We meet Maher Abu-Shamala in a small gallery in Ponsonby, Auckland, at an exhibition of Palestinian art and photographs from Gaza.
The exhibition is called Unerased.
Abu-Shamala’s family in Gaza is also, for now, unerased.
“Cousins, aunties, uncles from my mother’s side and my father’s side. Thousands of them sitting there, ” he says.
But he adds: “We lost many of them in this war.” A cousin of his in Gaza says around 300 have died so far.
Israeli air strikes, he says, have cost lives. “In one strike, we lost 13 members of our family.”
He says, even for those who have escaped injury, the threat of physical harm is ever present. “You have a possibility of being exposed to danger the following day,” he says.
He calls that psychological distress. “Thousands can’t sleep well because of this.”
Those who have survived have been displaced several times, forcing some families to bunk down together. “There was one unit with five or six people, and now some 30 to 40 live in the same apartment.”
We ask about scenes that have been broadcast around the world: Of malnourished children, and of Gazans scrambling to get pots filled with food at distribution kitchens in refugee camps.
The Associated Press reports Israel has blocked food, fuel, medicine and all other supplies from entering Gaza for weeks, worsening a humanitarian crisis for 2.3 million Palestinians. Israel says the blockade aims to pressure Hamas to release the hostages it still holds and that it won’t allow aid back in until a system is in place that gives it control over distribution.
The Israeli military also says enough aid entered Gaza during a two-month ceasefire that ended on March 18.
Abu-Shamala’s description is blunt. “We’re not talking about life. There is no life there.”
He gives access to water as an example. “I can tell you some walk for several kilometres to reach clean water. There may be one company in the Al-Mawasi district which specialises in desalinating water, but it can’t cover even five percent of the need.”
He says the news from Gaza puts his comfortable life in New Zealand into stark relief.
“I am Palestinian. My family is there, and I keep asking myself and my wife, what if I was there with them? How could I live in such circumstances?”
Another local Palestinian deeply concerned about his family is Yasser Abdul-Aal. The Christchurch-based engineer also has many relatives in Gaza, including two sisters.
His family have also had to relocate. He provides us a photo of the shattered apartment of one of his sisters.
“Last month I was talking to her, and she said we have completed one year now in tents.”
On another call, her sister said she was happy. But it was happiness over a small comfort.
“She was happy because she managed to get a plastic sheet, to put on the ground so they are didn’t have to step on the sand.”
Other relatives have not been so fortunate. A few months before the current blockade, a cousin of his who was a policeman was escorting an aid truck. He was in a clearly marked police vehicle.
After the aid truck unloaded, disaster struck. “He was targeted with a missile. With a missile. He died on the spot.”
Like Maher Abu-Shamala’s family, he says people get by with few amenities: little water and food, restricted medicines, damaged hospitals and no schools. He says a local bakery was also destroyed.
His sisters and their husbands are all teachers.
“They haven’t worked for two years. They have no income.” Like others, Abdul-Aal says they get by on charity.
He says the Israeli sea blockade means Gazans are prevented from taking boats far off the coast to fish.
1News viewed unverified video which showed a group of fishermen on dinghies rowing back to shore, with at least one man apparently lying wounded after coming under fire.
“They have been targeted and we have seen lots of those people who are trying to fish to just get a bare minimum of food for their to feed their kids and family who have been killed.”
Both Palestinian New Zealanders are agreed on another key issue: Despite the suffering, their families do not want to leave Gaza.
Yasser Abdul-Aal gives the example of his father offering several thousand dollars to get some family out of Gaza.
“But they refused. They said no, we are not leaving our houses.”
Maher Abu-Shamala says Palestinian history in Gaza goes back thousands of years, and Gazans are determined to keep their homeland.
“People are looking eagerly to see that there is an end for this war. They have suffered a lot, beyond imagination. And they ask the whole world to do something about it.”
