january 2005

Strawberry Fields of Red

Rana El-Khatib

Red, ripe strawberries lay in wait in a Palestinian field.

Red, ripe strawberries lay in wait for a Palestinian yield.

A family of children with buckets in their hands gingerly picked what red strawberries they could.

Rushing to fill their buckets for a shekel or two - or just enough to make good.

Red strawberries in a field of muted greens.

Red strawberries in a field of looted dreams.

Then out from behind an armored barrel, with a star painted light blue, sprung violent little arrows.

And out from behind that armored barrel, with that star painted light blue, stung violent little arrows.

The field of muted green now streaming in red.

The field of muted green now mourns its dead.

Their strawberry dreams arrested.

Their strawberry fields molested.

Their buckets torn open.

Their lives torn apart.

One family - 8 children - eleven to seventeen .

Statistics in red – lifeless - in their field of muted green.

In Gaza's Berry Fields, a Family Reels After Losing 7 Boys to Israeli Fire

 By STEVEN ERLANGER
Source New York Times
January 8, 2005

http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=war_israel_palestine
&Number=293255103

EIT LAHIYA, Gaza, Jan. 7 - The neighbors had heard that Muhammad Ghaben, 18, had died in the hospital during the night, but no one wanted to tell his mother.

"How can we tell her?" asked Im Yehya Fadoos, walking along a muddy path between the poor houses and the strawberry fields of northern Gaza. "She was kissing him last night in the hospital. She's lost so much."

Three sons of Mariam Ghaben, 50, died Tuesday, all at once. They were blown apart by a single Israeli tank shell that was aimed at militants firing mortars toward Israe. In all, seven boys from the extended Ghaben family, ages 11 to 17, died in the explosion.

Mrs. Fadoos did not tell Ms. Ghaben that Muhammad had died, and as it turned out, he is still alive. But his legs and a hand were blown off and he lost an eye, and doctors say he is in critical condition, along with three others of the six Palestinians wounded in the same explosion.

On Friday, Ms. Ghaben was already in shock, sitting with her daughter-in-law, whose own son, Rajeh, 12, died in the explosion, and another relative, Halima al-Kaseh, who lost her son, Jibril, 17, while her two other children, 12 and 15, are badly wounded.

"Suddenly I saw everyone running, and I started running, and then I saw them collecting the parts of my children," Ms. Ghaben said, rocking on a cushion against a cement wall. "I don't know what kind of thing the Israelis fired, but my children were torn apart," she said, chopping the air with her hands.

"They showed me this pile of parts, and they said, 'This is your son,' all in a pile, and another was missing his lower half, and the parts were scattered all over," she said, as Ms. Kaseh held her hand.

"The head of my son was on one of the greenhouses," Ms. Ghaben said, still astonished. "Four hundred meters away, the head of my son. And I kissed it," she said softly. "I saw a hand in one of the trees, and I kissed the fingers."

The family had nothing to do with politics, she said.

"I never threw a stone," she said. "My kids never did anything against the Israelis. I work every day to feed my children. I plant strawberries for them to live, and in one minute they were chopped apart, pieces of clothes and pieces of bodies."

She tried to gather what was left of her children from the field and the trees in her head scarf and dress, she said.

There was a young girl in the field, age 6, Ms. Ghaben said. "She saw the parts, and they were burned, and she saw me collecting the parts in my clothes, and she asked, 'Why are you collecting this meat, my mother? Will you eat this?' "

Ms. Kaseh said her children in the hospital, Imad, 15, and Ibrahim, 12, asked repeatedly for their brother, Jibril. " 'Where is my brother, my mother?' they ask," she said. "And I can't tell them he's dead. I told them he's in the other room. They bulldozed my land and then they took my sons, and when I go to the hospital my heart is in pieces."

Ms. Ghaben grew angry. "This is a crime," she said. "This a massacre. I ask those with hearts, not only Arabs but those who still have hearts and a conscience, if this happened in Israel everyone would condemn it!

"But what about us?" she demanded. "I collected the parts of my children. And if someone gives me a gun, I'll kill Sharon," she said, referring to Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. "Let Sharon lose his son. Let Sharon collect the parts of his son."

She pointed dramatically to her waist. "Put the explosive here!" she shouted. "I'll go to the tank and explode myself!"

She fell silent then, and the women consoled her. "I wanted peace," she said. "I wanted to go to vote. I want to protect my other children. I don't want to lose them."

A spokeswoman for the Israeli Army said the tank fired a single, ordinary shell at a group of Palestinian militants who were firing mortars toward Israel from the strawberry fields. The army said Tuesday night that the shell had hit its target and that five of the dead were Hamas fighters.

Outside, near the field, another son, Ghasan Ghaben, 32, described the loss of his brothers, Hani, 17, Bassam, 14, and Mahmoud, 13 - and of his own son, Rajeh, 12. "He was so happy, he was helping me with the strawberries," Mr. Ghaben said. "I have a bad back, and he was helping, but then he went to play marbles over there with his friends." He stopped and looked away. "Can't the Israelis see with their cameras? These are kids playing marbles, just kids. Then they were in little pieces. You see it, but you can't take it in."