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'Our family has died' By Gideon Levy Tags: Israel news, Hebron  The apartment in the town of Dura, south of Hebron, is spacious, but Osama Rasras lives there alone. His home is as elegant as it is empty. In the room he shared with his wife, the bed is made and covered with a blue bedspread on which a few books are lying. The children's room is empty, too; only a plastic model tractor evokes its former occupants. The kitchen is spotless and shining, as are the other rooms: All are immaculately clean, all are deserted. Osama has learned to cook, clean and launder by himself. 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. Advertisement Four-year-old Ahmed speaks to his father on the phone: "You are a lying daddy. Every day you promise me you will come tomorrow, but you don't come." Neither "family unification" nor "humanitarian needs" nor anything else is able to bring this couple back together. Their "mistake" was for Soniya to go to Rafah a year ago to bid her dying father farewell. He has since recovered, but she and the children have been stuck there ever since. Osama considered writing to the defense minister: Maybe Ehud Barak could help. "What do you think?" he asked us in total despair. "Should I write to Barak?" The road to Dura passes through Hebron, now rife with uniformed Palestinian police. There's a cop on every corner, and the force's jeeps and vans speed by, sirens blaring, engaged for the most part - as security contractors for Israel - in a manhunt for Hamas activists. Osama is waiting for us in front of his home. He apologizes for his beard with a bashful smile, asserting: "I am not Hamas." He is an affable man of 38, not embittered by the ordeals of his life. He was born and raised in Nablus to a family of refugees from Faluja, a village of which only a ghostly presence now remains, near present-day Kiryat Gat. The family scattered far and wide, some fleeing to Rafah, others to Nablus. 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. The fact that St. Joseph Hospital invited Dalal for an operation in July made no difference to the authorities. Twice a day, morning and evening, Osama talks to his wife and son. Each conversation is more depressing than the last. This past summer he had a heart attack and underwent a catheterization procedure in Ramallah. During the recent holiday season, he says, Soniya searched high and low in Gaza to buy a toy for little Ahmed. She found nothing, due to the siege: Israel allows only basic commodities for "humanitarian purposes" into the Gaza Strip. A toy for a little boy who is being kept apart from his father is not on the list. Bookmark to del.icio.us   Light unto the nations Obama must help Israel break its territorial addiction. Blockade busters Israeli Arab leaders vow to sail to Gaza to break blockade.   1.   Every Palestinian Levy meets is "affable" 23:01  |  McQueen 30/11/08   2.   Kapo Levy is lying as always.They "don`t have children toys in Ga 23:18  |  Absolute Sweden 30/11/08   3.   Why? 03:29  |  newageblues 01/12/08   4.   `Our Family has died` 03:52  |  Jon Hornstein 01/12/08   5.   wording is importnt 09:03  |  seth grodofsky 01/12/08   6.   words 09:12  |  seth grodofsky 01/12/08   7.   There lies the problem - "Judea & Samaria" 09:30  |  Steve the Pals. 01/12/08

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