ABC | Nicole Johnston | 25 February 2024
Having now spoken with a family that escaped Gaza after their home was destroyed, their possessions destroyed and fleeing for their lives multiple times the horror just cannot be imagined – Mark
Nicole Johnston spent a year living in Gaza in 2011 and visited the territory more than a dozen times — covering the 2012 and 2014 wars — in more than a decade spent living and working as a correspondent in the Middle East.
It’s impossible to fathom the torment of Gaza’s families as they try to protect their children as an Israeli ground invasion of Rafah looms.
However, there is one Gaza family I know very well, the Zyaras of north Gaza, and through them I glimpse the horror of the war they’re living through.
When I lived in the Gaza Strip in 2011, I spent most Fridays with Samy and Frial Zyara, and their nine children — two girls and seven boys, which include a set of triplet boys.
All the children’s names are still imprinted in my mind; Omar, Mohammed, Asil, Bashar, Farah, Yousef, Yasin, Ahmed and Karam. During the period I lived in Gaza, these children were all under the age of 12.
Now, the Zyara children have grown into teenagers and young adults.
Samy, or “baba” (which means father in Arabic), is a journalist for ABC America, so he still has the resources to provide for his family during this war, for now.
But in the past four months he’s moved them 16 times, searching for safety, from one end of the Gaza Strip to the other.
Like 85 per cent of Gaza’s population, the Zyaras are displaced. They’re now sheltering in an apartment in Rafah.
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