ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today we're hearing different perspectives on the anniversary of the deadly Hamas attacks. In Israel, it was a day of reflection. Now let's hear what it sounded like in Gaza today. And a warning - this report contains descriptions of war.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
SHAPIRO: That sound was captured today by NPR's producer Anas Baba in Gaza. And we are joined now by NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai to talk about what today and the last year have been like for people in Gaza. Hi there.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: I want to start with this finding by the aid group Oxfam in Gaza. They say more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over this past year than in any other war in recent decades over a 12-month period. What does that actually look like for people living there?
BATRAWY: So Israel has barred independent access to foreign journals throughout this war. And so we've been relying on people in Gaza, our producer there and aid workers for firsthand accounts. One of the aid workers I spoke with over the past year is UNICEF's James Elder. He told me about a 7-year-old boy named Omar that he'd met in March, one of more than 10,000 kids whose parents have been killed this year in Israeli airstrikes. And he told me the boy kept gently closing his eyes as he spoke.
JAMES ELDER: And I asked his auntie, why does he close his eyes? And she said he's just so terrified of forgetting what his parents look like.
SHAPIRO: Palestinian civilians in Gaza have borne the brunt of this war. And I know there are people you have been speaking to over the last year. Will you introduce us to a family who you've kept in touch with?
BATRAWY: Yeah. So on the second day of this war, I reached Eman Abusaeid in Gaza City. She's an architect, social worker and a mother of two. Israeli fighter jets were bombing all across Gaza City already, and she didn't know where to go. And details were still emerging then about the scale of Hamas' attack on Israel October 7.
EMAN ABUSAEID: We don't like that to happen, but it's a react for what Gazans here living since 2006, since the occupation started from 1948, and no one just caring about Gaza and the Gazans.
SHAPIRO: So that was nearly one year ago now. What happened next?
BATRAWY: She heeded Israeli evacuation orders the following week and - that told people to leave Gaza City for their own safety. So she and her husband and kids huddled in her parents' apartment in central Gaza with other siblings, nephews, nieces. And then on October 31, an Israeli war plane struck the residential building, killing Eman and her entire family. And months later, Human Rights Watch released an investigation into that specific airstrike, and they confirmed the identities of 106 civilians killed, just over half of them children. The death toll's actually likely much higher. At least 350 people had been sheltering in the building. Here's what Gerry Simpson, the lead researcher on that investigation, told me.
GERRY SIMPSON: It was a targeted attack on that building. And if you attack a building where there is no military target and you kill this number of people, it's automatically very likely a war crime.
BATRAWY: And actually, South Africa has brought a case at the International Court of Justice against Israel, accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza, an accusation that Israel denies.
SHAPIRO: What did the Israeli military say about this attack?
BATRAWY: Well, we reached out to them several times over several months, and none of our questions were answered regarding this attack. Human Rights Watch also heard nothing back, not even after the report was published.
SHAPIRO: There was one survivor in that attack. Tell us about her.
BATRAWY: Yes, there was one, Eman's younger sister, Taqwa Abusaeid.
TAQWA ABUSAEID: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: She tells me faintly over the phone from Gaza City that she woke up in a hospital after the attack, asking to see her oldest child, Somaya, who was 12. And her last memory was sitting in her parents' living room under the window with her 4-month-old son, Ibrahim, on her lap. For weeks, she went in and out of consciousness at that hospital, calling out for her kids.
T ABUSAEID: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: She'd ask if her baby, Ibrahim, had any milk. A month after the airstrike, relatives would tell her the truth - that all six of her kids were killed in that airstrike, that she alone survived. I read the names and ages of her kids back to her.
(Reading in non-English language).
And Ari, Taqwa has almost no photos or videos of her kids either because her phone was destroyed in the attack. But she clings to these few seconds of her kids on a raft in a pool in a video.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Non-English language spoken).
SHAPIRO: And so today, what does she tell you about how she gets through life in Gaza, without her children, without her family?
BATRAWY: It's really not much of a life at all. I mean, this is a woman who lost everything in a flash.
(SOUNDBITE OF CALL TO PRAYER)
BATRAWY: When I was talking to her, the call to prayer in Gaza City rang out. And I asked her what she prays for in these moments.
T ABUSAEID: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: She said she prays to be reunited with her kids. And she prays for death - what people in Gaza call martyrdom. And she told me no cease-fire will ever bring back her children. The striking thing, Ari, is that her story, this family's pain, is still being inflicted on more families in Gaza every day as airstrikes keep pounding the territory. And so with so many orphans and grieving parents in Gaza, many are asking how life there can ever resume again.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Thank you.
BATRAWY: Thank you, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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