'If we can hear the bombs, we are alive': MEMO in Conversation with Eman Basher

Middle East Monitor Conversations

Two weeks into Israel's relentless campaign of bombing the Gaza Strip have left Eman Basher no longer able to convince her son that the lights and sounds in the sky are just fireworks and there is no reason for him to be scared.

As Israel's military assault on the besieged Gaza Strip continues, leaving in its wake thousands of deaths and millions of displaced Palestinians, MEMO in conversation speak to Eman Basher. Eman is an evacuee from Beit Hanoun who is seeking shelter in southern Gaza. A teacher and a mother, Eman speaks to us about the harrowing situation she and many Gazans find themselves in.
Her son has asthma which is worsening due to the smoky air filled with sulphur that's engulfed Gaza as a result of the senseless Israeli bombing. She talks about no longer being able to getting away with telling her son the sounds and lights are just fireworks and how she cannot tell her children that the bombs raining down around them could kill them any time and that he needs to be brave and be a fighter.
She rejects all claims made by Israeli officials in the media that buildings are being used as shelters for the resistance's fighters or equipment in Gaza, highlighting that it is exactly this rhetoric that has meant there is nowhere to seek safety and shelter in Gaza as Israel continues to bomb schools, hospitals and cemeteries and target roads that those being told to leave their homes are forced to use to escape.