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Devastation, Death Scar Jenin Camp Children
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"My
house was destroyed, my schoolbag and books are gone”
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JENIN
REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank, April 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) -
One school has reopened, psychologists have been dispatched to help
out, but most children in this war-scarred camp look dazed and
confused, with behaviors ranging from borderline autism to
hyperactivity.
Omar,
12, is sitting on a crushed water tank. If it were not for the scene
of devastation all around, one could think he was taking in the sun on
a warm spring afternoon.
"Nowhere
to go, no house, nothing," he says in a faint voice.
Israeli
tanks and bulldozers flattened Jenin refugee camp in the fierce
nine-day battle that ended April 12 amid Palestinian charges of an
Israeli massacre of hundreds of civilians.
The
fighting, which left 23 Israeli occupation soldiers dead, was the
heaviest in Israel's month-long offensive in the West Bank. The bloody
events are currently under investigation by a UN fact-finding team,
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
When
asked why he does not go to school, Omar answers: "No bag, no
books, everything's gone, two martyrs in my home."
He
then points to a pile of rubble a few meters away: "My
house."
His
friend Samer, 11, has a sad smile on his face: "I stay with him
all day. We wait for sunset and then I go home. Thank God, my house is
still standing."
But
after praising God for his good fortune, Samer looks embarrassed and
goes quiet.
Omar
stutters: "I stay with friends of my family, it's not like home
though."
Ahmed,
8, and Ehab, 9, do not go to school either. They keep themselves busy
collecting torn iron and aluminum off the ground which they sell for
barely a penny.
They
are aware of the presence of unexploded booby traps and ammunition
hidden under the rubble but they tirelessly dig through.
"I'm
not afraid, plus it's worth it. I brought biscuits and juice back home
yesterday," Ahmed brags.
"You're
afraid. Come on. You know that some kids got injured when bombs went
off," interjects Ehab.
Listening
to his friend, Ahmed bashfully admits to his fear of explosives but
says, like many other boys walking through the wrecked camp, that he
has nothing else to do.
"My
house was destroyed, my schoolbag and books are gone, I can't go back
to school like that," he explains.
But
Ahmed and Ehab say they have plans for the future. Ahmed will be a
construction worker: "With my friends, we'll build beautiful
houses in the camp."
Ehab
says he will be a teacher.
One
mother explains that she is worried about the explosives buried in the
camp's ruins. "My children are not allowed to play in the rubble.
I keep them home because it's too dangerous," says Tharwat Ghul,
32, who has four children.
But
Ghul's house is almost intact, which makes it easier for her to keep
tabs on her children.
Mohammed
Daher from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) explains that
homeless children are more prone to playing in the rubble. "They
have nowhere else to go. It's not like we have parks or playgrounds
here.”
"Even
if they go to school, it's for a few hours, they'll end up back in the
rubble eventually," Daher says.
Still,
PRCS teams are dispatched daily throughout the camp and its school to
inform adults and children of the danger of unexploded ordnance.
PRCS
also organized a two-day workshop for the camp's children last week.
"We made them draw, play music and games to help them ease out
after the tragedy they went through," says Daher.
Although
the workshops, designed with a psychologist from the UN Children's
Fund (UNICEF), were geared to some 200 children, more than 800 came.
"I
wanted to sing children's songs with them but they insisted on
nationalistic songs," says Hosni, 25, a PRCS volunteer who helped
at the workshops.
"The
girls were more easy going maybe because they're more protected in our
culture but the boys would tell morbid jokes and draw pictures of
death and devastation," says the young man.
At
the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) girls school, which
reopened Wednesday, drawings are displayed on a wooden board.
Blood
and dead bodies are invariably shown along with Israeli tanks and
soldiers firing at armed and unarmed Palestinians.
On
one drawing, a man wearing boxing gloves faces a tank. On another, a
Palestinian ambulance is being fired at by a tank's heavy machinegun,
dead bodies lie on the ground and helicopter gunships fill up the sky.
"This
is what they saw and that really pains me," says Khaled Mahameed,
the school's director, stressing that he won't resume regular teaching
for a while to let "children play and talk through what they saw
and feel."
"Children
are not complete human beings yet. Their psyche has been deeply
affected by this tragedy. What kind of adults will they be when they
grow up?" he says.
According
to Mahameed, only 35% of his pupils have made it back to school,
leaving hundreds of children missing.
"Some
left the camp before the incursion, others had to be relocated after
their house was destroyed, some are not showing up because their
families don't send them," he says.
"And
some are dead," he adds, his voice fading as he pronounces the
last word.
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