By Gideon Levy
The apartment in the town of Dura, south of Hebron, is spacious, but Osama Rasras lives there alone. (snip)
A photograph of his son, Ahmed, hangs on the wall, and Rasras' mobile phone displays a photo of both Ahmed and his sister, Dalal. Looking at their images makes Osama sad. Not so long ago - though it seems like an eternity - he and his wife, Soniya, lived here contentedly with their two children. Now Soniya and the little ones are in Rafah, in the northern Gaza Strip, and Osama is in Dura, in the southern West Bank. They are only an hour and a half apart by car, but neither can cross the hills of darkness on the way. They have been living separately for a year now.
Dalal, 18 months old, was born with microcephaly (an underdeveloped brain) due to "prenatal oxygen deficiency." She is in need of urgent surgery and other complex treatment, which is unavailable in Gaza; her condition is deteriorating. She is spastic, paralyzed, mute and strabismal (cross-eyed). There is nothing to be done for her in the Strip. Last week she was rushed again to the small European Hospital in Khan Yunis and again discharged, because the physicians cannot treat her.
(snip)
Two weeks before the start of the second intifada, Osama became engaged to Soniya Rasras, a relative, now 29. She was studying to be an English teacher and lived with her parents in the house closest to the sea in the Tel al-Sultan neighborhood of Rafah. Osama often visited the city before the eruption of the intifada, and fell in love with Soniya.
For the next three years they were unable to meet even once, as the gates of Gaza were closed to residents of the West Bank. The wedding was repeatedly postponed. He constantly requested an entry permit and was refused; she constantly requested an exit permit and was refused. But the telephone romance heated up. "I was very fond of her," Osama says, embarrassed.
On February 17, 2003, he finally received a one-day entry permit to the Gaza Strip. He hurried to his fiancee's home, married her, and the young couple lived in Rafah for 11 months. Their rented apartment was opposite the home of the 24-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed in March 2003, crushed under an Israeli military bulldozer. After 11 months, Soniya received a one-day permit to enter the West Bank; the couple moved to Nablus to live with Osama's parents. A few months later, Soniya got a job teaching English in a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, in the Al-Fawar refugee camp, south of Hebron. Osama worked in the offices of the Palestinian Authority in Bethlehem. The couple moved to Dura.
Osama changed his address to Dura in his Israeli-issue ID card, but Soniya was unable to do likewise, because Gaza residents are forbidden to move to the West Bank. In the meantime, the children were born, Ahmed in August 2004, Dalal in April 2007. Dalal's brain damage was diagnosed when she was four months old. The parents visited every physician and hospital in the West Bank in an effort to help their daughter. St. Joseph Hospital in East Jerusalem recommended surgery, but a hospital in Jordan, where they sought a second opinion, recommended waiting a few months before operating.
One day last December, they received a late-night phone call from Rafah: Soniya's father had suffered a stroke and was in serious condition. Soniya wanted desperately to take her final leave of her father. The very next morning she took the children, snuck into Israel through the village of Yatta and then made her way to the Erez terminal on the border with the Gaza Strip. She was certain she would be able to return to her home in Dura within a few days. As she was a Rafah resident, Israel allowed her into Gaza, but very soon it became clear that she had only a one-way permit. "Her father did not die," Osama says with a sad smile. "But since then our family has died." Soniya and the children have been stuck in Rafah ever since.
"We are not aware of any request by Mrs. Rasras and her two children," a spokesman for the Israeli Civil Administration has stated in response to our query. "If the facts of the article are correct, it is clear that this is indeed a distinctive humanitarian case, and when a request is received from the Palestinian side it will be dealt with with the sensitivity required in such cases. It is important to note that since the beginning of 2008, more than 12,000 Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip for medical purposes and have received treatment in hospitals in Israel, Judea and Samaria, and Jordan."
Osama is now sparing no effort to be reunited with his wife and children, and above all to try to save Dalal. An Israeli lawyer he hired told him that the request to allow Soniya and the children to return has indeed been under consideration for some time. But time is passing and the little girl's condition is worsening. Her spastic attacks and loss of consciousness are becoming more frequent. Hardly a day goes by when she is not rushed to hospital in Khan Yunis and sent home because the medical staff there is incapable of treating her.
Soniya, too, is desperate. She has submitted five requests via the Palestinian District Coordination and Liaison Office, but has not received a reply. A few months ago, in a desperate move, she took the two children and went to the Erez terminal. Maybe they will see Dalal's condition and let us through, she thought naively. After waiting for six hours, she returned home, her misery only compounded.
read on...
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1041620.html
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