A man who took his brother to the emergency room stands outside the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City waiting for news of whether he has survived. Anas Baba for NPR hide caption
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Anas Baba for NPR
A man who took his brother to the emergency room stands outside the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City waiting for news of whether he has survived.
Anas Baba for NPR
I am a Palestinian photojournalist who lives in Gaza City. Of all the devastation I documented this month during the 11-day war between Hamas and Israel, one early morning stands out.
It was two weeks ago on the Eid holiday, and I went out at 5:30 a.m. to take pictures of the debris. The holiday at the end of the holy month of Ramadan is one of the moments we Palestinians wait for all year round. Men wear cologne and traditional jalabiya robes instead of pants. Women wear thobes. We go to the mosque to say the Fajr prayer and hear a lesson from the Imam on how to visit each other to spread the spirit of love. The people on the streets have big smiles.
We had hoped that both sides would call for a ceasefire on our holy day, as they did during the last Gaza-Israel war in 2014. But not this time. It came a week later after more than 250 people were killed and many more injured in Gaza, according to the authorities there. In Israel, authorities said 12 people were killed when more than 4,000 rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip.
A Palestinian assesses the damage to his accessories shop the morning after it was damaged. Anas Baba for NPR hide caption
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A Palestinian assesses the damage to his accessories shop the morning after it was damaged.
Anas Baba for NPR
I went to Saraya, a square in the center of Gaza City, and found people looking for an open mosque just to feel the oath, but instead witnessed an irrational scene: there was a massive hole in the street in that hit an Israeli missile. next to a billboard with Ramadan greetings and another billboard with the silhouette of Mohammed Deif, the leader of the Hamas military wing.
The mosques were not open. Local radio stations warned people not to leave their homes. The Ministry of Islamic Affairs in Gaza announced that there would be no common prayers because it was too dangerous to gather during the war. It was said that it was not haram, that it was not forbidden to pray with family at home.
“Excuse me, may I ask you something?” I heard. It was Abu Kamal, the owner of the Kodak Express. He was on the balcony of his apartment above his photo shop, talking to me on the street below.
“I don’t have the courage to go outside my house and look at the doors of my shop. Tell me, is it bad?”
“I’m sorry, but God loves you very much,” I joked. “Only the windows broke. Everything else is fine.”
A Palestinian family evacuates their home in the middle of the night during the Israeli bombing of Gaza. Anas Baba for NPR hide caption
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A Palestinian family evacuates their home in the middle of the night during the Israeli bombing of Gaza.
Anas Baba for NPR
The smile that I saw on his face was the real oath for me.
I asked him what happened. He said he hadn’t felt anything like it in his life. The sound made a hole in his ears. He jumped out of bed and went to his nursery with his wife. The first air strike hit. The second. The third.
“The whole house was dancing,” he said.
After the tenth air raid, everything fell silent.
“I didn’t understand whether I was alive or not. By crying from my family, I understood that I was alive,” he told me. “I didn’t have the courage to look out my window to look at my shop until I heard the tuk-tuk-tuk on your camera.”
A truck carries several families who are being evacuated from their homes in Beit Hanoun, a district in the Gaza Strip. Anas Baba for NPR hide caption
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Anas Baba for NPR
A truck carries several families who are being evacuated from their homes in Beit Hanoun, a district in the Gaza Strip.
Anas Baba for NPR
I was leaving Abu Kamal and was driving to take photos of a collapsed building when I saw people running. They said they had just received a call from the Israelis warning that their five-story building in an upscale residential area would be hit. 60 families were evacuated.
I saw four children, a mother and a father. Their faces were frightened. I stopped and offered them an elevator. The father was so happy. He said he wanted to flee to his father-in-law’s house but didn’t have a car.
It was 6:30 a.m. A girl and a boy were holding lollipops and didn’t understand what was going on. The little boy, maybe 9 years old, said to his father, “Baba [Papa]why are we going to grandpa early? “
The father, accountant Mohammed Shamali, wore flip-flops and pajamas and had two suitcases in one hand. One contained her official documents. The other had his wife’s bracelets and gold jewelry.
“I tried to convince my kids, ‘All the bombs you hear are not a war. It’s a celebration of the upcoming oath.’ And when the oath came, we cleared our house, “he said. “This is the worst oath ever.”
I set her down and took her picture on the curb and waited for Grandpa to open the door.
Then I called my mother. I haven’t been home for three days because I was in my father’s office taking photos of rocket fire from the roof at night.
“Happy oath, mom,” I told her. She started to cry.
Anas Baba is a freelance photographer and journalist based in Gaza City.
