New, 'extended range' teargas projectile, similar to the one fired at Tristan's head. Photo: ISM Palestine
The impact of the projectile caused numerous condensed fractures to Anderson’s forehead and right eye socket. During the operation, part of his right frontal lobe had to be removed, as it was penetrated by bone fragments. A brain fluid leakage was sealed using a tendon from his thigh, and both his right eye and skin suffered extensive damage. The long term scope of all of Tristan’s injuries is yet unknown.It should also be noted that soldiers at the Ni’ilin checkpoint prevented the Red Crescent ambulance from taking Tristan directly to the hospital, forcing it to wait for approximately 15 minutes until an Israeli ICU ambulance (called by Israeli activists) arrived at the scene, after which he had to be carried from one ambulance to the other. This, of course, is standard procedure - in the extremely rare cases where the army allows patients from the occupied territories to be tranferred into Israel.
In the taxi on our way home from Rafah, the man in the seat in front, from Beit Lahia, showed us photos of his three children on his phone. He said something about “phosphorous”. “They were all burnt with the phosphorous bombs?” I asked, looking at those little faces.
He shook his head, I hadn’t understood. They were all killed.
A couple of days ago, I made contact with Maher, a clinical psychologist from the Palestine Trauma Centre. The 14 year old in the family of our Jabalia friends whose mother S was killed in the first ten minutes of the Dec 27 attacks is frightened to ever be alone, even for a moment, and I wanted to see what support is available to her. I am also worried about another family member, F’s small nephew A, who bursts into tears whenever he hears tank fire - as he did the last time we were there visiting a few weeks ago. He has been traumatised to some extent ever since his father’s legs were blown off several years ago, and the recent hiding in the basement under bombing then fleeing their home hasn’t helped.
The PTC has only been fairly recently formed, and during the attacks its university trained therapists were in the field, 32 of them, based for example in the UNWRA schools-turned-into-refuges. Maher told me about one woman they did their best to help. Her family were in their house in Attatra when it was shelled. Her husband was decapitated by explosion in front of her. Her four children were set on fire by phosphorous bombs and died begging her for help she couldn’t give, but she sustained 3rd degree burns trying.
When the PTC people first met her shortly afterwards she was not sleeping, but awake 24 hours a day, weeping and calling for someone to help her children - who in her head were still alive and burning. After two weeks working with her, they took her to the graves of the children, to show her they were really gone. The therapists knew that, due to her burns and the possibility of contamination, they should do their best to prevent her from touching the earth of the graves. But of course she fell to the ground and tried to find some way to gather her children into her arms.
Another patient they have been working with, a 13 year old, didn’t lose her family, but her room and all her belongings were burnt. When she saw what was left, she quietly began to eat the ashes.
Later, I was listening to some Palestinians talking about the attacks.
“What do you think we learnt from this time?” one asked.
“It should teach us to stick together more.” the other answered.
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