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Survivors recount Gaza horror

Last Updated 27 July 2014, 20:41 IST

For 35-year-old Lucknow native Abdul Rehman, his Ramzan fasts in Gaza were not broken by the call of the muezzin but with the deafening noise of bomb explosions.

“Bombs were going off in the distance around us all the time. Rockets were raining from the skies; hearing and seeing explosions became a daily affair. Even our roza (fast) began and ended with blasts in the background,” Rehman said.

His wife and only son Shah Rukh still cannot believe that he survived and returned home safely from the strife-torn region. Rehman is among the four Indian tailors who were working in Gaza for the past two years. They were recently evacuated unharmed with the help of the representative office of India (ROI) in Ramallah.

The horrors of living under the shadow of death still haunts them. “It still sends shivers down my spine. I saw people being blown away by bombs, dismembered bodies strewn on the streets and people running helter-skelter to find shelter from the rockets that were dropping from the sky,” he said.

“We ourselves would run from place to place. For days, we didn’t eat anything but just cried in the corner of our room...The blood and gory sights still haunt us. We pray for the well-being and safety of all,” he said.

The four survivors left Gaza Strip the Sunday before last, one of the bloodiest days of the conflict with 97 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed in an attack launched by Israel Defence Forces. Fellow survivor Rashid Ahmed (34), who had at a time “lost all hope”, cannot thank “Allah” enough for uniting him with his family in Bareilly.

“We four had lost all hope of seeing our loved ones, meeting with our family seemed like a distant dream. A family photo was my only source of solace in the hours of agony,” Ahmed said.

He said his family and him would never forget this Eid. “Eid is round the corner and all of us nine brothers have come together for the festival. I thank Allah and our Indian friends in the embassy there who rescued us from the jaws of death,” he said.

The Palestinian death toll now stands at over 1,000 since the conflict began on July 8.

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(Published 27 July 2014, 20:41 IST)

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