“I provided my neighborhood with fresh fruit and vegetables, but now I watch my customers starve.”
I’m Mohammad Mousa Abu Fidda, the green grocer. The entire neighbourhood used to come to my shop to buy produce. I’d only keep the freshest fruit and vegetables. All day long people streamed in and out, and we’d always take time to chat.
My wife, Wafa, and I have been blessed with six children. They are Mahmoud, Ahmad, Hussein, Mohamad, Nour Al-Huda, and Jana. They are sweet, dutiful children who attended school as well as being hafiz-e-Quran (memorized the Quran).
Now that the Occupation isn’t letting many food aid trucks in, has destroyed our fields and cut down our trees, the shelves in my shop are quite bare. What little I can manage to get is so prohibitively expensive that my neighbours can’t afford to buy much. It makes me feel bad but scarcity has tied my hands. I pray the bombing ends soon, and people can eat properly.
For the last month, my brother Emad’s wife and 6 children have been living with us in our apartment. Emad, who worked at Al Azhar University, went to rescue a neighbour severely injured by a drone. Both were targeted and killed by another drone during the rescue attempt. My home is a tight squeeze for 15 people but at least we are all safe, for now.
One month after Emad was killed and his family moved in with Mousa and Wafa, on January 29th, Israeli warplanes bombed the Abu-Sha’ban building in Al-Saraya where their apartment was located. Both families were wiped out along with many others.
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