Israeli air strikes color Eid cookies, memories with blood

By Salam Abu Sharar

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) - Maysoon al-Hato's suitcase is still lingering at the entrance of an apartment building -- waiting to be opened, so that she can share the cookies she made for Eid with her children.

But Maysoon, 60, was killed in an Israeli air strike on Gaza along with her husband, Saeed, 67. They have left behind a daughter, Yara, 29, and son, Ibrahim, 27.

The family was taking refuge in the Mograbi neighborhood of Gaza city, a five-minute drive from their house, after their street was subjected to heavy shelling and air strikes.

We fled our house in the wee hours of May 12, the last day of the holy month of Ramadan, said Yara.

"All of the streets were bombed to pulp. As air strikes echoed around us, we prayed to God to give us safety -- until we reached my sister's house," she told Anadolu Agency.

As Yara lugged one of their suitcases inside her sister's house, she heard the sound of an air strike.

"When I went outside, I struggled to find my mum under the cloud of dust. I found her groaning for help."

Her face was covered in blood, and I begged her to hang in there until an ambulance reaches to help them, she said.

"I looked for my father, and saw an air strike had smashed his head.

"I rushed back to my mother. My brother too was bleeding.

"I asked her if she could hear me. I think a shrapnel hit her back."

When the ambulance arrived, she grabbed the paramedic's hand and told him to leave her dad and take her mom, as she was still breathing.

Yara’s mother passed away before reaching the hospital.

Flipping through the family photo album, Yara recalled a memory attached to each picture.

Most of them were taken in Jerusalem when her father was receiving chemotherapy.

“What's going on here is a massacre, they're killing civilians. This must stop. I don't know if that's a wish, or if it's a mess. If the world wanted to do something, it wouldn't let Israel kill us in cold blood. They don’t want to stop this,” Yara said.

“I don’t know why they are killing us,” she lamented.

Mourning the loss of her parents, Yara still has not gathered courage to open the family's suitcases.

"Everything is covered in blood. Even the cookies my mother made for Eid."

After nearly 11 days of attacks against the blockaded Gaza, Israel agreed on a cease-fire with Palestinian resistance groups in the enclave, which went into effect early Friday.

At least 232 Palestinians have been killed, including 65 children and 39 women, and more than 1,700 others injured in the Israeli attacks on Gaza.

Twelve Israelis have also been killed in rockets fired from the Gaza Strip.

Recent tensions that started in East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan spread to Gaza as a result of Israeli assaults on worshippers in the flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, where Al-Aqsa is located, during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. It annexed the entire city in 1980 in a move never recognized by the international community.