Omar Abu al Ouf is revising his schoolwork for his final exams, hoping to get good grades to fulfill his dream of becoming an engineer. However, this 17-year-old finds it difficult to focus. His thoughts constantly wander to his family, who perished when their apartment building in Gaza City was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.
"It's like he's wandering somewhere," said his grandmother Manar at the boy's uncle's house, where he now lives. "His whole family perished, for no reason".
Ouf spent 12 hours under the collapsed building, with his arm over the body of his 12-year-old sister Tala. His brother Tavfik, 17, was alive for several hours, they talked to each other in the dark, suffocating from the dust. Tavfik told him that their mother Rim was dead, and before the rescuers reached them, Tavfik also died from his injuries. Their father, Ayman, an internal medicine specialist at Gaza's main hospital, was also killed in the attack.
In the 11-day conflict last May between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, Ouf was left completely alone. A year later, this teenager suffers from neurological problems in his right arm and leg. He's trying to build his life, but still can't figure out what happened.
"Ramadan and Eid are very difficult this year. I miss them every day. This is not how I imagined my life," he said. “I don't go out much. Sometimes my friends visit me, but now we all have to study. Since the tragedy, my only hobby is crying."
Ouf now lives with his uncle's family not far from his old home in a residential area where 44 people were killed in an Israeli attack on May 16 last year. It was the deadliest attack in the conflict, killing a total of 256 Palestinians in Gaza and 14 people in Israel.
The Israeli Defense Forces announced that the civilian casualties in Veda Street were "unintentional", caused by the collapse of the underground foundations of the Hamas military structure, which took the apartment block with it. Human rights groups such as Amnesty International argue that the incident may constitute a war crime.
A year later, only five percent of the 1000 housing units, roads and other infrastructure destroyed in the bombing of the Gaza Strip have been rebuilt, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Urban Planning.
Much of the UN and other funding from outside donors is often held up in protracted diplomatic negotiations or due to obstruction by Israeli and Egyptian authorities, who have blockaded the area since the Islamist group took control in 2007. The de facto siege has led to the collapse of the health system, water poisoning in Gaza and regular interruptions in electricity supply.
The ruins of the last battles may have been cleared, but the gaping holes and sandy plots littered with trash remain as a daily reminder of the lives and homes lost.
Tensions between Hamas and Israel are rising again. Leaders of the militant group praised the recent surge in terrorist attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people, and called on Palestinian citizens in Israel and those living in the occupied West Bank to carry out more attacks. Hamas has also threatened another all-out war if clashes continue at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem.
In response, Israeli officials reportedly conveyed a warning to Yahya Sinwar, the top Hamas leader in Gaza, that his latest speeches encouraging terrorism would give Israel the freedom to respond militarily.
Israel closed the last border crossing for most of the 12000 Palestinians in Gaza with work permits outside the area for two weeks, and Israeli media reported that the government was considering further limiting that number in the future.
The loss of income has added to the daily grind in a place where an entire generation grew up trapped in an overcrowded, polluted coastal enclave.
Ouf, who has already lost everything, says that he does not care if there will be another war. He hopes to leave Gaza one day - perhaps to study abroad - but he finds it hard to think about the future.
"It's hard to express everything I feel," he said. "I wanted to work hard, celebrate my exam results, go to university... I wanted my father to be proud of me. Instead, I was left alone”.
Translation: N. Bogetić
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