NOT WITHOUT MY CHILDREN …
Been thinking about a story I did in Gaza and Israel. Was a really touching human interest tale.
A woman in Israel by the name of Galit Popik, originally from Russia, met and married a Palestinian man from Gaza. She moved to live with him and his family just outside Gaza city. There they had six children. But after a few years the marriage fell apart and Galit, who now lives in Israel, says she "escaped" with three of her children back to Israel. I meet her in Nazareth where she now lives with her mother and three children, speaks Hebrew and practices Judaism. Her husband was killed in last year's Gaza war in a freak accident - a stray bullet hit him just metres from his front door as he was walking home from work. I also met his children in Gaza - his oldest daughter (who is about eight or nine years old) spoke in Arabic about how much she misses her mother and sisters. She looks after the youngest children - twins who are slightly mentally retarded - who were left behind in Gaza with her. (Galit says she couldn't take more than three children with her when she escaped and decided not to take the oldest as she might have said something to her father; and the twins were too heavy to carry). She asked the Israeli army to bring her remaining children with them back to Israel when they left Gaza at the end of Operation Cast Lead in January 2009 - the army of course refused.
So, you have this legal nightmare. In Israel, Galit and her children fall under the jurisdiction of the Israeli authorities. In Gaza, her three other children who live with their paternal grandfather and his family fall under the ruling Hamas authorities. They speak Arabic, practice Islam (they took us to their father's grave and recited Muslim prayers) - and would now find it difficult to talk to their siblings who speak only English. Galit is too afraid to return to Gaza - even though her former father-in-law says he would welcome her back with open arms. Neither side is prepared to compromise so you have this tragic situation of a split family - and there is nothing anyone can do because Israel and Hamas don't speak with one another - quite the opposite - they are at war. It's not that this is a love story gone wrong - perhaps the surprising part is that the love story could have begun in the first place!