to many children across the small stretch of land.

I feel proud of the work that the team are doing. It does not seem to ever be enough to help so many families and children who have lost so much but what we do we do well. It genuinely makes a difference to very real lives.

This blog really does not do justice to what I saw or begin to tell the many stories I heard of lives destroyed. I will never be able to capture the human spirit of those who have lost so much and yet are so humble and try to continue with what they have left.

At night I would go to bed listening to the Jihad’s and the Hamas soldiers training and shouting into the night. A foreboding feeling that this war is not over, it feels like it has not really started.