People in different parts of the globe rejoice the fall of the rain except for Palestinian man Omar al-Hourani 30 years old who begins in each rainy season in Gaza along with his family a new chapter of suffering.
Omar lives with his sick mother along with his wife and his four children in a caravan. The rainwater gets through the cracks to his belongings as what happened to him days ago when it rained heavily increasing the family’s suffering.
Al-Hourani’s family arrived in Gaza to escape the bombing in the Syrian city of Daraa in 2011 and having four children with no work opportunity he could not afford to rent an apartment.
Wreck and poverty
When the PIC team went to visit him the rainwater seemed to sneak through the cracks of the three tin rooms in which he lives which were abandoned by his relatives years ago but he could not secure a house from charities.
Omar told the PIC reporter “In Gaza my wife gave birth to our four children the oldest of whom is five and a half years old the youngest are twins of three and the caravan where we live is located on government land. My family is threatened with expulsion anytime. Rainwater gets through the sealing in winter and our conditions are very difficult.”
Omar bought a pack of plastic cover after he borrowed 80 shekels from a friend to cover the sealing of the rooms of the caravan and the space in front of it during winter.
“The rain drowned the caravan and I called the police and visited the municipality. They didn’t help us and I do not work and I live alone after all my relatives left the place. My daughter feels afraid of winter and starts crying. All I dream of is an apartment that would accommodate us.”
Distrust
Omar’s wife pulls out of a small tin room they use as a cooking spot expressing her lack of confidence in humanitarian institutions and NGOs.
She added to the PIC reporter “Everyone visits us asks for the identity papers then we do not see them afterwards. Even the Land Authority photographed the caravan and my family. They promised to give us a flat but no one followed up. Our situation is miserable.”
Omar’s wife is angry at what she describes as favoritism that led to her family’s deprivation of having an apartment in a residential city in Gaza after her husband’s name appeared in the beneficiaries’ lists. She packed her belongings and her children’s clothes wishing to move to her new apartment before she knew that they got no place to move in.
A sick mother
Omar’s mother looks from behind the tin door which became wet after the last rain spell calling on the children to stay away from the rainwater.
She notes to the PIC reporter “Our situation is difficult and this room is drenched in rainwater and all we demand is a small house. I am divorced for twenty years. One of my sons was killed in Syria and the others are in Turkey Syria and Sweden and the children here are afraid of the rain and are always crying.”
The mother is lying on a bed with fractures in her arm and leg. For three years she has been hoping of receiving the joyous news of giving Omar and his children a house with four walls.
