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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/people-behind-gazas-statistics/24021">https://electronicintifada.net/content/people-behind-gazas-statistics/24021</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">The people behind Gaza's statistics</h1>
<p class="node__submitted">
<span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/sarah-algherbawi">Sarah
Algherbawi</a></span> <span class="field field-publisher">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2018-04-21T19:39:00+00:00">21 April 2018</span></span>
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<figure id="file-60481"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>In Jihad Abu Jamous’ family, he was seen as the lucky
one.</p>
<p>The 31-year-old, who gathered gravel to sell to
workshops and construction workers for a few dollars a
day, was from Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip.
He escaped a hereditary condition that affects almost
his whole family, leaving most of them blind or
partially sighted. He also avoided the chronic
ailments that his mother, the only other person in the
family with good eyesight, suffers.</p>
<p>But Jihad could not evade Israel’s snipers.</p>
<p>On 30 March, Jihad went, along with thousands of
Palestinians in Gaza, to protest for the Palestinian
right of return near the boundary with Israel. He
never made it back.</p>
<p>He had promised to return home after just a few
hours, according to his family. But the father of four
had, according to his friend Samir al-Najjar, 28, who
accompanied him to the Great March of Return, only
been at the demonstration half an hour – after leaving
his donkey and cart by a tree away from the
demonstration with his wife and children – when he was
shot in the head.</p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.amad.ps/ar/Details/227466">died
in hospital</a> a short while later.</p>
<p>To date there have been four mass rallies as part of
the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/great-march-return">Great
March of Return</a> series of protests that began on
30 March. The demonstrations will run until 15 May,
when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, the 1948
disaster that saw more than 750,000 Palestinians flee
or be forced to flee their homes and lands in what
became Israel.</p>
<p>They were never allowed to return to reclaim their
possessions or properties which were instead either
confiscated by the new state and doled out to Jewish
settlers or, as in the case of some 500 villages,
destroyed and left to disappear.</p>
<p>Each protest has been met with deadly force by the
Israeli military, which has killed 40 Palestinians in
Gaza since 30 March. Thirty-one of those killed,
including four children and a journalist, were fatally
wounded during protests.</p>
<h2>His family’s eyes</h2>
<p>In a time of tragedies, the killing of Jihad will be
especially keenly felt.</p>
<p>“Jihad helped me with everything,” said Zuheir Abu
Jamous, 52, Jihad’s blind father who had felt his way
slowly into the living room where he spoke to The
Electronic Intifada.</p>
<p>“He was my sight. He helped me in everything, from
going to the bathroom to taking a shower to providing
for me. I’m only a breathing body now: my soul died
with him.”</p>
<p>The family has Leber Hereditary Optic Neuropathy, a
rare genetic disorder that can affect whole families.
In the Abu Jamous case, and unusually, all four of
Jihad’s sisters are blind, while his two brothers are
partially sighted.</p>
<p>The disease normally affects young men worse.</p>
<figure id="file-60486"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Jihad’s sisters are now left to contemplate the
enormity of his absence. Yasmin, 30, called him the
“family’s only eyes,” while younger sister Shaima, 17,
has cut her hair since there is “no one left to care
for it.”</p>
<p>Diana, 22, suggested it would spell the end of her
college studies – she is studying Islamic law at the
University College of Applied Sciences – since she
relied on Jihad to take and collect her.</p>
<p>“I saw life through Jihad’s eyes. I never felt blind
like I do now. Now, all I can see is black.”</p>
<p>The Abu Jamous family is originally from the village
of <a
href="http://www.palestineremembered.com/Gaza/Burayr/index.html">Burayr</a>.
And though his absence is a serious blow to the
family, Jihad’s mother, Tahani al-Najjar, 49, a
diabetes patient with hypertension, insisted she was
proud of her son.</p>
<p>He died, she told The Electronic Intifada, defending
the rights of his family and his people.</p>
<h2>Sand artist</h2>
<p>Just 15 hours before that first protest on 30 March,
artist Mohamed Abu Amr, 27, went to the beach where he
would regularly go to pursue his passion and create
sand sculptures. This time, he simply sculpted two
words in Arabic out of sand: “I’ll return,” they
translate as. He took a photo and posted it to his <a
href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=1984100948574657&id=100009243143782">Facebook
page</a>.</p>
<p>It was just minutes into the 30 March demonstration
when he was shot and killed, according to a friend,
Muaman Sukar, who was with him at the time.</p>
<p>Mohamed was <a
href="http://www.al-ayyam.ps/ar_page.php?id=12969cffy311860479Y12969cff">well-known</a>
locally for his sand sculptures. These were sometimes
formed as drawings, sometimes as calligraphy. Much of
it had a political motif and Mohamed’s father, Naim
Abu Amr, 58, said Mohamed was trying to present the
Palestinian cause in his own unique way.</p>
<p>“Mohamed used to spend most of his time by the sea,
doing what he loved the most,” Naim told The
Electronic Intifada. Mohamed’s dream, he said, was to
create a map of Palestine on the beach so big it could
be seen from space. But that kind of scale needed
tools the unemployed artist could not afford.</p>
<figure id="file-60501"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Still, his dream came through in a way. When news of
his slaying found its way to Osama Sbeata, 24, a
fellow artist, Mohamed’s mentor on the sand and a
friend, he decided to make Mohamed’s map.</p>
<p>It took three days, and did not quite reach the scale
Mohamed had envisaged. But <a
href="https://bit.ly/2uZS5LZ">Sbeata’s map</a> still
spanned some 100 meters and – when Naim saw it after
Sbeata called him down to the beach – reduced
Mohamed’s father to tears.</p>
<p>“I was glad to make my friend’s dream come true,”
Sbeata told The Electronic Intifada. “I am glad too
that it made his father proud.”</p>
<h2>A last goodbye</h2>
<p>In al-Zawayda village near the central Gaza Strip
town of Deir al-Balah, the al-Saloul family erected a
mourning tent for their son Musab, 22, who was killed
on 30 March, that is still receiving people.</p>
<p>Normally, the time for condolences would have long
passed, but the family is still waiting to receive
their son’s body from the Israeli military.</p>
<p>Musab and Muhammad al-Rabaia, also 22, were killed on
30 March in what witnesses said were targeted killings
by Israeli forces in the Juhor al-Dik area near Deir
al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>They were shot not far from an Israeli military
watchtower on the boundary with Israel that is known
locally as the Camera military installation, for its
role in monitoring the area.</p>
<p>Yousif Abu Saqir, 27, who witnessed the incident,
said that after the firing had ended, a “group of
Israeli soldiers crossed the fence and took their
bodies.”</p>
<p>The Israeli military has acknowledged that it holds
the two men’s bodies. According to <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/yoav-mordechai">Yoav
Mordechai</a>, the head of COGAT, the bureaucratic
arm of Israel’s military occupation, Israel <a
href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/mordechai-israel-holds-palestinian-bodies-180401170432292.html">wants
the return</a> of the remains of two of its soldiers
killed during the 2014 offensive against Gaza.</p>
<p>Israel is holding the bodies of approximately two
dozen Palestinians killed by its forces since 2014,
with the aim of <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-holding-bodies-palestinians-bargaining-chips">using
them as bargaining chips</a>.</p>
<p>Israel also claimed that al-Saloul and al-Rabaia –
both members of Hamas – were armed and were shooting
at the soldiers.</p>
<figure id="file-60491"><source media="(min-width:
72rem)"><figcaption><small><span></span></small></figcaption></figure>
<p>Zuheir al-Saloul, 55, said Israel’s accusations are
simply untrue.</p>
<p>“Being a Hamas member is not a charge that allows
Israel to keep the body of my son. They claim my son
was armed and was planning to execute an operation,
but that’s not true.”</p>
<p>Musab studied electronic engineering at the Islamic
University of Gaza and has an identical twin brother,
Muath, who studies medicine in Germany.</p>
<p>“I dreamed of seeing both my sons graduate. Now,
Israel has destroyed half that dream,” said Zuheir, a
civil engineer.</p>
<p>Muath told The Electronic Intifada over the phone
that he and his brother had been close growing up.</p>
<p>“We were always together. The first time we spent any
time apart was when I left to study, three years ago.
It never occurred to me that that would be our last
goodbye.”</p>
<h2>Working the land alone</h2>
<p>The al-Rabaia family has similarly had no closure.
Muhammad, a farmer, was killed in the same incident as
his friend Musab and the family now awaits the return
of their son’s body to their home in the Nuseirat
refugee camp in central Gaza.</p>
<p>His father, Muharib, 47, has been in contact with the
International Committee for the Red Cross, but to
little effect. The ICRC is working to restore the
bodies to their families, but had no further
information to give the grieving father.</p>
<p>“I can’t imagine working the land alone without
Muhammad,” Muharib told The Electronic Intifada. “My
son loved the land. But now he can’t even be buried in
it.”</p>
<p><em>Sarah Algherbawi is a freelance writer and
translator from Gaza.</em></p>
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