Gaza farmer’s house is destroyed for fourth time– ‘and we are ready for the fifth’
Naim Abu Amra gestures at ruins of her house. Dec. 2019
Ahmad Kabariti writes in Mondoweiss:
The short phone call that Hamouda Abu Amra received from a professed Israeli security officer at 11:15 p.m on November 13 was the fourth catastrophic change to happen in his rural life in Gaza.
The call still echoes in Abu Amra’s ears. “A heavy load is coming to your shoulders soon, uncle!” the officer whispered. “Evacuate your family in two minutes and don’t switch off your phone”.
“Naima, wake up darling, we must leave now, wake up the girls as well.” Abu Amra, 51, is often facetious, but his wife understood that this was no joke.
Naima Abu Amra says, “I woke up scared by Hamouda’s facial features. He was chilled and said, ‘he is on the phone, darling!’”
“We gathered, my family and my neighbors, 200 meters from the house. A drone fired a warning missile, then a warplane fired two missiles,” Hamouda said.
And in an instant a huge explosion turned the four-storey house into a deep crater surrounded by cactus and orange orchards, and the Hamoudas found themselves homeless, just 20 minutes after the call. The eight family members live now seven yards away the carter in a tin shack, 500 meters from the Israel border in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza.