* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
A year after the start of the Gaza conflict, aid worker Tania Kisserli reveals the invisible scars beneath mangled roads and buildings.
Working for the British Red Cross, I was in Gaza just days after last summer’s fighting came to an end. This violence left thousands dead and the territory in ruins.
In Gaza, everywhere I turned, reminders of the conflict stared me in the face – huge piles of rubble where homes used to be, bullet holes peppering schools and hospitals, olive and fruit groves uprooted.
I’ve seen a lot of sadness and destruction in my career, but the sheer scale of the destruction in Gaza is simply overwhelming.
And Gaza’s wounds run even deeper even than this physical damage. Some wounds are hidden, and some can’t be seen at all.
Psychological damage, for example. Across Gaza, 300,000 to 400,000 children are in need of mental health support. What they have seen in their short lives, no child should ever witness.
Even a swig from a cup or bottle probably holds a nasty, invisible surprise. The UN has found 90 per cent of water in Gaza does not meet safe standards for drinking.
And sometimes what’s missing, rather than what’s there, is at the root of the problem. Like building materials.
Less than 1 per cent of the supplies needed to rebuild damaged or destroyed homes, and house Gaza’s growing population, have entered the territory since the fighting stopped.
What else has the conflict sucked out of Gaza? Jobs. Medicine. Electricity. The fighting has gone, but it’s taken the already weak building blocks of normal life with it.
Making sense of the chaos
The numbers that show the scale of the problem are no secret – but their baffling size means they are, somehow, invisible too.
For example: 1.3million people in Gaza need humanitarian help. Can you picture that many people? Packed in to just 360 square kilometres?
Try and visualize every man, woman and child in Edinburgh, then do the same for Newcastle, and add everyone in Oxford, too. That’s still not enough.
Or imagine every person in Cornwall. Twice. You’d still be hundreds of thousands short.
How about this statistic: 150,000 homes have been completely or partially destroyed. Picture a street of terraced houses miles and miles long, stretching away further than the eye can see.
Now imagine every house is broken, battered or caved in completely.
We’re not leaving
During last year’s fighting, the Red Cross brought vital help to the people of Gaza. This included hospitals and ambulance services, as well as emergency food supplies and social support for families.
Much of the work was done by local volunteers, risking their lives to help others. Three volunteers died during the conflict.
We didn’t leave when the fighting stopped – we’ve been carrying out vital projects such as getting water, power and sewage systems running again.
One year after the start of the conflict, people in Gaza want the kind of things we all want – a steady job, a home, health care. Education and a brighter future for their children.
We can’t leave. And we can’t let these people become invisible, too.
