My aunt died in Gaza – she’s sharing her grave with a child killed the night before

Rawda simply should not have died. Not the way she did(Picture: Dr Hadeel Qazzaz)

In the early morning hours of 6 December, I received a rare brief text from my family in Gaza that my only aunt, Rawda, had died.

As soon as I read those words, I broke down in tears.

I live in Ramallah in the West Bank, while the rest of the family are in the Gaza Strip. It’s really tough being away from them all at the moment.

I have since learnt that – for 10 days – she had been unable to get the dialysis she needed to alleviate the conditions of her chronic kidney disease.

A strong and beautiful woman, Rawda suffered a slow, painful and fearful end. While her death will be absent from the official statistics, she was a victim of Israel’s military attack upon Gaza too.

In the weeks beforehand, Rawda laid in the wards of the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, among patients and staff tormented by consecutive days of Israeli attacks. She had to stay in order to get her twice weekly dialysis. 

The family lost contact with her all the time, which made us anxious. In fact, we kept asking about her and reached out to anyone we knew who left Shifa Hospital to see if they saw her.

People search building rubble for items to salvage following an early morning Israeli strike in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on December 12 (Picture: SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images)

When the hospital was finally evacuated – allegedly on Israeli military orders indicating that it would surely be destroyed – this frail, terribly sick and fragile woman was forced to walk for hours to get to an Israeli checkpoint on her way to a cousin’s house in Deir Albalah, central Gaza.

At first, Israeli soldiers refused to let her pass because she had arrived after the cut-off time for the checkpoint. I was told that they forced her back to the nearest neighbourhood, where she spent the night terrified again by the continuous bombing of Israeli tanks.

The following day, she successfully reached her relatives. But there was no dialysis she could get anywhere in Deir Albalah. Without this procedure – which is life-saving for people with kidney failure – she would die.

So for 10 heart-wrenching days, my family was forced to watch Rawda slowly slip away.

Her nine sons, three daughters and at least 15 grandchildren couldn’t even be with her on her deathbed because they themselves were displaced and trapped – in fear and by fighting – around different areas of the south of the Gaza Strip.

When she finally died, Rawda had only one daughter there to bury her, along with strangers to help. She had to share her grave with a young child who had been killed the night before.

There is no place to bury individuals anymore. Sharing graves is the norm.

Rawda was much loved by the whole family. She was our elder; our voice of wisdom. She was my first role model of a strong and wise woman community leader.

I have the happiest childhood memories in her house in Shati camp where she lived near the sea and used to take me to the beach to play with the sand and swim. For lunch, she would fry fresh fish.

Hadeel, pictured, looked up to her aunt (Picture: Dr Hadeel Qazzaz)

She was the one who introduced me to my first taste of calamari, so I remember her every time I eat fish.

I used to talk proudly to others about her, describing how she could organise the best weddings and funerals. She could cook a meal for hundreds of people, sing the best traditional songs and, of course, ensure everyone was having a good time.

She was not formally educated. Born to Palestinian refugees, she lived all her life in the Shati refugee camp, marrying at 13, as many refugee girls are forced to do all around the globe.

She should have died in her own bed surrounded by hundreds of loving people. She should have had a send-off as beautiful and proper as the funerals she used to organise for others.

Above all – she simply should not have died. Not the way she did.

Rafah, Gaza on December 17 (Picture: Abed Zagout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

My aunt is just one of the thousands of elderly and chronically-ill people in Gaza who will not be officially calculated as casualties of war. People with kidney failure, blood disorders like thalassemia, diabetes, heart disease and cancer – critically ill people simply being left to their fate.

No hospital can pay enough attention to their ailments and needs while their doctors, surgeons and nurses are being frantically overrun by tens of thousands more casualties, bleeding and mangled, from Israeli missiles, bombs and bullets.

Since 7 October, at least 286 health workers – including doctors and paramedics – have been killed and 57 ambulances destroyed and damaged in the Israeli attacks, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Last week, the World Health Organisation said that only a third of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still functional, and even those can only now provide limited services. 

The two major hospitals in southern Gaza are operating three times above their bed capacity, and they are facing critical shortages of basic supplies and fuel. 

The catastrophic, unprecedented humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip has multiple layers of misery, loss and suffering.

Without an immediate ceasefire and sustained humanitarian access, this suffering will only increase.

My aunt will always be fondly remembered. I wear the special Palestinian dress that she gifted me and think of the rich life she lived.

While honouring her memory, I just hope that the war ends soon, without many more losses of innocent lives.

I hope that all elderly and sick people receive the medical care they need and that no one faces the same slow death.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing James.Besanvalle@metro.co.uk. 

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