Gazans face tough choices as their future is debated on global stage
In the neighbourhood of al-Qasasib, Nabil has returned to a four-storey house that's somehow still standing, even if it lacks windows, doors and - in some places - walls.He and his relatives have made crude balconies out of wooden pallets and strung-up tarpaulin to keep out the elements."Look at the destruction," he says as he surveys Jabalia's ocean of ruins from a gaping upper floor."They want us to leave without rebuilding it? How can we leave. The least we can do is rebuild it for our children."To cook a meal, Nabil lights a fire on the bare staircase, stoking it carefully with pieces of torn-up cardboard.
On another floor, Laila Ahmed Okasha washes up in a sink where the tap ran dry months ago."There's no water, electricity or sewage," she says. "If we need water, we have to go to a far place to fill up buckets."She says she cried when she came back to the house and found it wrecked.She blames Israel and Hamas for destroying the world she once knew."Both of them are responsible," she says. "We had a decent, comfortable life."Soon after the war began in October 2023, Israel told Palestinians in the northern part of the Gaza Strip – including Jabalia – to move south for their own safety.Hundreds of thousands of people heeded the warning, but many stayed, determined to ride out the war.Laila and her husband Marwan clung on until October last year, when the Israeli military reinvaded Jabalia, saying Hamas had reconstituted fighting units inside the camp's narrow streets.After two months of sheltering in nearby Shati camp, Leila and Marwan returned to find Jabalia almost unrecognisable.
"When we came back and saw how it was destroyed, I didn't want to stay here anymore," Marwan says."I had a wonderful life, but now it's a hell. If I have the chance to leave, I'll go. I won't stay one more minute."Stay or go? The future of Gaza's civilian population is now the subject of international debate.In February, Donald Trump suggested that the US should take over Gaza and that nearly two million Palestinian residents should leave, possibly for good.Faced with international outrage and fierce opposition from Arab leaders, Trump has subsequently appeared to back away from the plan, saying he recommended it but would not force it on anyone.In the meantime, Egypt has led Arab efforts to come up with a viable alternative, to be presented at an emergency Arab summit in Cairo on Tuesday.
Crucially, it says the Palestinian population should remain inside Gaza while the area is reconstructed.Donald Trump's intervention has brought out Gaza's famously stubborn side."If Trump wants to make us leave, I'll stay in Gaza," Laila says. "I want to travel on my own free will. I won't leave because of him."Across the way sits a nine-storey yellow block of flats so spectacularly damaged it's hard to believe it hasn't collapsed.The upper floors have caved in entirely, threatening the rest. In time, it will surely have to be demolished, but for now it's home to yet more families. There are sheets in the windows and washing hanging to dry in the late winter sunshine.Most incongruously of all, outside a makeshift plastic doorway on a corner of the ground floor, next to piles of rubble and rubbish, stands a headless mannequin, wearing a wedding gown.
It's Sanaa Abu Ishbak's dress shop.The 45-year-old seamstress, mother of 11, set up the business two years before the war but had to abandon it when she fled south in November 2023.She came back as soon as the ceasefire was announced. With her husband and daughters, she's been busy clearing debris from the shop, arranging dresses on hangers and getting ready for business."I love Jabalia camp," she says, "and I won't leave it till I die."Sanaa and Laila seem equally determined to stay put if they can. But both women speak differently when they talk of the young."She doesn't even know how to write her own name," Laila says of her granddaughter."There's no education in Gaza."The little girl's mother was killed during the war. Laila says she still talks to her at night."She was the soul of my soul and she left her daughter in my hands. If I have the chance to travel, I will do so for the sake of my granddaughter."
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The Independent
3 hours ago
- The Independent
8 decades after atomic bombing in Hiroshima, search for missing continues on nearby island
When the first atomic bomb detonated 80 years ago on Aug. 6, thousands of the dead and dying were brought to the small, rural island of Ninoshima, just south of Hiroshima, by military boats with crews that had trained for suicide attack missions. Many of the victims had their clothes burned off and their flesh hung from their faces and limbs. They moaned in pain. Because of poor medicine and care, only a few hundred were alive when the field hospital closed Aug. 25, according to historical records. They were buried in various locations in chaotic and rushed operations. Decades later, people in the area are looking for the remains of the missing, driven by a desire to account for and honor the victims and bring relief to survivors who are still tormented by memories of missing loved ones. 'Until that happens, the war is not over for these people,' said Rebun Kayo, a Hiroshima University researcher who regularly visits Ninoshima to search for remains. Evidence of the missing is still being unearthed On a recent morning, Kayo visited a hillside plot in the forest where he has dug for remains since 2018. He put on rubber boots and a helmet and sprayed insect repellent. After planting chrysanthemum flowers and praying, Kayo carefully began shoveling gravel from a hole the size of a bathtub. When the soil was soft enough, he sifted it for bone fragments. As he worked under the scorching sun, he imagined the pain and sadness that the victims felt when they died. Kayo so far has found about 100 bone fragments, including skull pieces and an infant's jaw bone with little teeth attached. He found the bones in an area suggested by a Ninoshima resident, whose father had witnessed soldiers burying bodies that were brought to the island on boats from Hiroshima 80 years ago. 'The little child buried here has been alone for all these years,' he said of the bones he believes belonged to a toddler. 'It's just intolerable." Victims arrived in the bombing's chaotic aftermath The U.S. atomic attack on Hiroshima instantly destroyed the city and killed tens of thousands near the hypocenter, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Ninoshima. The death toll by the end of that year was 140,000. As a 3-year-old child, Tamiko Sora was with her parents and two sisters at their home just 1.4 kilometers (0.9 mile) from the hypocenter. The blast destroyed their house and Sora's face was burned, but most of her family survived. As they made their way to a relatives' home, she met an unattended 5-year-old girl who identified herself as Hiroko and a woman with severe burns desperately asking people to save the baby she carried. Sora still thinks of them often and regrets her family could not help. Her family visited orphanages but could not find the girl. Sora now thinks the people she met that day, as well as her missing aunt and uncle, might have ended up on Ninoshima. Ninoshima saw 3 weeks of chaos, deaths and rushed burials Within two hours of the blast, victims began arriving by boat from Hiroshima at the island's No. 2 quarantine center. Its buildings filled with patients with severe wounds. Many died on the way to the island. Imperial Army service members were on around-the-clock shifts for cremation and burials on the island, according to Hiroshima City documents. Eiko Gishi, then an 18-year-old boat trainee, oversaw carrying patients from the pier to the quarantine area for first aid. He and other soldiers cut bamboo to make cups and trays. Many of the wounded died soon after sipping water. In recollections published by the city years later, Gishi wrote that soldiers carefully handled bodies one by one at the beginning, but were soon overwhelmed by the huge number of decomposing bodies and used an incinerator originally meant for military horses. Even this wasn't enough and they soon ran out of space, eventually putting bodies into bomb shelters and in burial mounds. 'I was speechless from the shock when I saw the first group of patients that landed on the island,' a former army medic, Yoshitaka Kohara, wrote in 1992. 'I was used to seeing many badly wounded soldiers on battlefields, but I had never seen anyone in such a cruel and tragic state," he said. 'It was an inferno.' Kohara was at the facility until its closure, when only about 500 people were left alive. When he told surviving patients that the war had ended on Aug. 15, he recalled they looked emotionless and 'tears flowed from their crushed eyes, and nobody said a word." Thousands of remains found on Ninoshima but more are still missing Kazuo Miyazaki, a Ninoshima-born historian and guide, said that toward the end of WWII the island was used to train suicide attackers using wooden boats meant for deployment in the Philippine Sea and Okinawa. 'Hiroshima was not a city of peace from the beginning. Actually, it was the opposite,' Miyazaki said. 'It's essential that you learn from the older generations and keep telling the lessons to the next.' Miyazaki, 77, lost a number of relatives in the atomic bombing. He has heard first-person stories from his relatives and neighbors about what happened on Ninoshima, which was home to a major army quarantine during Japan's militarist expansion. His mother was an army nurse who was deployed to the field hospital on the island. The remains of about 3,000 atomic bombing victims brought to Ninoshima have been found since 1947 when many were dug out of bomb shelters. Thousands more are thought to be missing. People visit the island to remember the missing After learning of the search for remains on Ninoshima, Sora, the atomic bomb survivor struck by the girl and infant she met after the explosion, traveled to the island twice to pray at a cenotaph commemorating the dead. 'I feel they are waiting for me to visit,' Sora said. 'When I pray, I speak the names of my relatives and tell them I'm well and tell them happy stories.' In a recent visit to Sora at her nursing home, the researcher Kayo brought a plastic box containing the baby jaw with little teeth and skull fragments he found on Ninoshima. The bones were placed carefully on a bed of fluffy cotton. Kayo said he wanted to show Sora the fragile fragments, which could be from a child the same age as the one Sora met 80 years ago. He plans to eventually take the bones to a Buddhist temple. Sora prayed in silence while looking at the bones in the box and then spoke to them. 'I'm so happy you were finally found," she said. "Welcome back.'
Times
a day ago
- Times
My eye-opening visit to Hiroshima, 80 years after the bombing
'Those days, Nakajima was a very happy place – with markets, restaurants and even a movie theatre,' says Keiko Ogura, 87, fondly recalling a neighbourhood close to her childhood home in Hiroshima. These days the place of Ogura's memory is known worldwide. But Nakajima no longer resembles the bustling commercial district it once was. Now the 30-acre wedge of land between the Motoyasu and Honkawa rivers is the Hiroshima City Peace Memorial Park, laid down in 1955 to mark the destruction caused by the world's first atomic bomb. It targeted the T-shaped Aioi Bridge just to the north, destroying almost everything within a one-and-half-mile radius and killing 80,000 people instantly. Today the Peace Park is visited annually by 720,000 overseas travellers who, like myself, have come to learn more about the bombing and its legacy and pay our respects. For me, the visit is also a chance to explore the contemporary city beyond its tragic past, including its vibrant food scene, and the wider Hiroshima region. 'My memory is so clear and, while I have a clear memory, I want people to hear my story,' Ogura tells me when I arrive to meet her in a private room at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. There is a steeliness in her gentle voice. Ogura is a hibakusha — an atomic bomb survivor. She was just eight years old when the 'Little Boy' was dropped on Hiroshima at 8.15am on August 6, 1945. Ogura has agreed to meet me during my few days in Hiroshima to share her first-hand account of the bombing and its aftermath. She is the founder of Hiroshima Interpreters for Peace (HIP), an activist group that 'tells the facts of Hiroshima to the world' — including to travellers interested in gaining a deeper understanding of what happened. The weighty privilege of meeting Ogura is underscored by our location: the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, which houses a necessarily shocking collection of personal stories and artefacts about the bombing in Kenzo Tange's unadorned modernist building. Ogura pulls up a map on her PowerPoint presentation. 'We couldn't make our own bomb shelter in the city centre so my father was worried,' she explains. By August 1945 most Japanese cities had been heavily bombed, and Hiroshima residents had become used to the sound of American bombers and reconnaissance aircraft regularly flying over. Recognising that Hiroshima — a military city — would eventually be targeted, Ogura's father wanted to build his family an air-raid shelter. 'So we moved here, to Ushita.' She points to a suburb a mile and a half from their former home in the city centre, beyond the sacred Mount Futaba, the location of many temples and shrines. It was a decision that saved their lives. 'There was a strong flash and a blast,' she says. 'Then everything started to burn.' She recalls lying on the road beside her partially collapsed home. 'I couldn't breathe.' But Ogura was alive, as were her immediate family — Mount Futaba had shielded their neighbourhood from the full force of the bomb. But death was all around her, inescapable. 'I lived near a shrine, and people rushed there to seek help. So many people died in front of me. My father cremated bodies every day — over 700 victims,' she says, recalling the terrible smell of burning that permeated the city air. 'Those were my childhood memories; that is the reality of nuclear weapons.' Ogura carried her 'invisible scars' silently into her forties, when she was persuaded to start speaking publicly — adamant that by sharing her first-hand account she could encourage people to take action to prevent a repeat (an undertaking that perhaps now seems more critical than ever). Her testimony is disarmingly frank, yet told with warmth and not a hint of pity or anger. 'There are not so many witnesses left; I want to tell my story until the last moment.' Two hours later I emerge into the Peace Park, which is full of trees and shrubs donated by regions across Japan. Ogura's story is overwhelming and I am relieved that I have an unscheduled afternoon ahead to slowly take it all in. I wander between the stone monuments, such as the Flame of Peace and the Children's Peace Monument, topped with the statue of an origami crane and tragic 12-year-old Sadako, a local child who folded thousands of these enduring symbols of peace during her battle with leukaemia caused by the atomic radiation. Close by the graceful arching cenotaph contains books listing the names of the 344,306 victims within the radius of the hypocentre, with new names to be added during this year's 80th anniversary commemorations, as hibakusha pass away. It's a reminder that life presses on, and that Hiroshima moves ceaselessly like any other city. The Hiroden streetcar trundles commuters past the A-Bomb Dome — the shell of the former Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall that is a symbol of the city — and modern buildings surround the Unesco world heritage site. A new 28,520-seat football stadium has just opened nearby, alongside an events spot with cafés, shops and a grooming parlour selling bentos for dogs. • Read our full guide to Japan That evening I walk from the Hilton Hiroshima — my excellent hotel base with mountain and sea views where President Biden stayed during the 2023 G7 summit — to the Hondori central entertainment area. Here teens linger late around soft-serve ice-cream stands and clothes shops such as Uniqlo, which opened its first store in Hiroshima in 1984. At the Golden Garden bar I try deep-fried oysters from the Seto Inland Sea, washed down with fragrant Teagarmot Journey IPA by Hiroshima Neighborly Brewing, a star on the city's craft beer scene (@goldengarden_beer). It's the warm-up for the main event: okonomiyaki, Hiroshima's ubiquitous savoury pancake. On a recommendation from the hotel concierge I take a counter seat at the family-run Henkutsuya Horikawa and watch as the owner cooks up crêpes, cabbage, pork and soba noodles in a tightly choreographed dance at the teppan. The layers are piled up, flipped and topped with a fried egg and tangy okonomiyaki sauce, and the whole thing is slid over, piping hot and tasty (mains from £4; 2-20 Nagarekawacho). The next morning I walk with Joy Jarman-Walsh, who has been a Hiroshima resident for 30 years. She reveals that okonomiyaki has roots in the postwar city, when destitute war widows sold simple pancakes with cabbage and American flour to survive. 'They cooked in the street on metal scavenged from ships in Hiroshima port,' she says. Close to the port we visit one of the few remaining 'survivor' buildings — a thick, red-brick warehouse that, like the concrete A-Bomb Dome, managed to withstand the atomic blast. Its warped metal shutters reveal the force of the bomb, 1.6 miles way from the hypocentre. Activists hope that the empty former army clothing depot will be spared demolition and redeveloped as an extension to the busy Peace Museum and as a creative arts venue. 'Hiroshima can get really busy with day-trippers from Kyoto and Osaka,' Jarman-Walsh says — the two cities are about an hour and 40 minutes east by bullet train. 'It would be great to see people staying overnight and exploring beyond the Peace Park and Miyajima,' she adds, referring to the island south of Hiroshima famed for its incredibly picturesque red 'floating' torii gateway to the Itsukushima Shrine — another Unesco world heritage site. With its photogenic views and cute deer (often seen on the beach in front of the red torii gate), Miyajima is beautiful but over-touristed. It is the best-known tourist attraction of the Seto Inland Sea, closely followed by the so-called Art Islands — including Naoshima, home of Yayoi Kusama's giant spotty pumpkin — almost 125 miles to the east and which have helped to put the region on the map in recent years. • 16 of the best Japan tours It's a real contrast to the quiet stops on the slow rail route running east along the Inland Sea coast — my next direction of travel as I delve deeper into the region. I ride the train for two hours, watching forested islands drift past in a blue haze, the calm waters interspersed with oyster farms and faded shipbuilding towns such as Kure, where the Second World War battleship Yamato — the largest ever constructed — was built. Slowly but surely the trains grow shorter and emptier. I disembark in the former salt-trading town of Takehara to explore its preserved Edo-period (1603-1868) townscape. It's disarmingly quiet as I stroll through alleyways lined with wooden houses, earthen walls and intricate bamboo latticework. This is what the Japanese call inaka — the countryside. And that evening, as I cross onto the island of Ikuchijima, I am deep in inaka. My destination is Azumi Setoda, a 22-room contemporary ryokan housed in the grand former residence of the Horiuchi family, the wealthiest salt traders in Setoda town. It's a sought-after property, created by Adrian Zecha, the visionary founder of Aman Resorts. I check into my 50 sq ft room, with its futon bed, wooden panelling and pocket garden concealed behind elegant yuki-mi — snow-viewing screens — that slide up and down instead of sideways. There is time for a bath. The deep Japanese cypress (hinoki) soaking tub looks inviting, but instead I head across the road to the public bathhouse (sento), which has been renovated by the hotel for guests and locals; for the latter, a sento visit remains a daily ritual. That evening a fantastic multi-course meal is served beneath a lattice of ancient beams inside Azumi Setoda's lofty main building, presented on antique Kyushu pottery once owned by the Horiuchi family. The chef Kenya Akita's menu uses produce from a 30-mile radius (including Inland Sea fish and vegetables from his garden), with dishes such as octopus bisque and sea bream carpaccio. The elevated, Japanese-style hospitality, known as omotenashi, is highly personalised and reason enough to seek out Azumi Setoda, but so too is the chance to become immersed in rural life: picking citrus fruits, fishing and sailing. I seize the chance to borrow a hotel bike and cycle through lemon groves along part of the Shimanami Kaido, a 37-mile purpose-built bike route that connects Honshu with Shikoku via islands in the Inland Sea. • 14 of the best places to visit in Japan Before I depart Azumi Setoda I take a walk with the hotel's guide, Julian Rodriguez, who has weaved together an illuminating history of life in this once-vital port, in part by listening to the stories of local octogenarians. There's the stone lantern lighthouse that guided ships through narrow rapids, the island-hopping library boat and the overgrown sauna-like 'stone bath' caves once used by locals. There are 'sketch points' marking the exact spots where the local watercolour artist Ikuo Hirayama painted scenes of Setoda. One such view is of the vermillion Kojoji pagoda, built by Buddhist monks who outgrew their monastery on the mainland 600 years ago — now designated an official 'National Treasure'. I think back to my time with Ogura. 'When I tell my story I see people's faces and I let them think,' she said. 'I show them the direction; I want them to decide to do something.' For me, that is to pass on the message that Hiroshima is a place of compelling stories and friendly, open people eager to share them. I urge you to visit, to listen and make a life-affirming connection to authentic Japan. Kate Crockett was a guest of Hiroshima Tourism Association ( and InsideJapan Tours, which has nine nights' B&B with stays in Kyoto, Osaka and Hiroshima from £4,273pp, including all domestic transport, some private guiding and activities ( Fly to Tokyo or Osaka Have you visited Hiroshima? Share your memories in the comments
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
From dawn to dusk, a Gaza family focuses on one thing: finding food
Every morning, Abeer and Fadi Sobh wake up in their tent in the Gaza Strip to the same question: How will they find food for themselves and their six young children? The couple has three options: Maybe a charity kitchen will be open and they can get a pot of watery lentils. Or they can try jostling through crowds to get some flour from a passing aid truck. The last resort is begging. If those all fail, they simply don't eat. It happens more and more these days, as hunger saps their energy, strength and hope. The predicament of the Sobhs, who live in a seaside refugee camp west of Gaza City after being displaced multiple times, is the same for families throughout the war-ravaged territory. Hunger has grown throughout the past 22 months of war because of aid restrictions, humanitarian workers say. But food experts warned earlier this week the 'worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in Gaza.' Israel enforced a complete blockade on food and other supplies for 2½ months beginning in March. It said its objective was to increase pressure on Hamas to release dozens of hostages it has held since its attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Though the flow of aid resumed in May, the amount is a fraction of what aid organizations say is needed. A breakdown of law and order has also made it nearly impossible to safely deliver food. Much of the aid that does get in is hoarded or sold in markets at exorbitant prices. Here is a look at a day in the life of the Sobh family: A morning seawater bath The family wakes up in their tent, which Fadi Sobh, a 30-year-old street vendor, says is unbearably hot in the summer. With fresh water hard to come by, his wife Abeer, 29, fetches water from the sea. One by one, the children stand in a metal basin and scrub themselves as their mother pours the saltwater over their heads. Nine-month-old Hala cries as it stings her eyes. The other children are more stoic. Abeer then rolls up the bedding and sweeps the dust and sand from the tent floor. With no food left over from the day before, she heads out to beg for something for her family's breakfast. Sometimes, neighbors or passersby give her lentils. Sometimes she gets nothing. Abeer gives Hala water from a baby bottle. When she's lucky, she has lentils that she grinds into powder to mix into the water. 'One day feels like 100 days, because of the summer heat, hunger and the distress,' she said. A trip to the soup kitchen Fadi heads to a nearby soup kitchen. Sometimes one of the children goes with him. 'But food is rarely available there,' he said. The kitchen opens roughly once a week and never has enough for the crowds. Most often, he said, he waits all day but returns to his family with nothing 'and the kids sleep hungry, without eating.' Fadi used to go to an area in northern Gaza where aid trucks arrive from Israel. There, giant crowds of equally desperate people swarm over the trucks and strip away the cargo of food. Often, Israeli troops nearby open fire, witnesses say. Israel says it only fires warning shots, and others in the crowd often have knives or pistols to steal boxes. Fadi, who also has epilepsy, was shot in the leg last month. That has weakened him too much to scramble for the trucks, so he's left with trying the kitchens. Meanwhile, Abeer and her three eldest children — 10-year-old Youssef, 9-year-old Mohammed and 7-year-old Malak — head out with plastic jerrycans to fill up from a truck that brings freshwater from central Gaza's desalination plant. The kids struggle with the heavy jerrycans. Youssef loads one onto his back, while Mohammed half-drags his, his little body bent sideways as he tries to keep it out of the dust of the street. A scramble for aid Abeer sometimes heads to Zikim herself, alone or with Youssef. Most in the crowds are men — faster and stronger than she is. 'Sometimes I manage to get food, and in many cases, I return empty-handed,' she said. If she's unsuccessful, she appeals to the sense of charity of those who succeeded. 'You survived death thanks to God, please give me anything,' she tells them. Many answer her plea, and she gets a small bag of flour to bake for the children, she said. She and her son have become familiar faces. One man who regularly waits for the trucks, Youssef Abu Saleh, said he often sees Abeer struggling to grab food, so he gives her some of his. 'They're poor people and her husband is sick,' he said. 'We're all hungry and we all need to eat.' During the hottest part of the day, the six children stay in or around the tent. Their parents prefer the children sleep during the heat — it stops them from running around, using up energy and getting hungry and thirsty. Foraging and begging in the afternoon As the heat eases, the children head out. Sometimes Abeer sends them to beg for food from their neighbors. Otherwise, they scour Gaza's bombed-out streets, foraging through the rubble and trash for anything to fuel the family's makeshift stove. They've become good at recognizing what might burn. Scraps of paper or wood are best, but hardest to find. The bar is low: plastic bottles, plastic bags, an old shoe — anything will do. One of the boys came across a pot in the trash one day — it's what Abeer now uses to cook. The family has been displaced so many times, they have few belongings left. 'I have to manage to get by,' Abeer said. 'What can I do? We are eight people.' If they're lucky, lentil stew for dinner After a day spent searching for the absolute basics to sustain life — food, water, fuel to cook — the family sometimes has enough of all three for Abeer to make a meal. Usually it's a thin lentil soup. But often there is nothing, and they all go to bed hungry. Abeer said she's grown weak and often feels dizzy when she's out searching for food or water. 'I am tired. I am no longer able,' she said. 'If the war goes on, I am thinking of taking my life. I no longer have any strength or power.' ___
