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IN TOUCH – Living Through War

TX:Ìý 24.10.2023Ìý 2040-2100

PRESENTER:Ìý ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý PETER WHITE

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PRODUCER:ÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌýÌý BETH HEMMINGS

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White

Good evening.Ìý Just over nine years ago, during an earlier eruption of violence in the Middle East we introduced the In Touch audience to two totally blind women who made a very big impression on many of you.Ìý They lived on either side of one of the world’s most troubled borders: Dalal Al-Taji in the south of Gaza, Naama Shang just north of the Israeli capital Tel Aviv.Ìý

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The programme wasn’t about the rights and wrongs of the long running dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, that’s been and is still being debated in more appropriate places, it was about the effect on blind people when they can no longer trust the physical environment in which they live and where violence means that your circumstances can change abruptly at any moment.Ìý War, of course, can have this effect on anyone, blind or not, but the sudden changes are surely harder to interpret if you can’t see what’s going on around you.

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Later in this programme, sadly, we have to bring the story up to date.Ìý But first, here’s a part of their discussion then, which made such a deep impression on many listeners.Ìý Starting with Naama Shang.

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Shang

This time the trouble has gotten close to home, in fact, you know, rockets over our town and air raid sirens and us having to go to the bomb shelters.

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White

As a visually impaired person, how do you get to know what’s happening?

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Shang

The siren is audible, so if we can hear, and there were instances where we couldn’t hear it, that’s good, then we have 90 seconds to get to our shelter.Ìý Now people who are closer to the source of trouble may have as little as 15 seconds.Ìý Now sometimes, if you’re listening to the television, it flashes on the screen.

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White

Which you might miss, presumably.

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Shang

Which we might miss, I always worry about that.Ìý We are fortunate in that we actually have a shelter in our flat.Ìý Newer buildings have to have a shelter, either in the flat or in the building.Ìý So, you know, it’s a matter of walking 10 feet.Ìý But I know that for other blind people, it’s quite difficult because there is like a communal one in the building or maybe on the street or around the block and 90 seconds sounds like a long time for some people but it’s actually not a very long time.

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White

And what would happen if you were out?

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Shang

Well, this is the thing.Ìý Obviously before we left, we kind of stopped going out, except for very, very necessary things because I didn’t want to be caught out and not know where to go and, you know, it’s very, very hard to just follow other people or to see signs or things like that.Ìý It was very disruptive.Ìý It’s all consuming, it really is.

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White

And Dalal, what about you, what about warnings?

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Al-Taji

Actually, we don’t have the warnings and we don’t have sirens like what Naama’s talking about, we just hear the bombing.Ìý And because we’ve been – I mean I’ve been living in Gaza for around 18 years now and we’ve seen two wars before that, and I’ve been living in Lebanon, so I know the sounds that come are different.Ìý I know that the bombings from the sea, due to the sound I hear that it’s from the sea.Ìý I know the bombings from the plane because the sound is… it’s different.

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White

Can you explain how it’s different?

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Al-Taji

I don’t know how to actually explain the sound, you know, if you know what I mean.Ìý Of course, the plane you hear it closer because it’s high above your head.Ìý Another thing that we have is the drones, we call danin in Arabic because it gives din din, the drones.Ìý And that’s basically here all the time, I can hear it now, it’s like a surveillance plane.

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White

And what do you have to do?Ìý I mean now Naama talked about having 90 seconds, what about you?

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Al-Taji

I can’t do anything.Ìý Well, the thing is, if you don’t mind me explaining, Gaza is a very small densely populated area so the houses are really close together, so there’s no shelter you could go.Ìý Either you have to stay in your house or you have to try to go somewhere where it’s far from the border or from the clash points.Ìý But we don’t have shelters where people could just go to because there’s no place for them.

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White

Can I just ask you both?Ìý From a purely personal, not a political point of view, Naama, can you see an end to this?

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Shang

No and that’s… you know, one thing that keeps going through my mind, since we started this interview, is that actually Dalal and I are on the same side, we say the same things, we experience the same things.Ìý And it’s just… it brings a point even closer to home, look we all want peace.Ìý I think I mean the person on the street, I’m not talking about the politicians, they do what they do, that’s their thing, we just want normal… you know, some sort of sanity.Ìý And I don’t see that this is going to happen in the current environment, unfortunately.

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White

And Dalal, can I ask you the same, can you see an end?

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Al-Taji

Actually, I mean, as Naama said we are both talking on the same side.Ìý And if you talk to any Palestinian person here, he would say the same, any person on the street.Ìý We just want to live a normal life, we want peace.Ìý I mean I don’t want to be pessimistic and say no, I mean it has to stop because in the end they both are losing and it really has to stop.Ìý And I hope that it stops.

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White

The thoughts there of Dalal Al-Taji in Gaza and Naama Shang in Israel.

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And sadly, of course, as we know from the events of the past fortnight the violence didn’t stop and hasn’t stopped.

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Well, we originally wanted to bring those two together again to tell us how they’re both coping with the stresses of the current situation.Ìý Dalal can join us and we’ll talk to her in just a moment.Ìý Naama Shang is safe and well, we have been in touch with her, but last week she accepted an invitation from friends in Finland, to give her some respite and she can’t take part in today’s programme.Ìý But we are joined from Israel by Heather Stone, also visually impaired, who settled in Israel over 30 years ago.

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Dalal, first, I mean, first of all, thank you for coming back to talk to us again.Ìý Can you just explain your personal circumstances at the moment?

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Al-Taji

Unfortunately, it seems like the more years go the more the war gets [indistinct word]. And this time has been much more difficult than the last time.Ìý The nights are always very difficult.Ìý I mean last night was really difficult, you couldn’t sleep because the bombing was really close and you were wondering what’s going to happen, what’s happening.Ìý If anything happens, what can I do?Ìý So, it’s always been like that.Ìý Of course, the problem, this time, is not only the bombing, it’s that also we don’t have our basic needs of water, we haven’t had electricity for around two weeks.Ìý The house behind mine got bombed, which meant that all my windows in the house have broken.

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White

Can you just explain where you’re living?Ìý Are you living alone or do you have people?

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Al-Taji

Yes, well, actually, one big difference that has changed since 2014 is in 2014 my mum was around, which was much more, you know, better but this time she has gone.Ìý I’m living with my brother and his wife, we both live in the same building, they live downstairs and I live upstairs.Ìý I live in Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Gaza strip in a place called [name], which is in the southern part of the city.

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White

And, at the moment, what do you do when raids take place?

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Al-Taji

I just stay at home.Ìý I don’t have anything else to do.Ìý There’s nowhere else to go.Ìý There’s no shelters, you can’t go anywhere.

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White

Right.Ìý So, how are you coping for supplies, such as food and water?

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Al-Taji

Well, I try to contact either people I know or the Palestine Christian Society because I work with them as well, so I try to contact and communication is very difficult, to try to contact somebody is not easy because not all the networks are working well.Ìý So, that’s something else.Ìý So, I try to contact them and they try to help as much as they can.

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White

Let me go to Heather.Ìý First of all, what about your situation, how are you coping and indeed are you free to go out if you need to?

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Stone

Well, I live in Tel Aviv, in the northern part of the city.Ìý My daughter lives with me, though she’s been in the army reserves, so she is only home some of the time, so some of the time I’m by myself with my dogs.Ìý I have a guide dog and I have another dog.Ìý I am able to go out, though I really do keep very close to home, mostly just to take the dogs out when they need to go…

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White

Do what dogs do.

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Stone

Do what they have to do and then we come right back, I don’t want to be caught outside when there’s a siren.

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White

And have you been caught outside?

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Stone

I have, I have and it’s very, very disorienting to be caught outside when there’s a siren.Ìý I will say that I was very lucky when it happened that there was a boy on the street who called to me to come into his building and he took me to his home, to his apartment, two flights upstairs.Ìý He said that he recognised me from the bus, that he had helped me on the bus before and he asked me if I recognised him and, of course, I told him that I don’t see, so I didn’t recognise him but I appreciated, very much, that he was so kind to take me in with the dogs and take care of me in this situation with his family.

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White

And this was just – this was just a young boy, wasn’t it?

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Stone

Yes, he’s a young boy, I don’t think he was 12, maybe 10 or 11.

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White

When you are out, we heard in that extract that we had at the beginning, about the time that you get, I mean how much warning do you get?

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Stone

In Tel Aviv we also…yeah, we get 90 seconds and we also get these sirens that are broken up by neighbourhood, so we can hear the sirens for our neighbourhood, for the neighbourhoods around us.Ìý So, sometimes, even if the siren doesn’t go off specifically for our neighbourhood, we hear the iron dome intercept missiles go up over our neighbourhood and it reverberates, all the buildings around us shake.

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White

Dalal, do you get warnings?

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Al-Taji

No.Ìý We don’t get any warnings, we just get bombed.Ìý I mean we just sitting suddenly and then the bombing happens, we don’t hear anything.Ìý Sometimes when a plane goes up around, I say to myself, oh what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen.Ìý So, sometimes it bombs or sometimes it’s just going around.Ìý But, basically, there’s not really a warning.

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White

And you mentioned in that last extract drones, are you hearing drones…?

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Al-Taji

Yes, yes, they’re all the time, day and night.

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White

Heather, you’re involved, I think, with a number of organisations for blind people in Israel, what kind of help is available in this extreme situation, I mean are there things blind people just can’t do now?

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Stone

Yeah, all of my activities with my blind groups have been put off.Ìý So, for instance, I have a swim group with blind people and that’s been cancelled because there’s no shelter in the facility.Ìý But I’m also part of a bicycling group, a tandem bicycling group, and that group, we haven’t been able to ride where we would normally ride with a sighted rider in the front and a visually impaired or blind rider in the back.Ìý But what we have done is we’ve organised for the sighted riders are now taking walks with the blind or visually impaired riders.Ìý And so, two or three times a week, somebody from the group comes and takes me out for a nice walk, which is nice because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get out of the house.

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White

Dalal, is there help for you and other blind people in Gaza?Ìý I mean, for instance, people who perhaps need help with various things like cooking, cleaning, etc.

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Al-Taji

Well, actually, yes, I mean before this happened, I used to get people to help with cleaning and cooking and buying things I need and maybe taking me out to work and taking me out here and there and going out on the street.Ìý At the moment, I don’t have this because the people who come and help actually live in different areas, so you can’t really ask them to come.Ìý I haven’t been out since it started.Ìý I can’t really go out anywhere on the street because, first of all, nobody to go out with and if you take somebody you have to bear their responsibility and it’s dangerous because they could get injured or killed.Ìý I just stay at home.Ìý I just want to comment on what Heather said about the community being cooperative.Ìý Really people here are… I mean our neighbours, they know me and they know us, so anything they can do that I need they’re really great as well.Ìý Even some of them, if I needed cooking, if I needed something, you know, people are really taking care.Ìý But also, it’s not as easy as when you have somebody who actually comes and helps.Ìý And Heather said that, you know, you can go out and have fresh air which is needed but I can’t do that.

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White

One of the things which you talked about was not being able to get out but you also talked about the lack of food and water and, of course, we’re all hearing about the situation where there’s hardly anything available and the lorries are only coming in, in a dribble.

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Al-Taji

Yes, I mean, the water, I always say water’s more important than any other things, in my opinion.Ìý And so, every day, you’re waking up in the morning, trying to look for water because we have two types of water – we have a sweet water, because we can’t drink the water that we wash with because it’s contaminated – so, we have to look for sweet water and we have to look for ordinary water and you have to, every day, try to look for water.Ìý And the problem is, the municipality provides you with water from underground, from the wells, but when the house behind us got bombed this got affected, so we have to get somebody to help try to fix it so that we could easily get water straight to the tanks.Ìý That’s very difficult.Ìý And, of course, the other problem is we have a tank in the ground and a tank upstairs.Ìý Now the water which takes the water from down to up is with electricity and now there’s no electricity so the tank down is full but you can’t fill up the one upstairs, so you have to look for a generator.Ìý It is very complicated and very difficult.

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White

Heather, we’ve been talking then about resources but what about your situation, I mean how are you coping emotionally with all this?

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Stone

We’re in a situation where we’re still reeling from the events of October 7th and, you know, everyone here knows someone who’s been murdered or kidnapped or is missing and, you know, I’m not an exception from that.Ìý I’m the vice-chair of Democrats Abroad Israel and a member of our board, her son was killed and we’re all devastated by it and, you know, the traditions between Jews and Muslims are similar to have burials right away but because of the state of the bodies and the sheer number of the bodies all of that has been delayed and the burials were delayed for more than a week, in some cases two weeks.Ìý It’s just been a very, very hard period for all of us who’ve been waiting for news about our loved ones.

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White

I’m going to ask you both this:Ìý I mean, Heather, you’ve now been in Israel for over 30 years, have you ever thought of living?

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Stone

I’ve had thoughts about it at different periods of time in my life but I have not thought about it in the last, I’d say, 15 years or so.

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White

You haven’t thought, this is just too stressful to take, these situations which seem to recur?

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Stone

No, it’s a part of living here but there are some very good things about living here and I still believe that somehow or other we will some day achieve peace, I really do hope that it will come and maybe out of this horrific tragedy it will come.

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White

And Dalal, what about you, I mean would you… would you every leave, could you ever leave?

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Al-Taji

No, I can’t ever leave and I won’t ever leave.Ìý I can’t ever leave at the moment because the borders are not open but I won’t ever leave because this is my place, this is my country, these are my people, these are my friends, this is my house.Ìý I will never ever think of leaving.Ìý Maybe if I would go out just for a few weeks just to get refresher but to actually leave, I can’t do that because as Heather said, as well, there are good things not only bad things, there are good things here.Ìý So, no, no way… no way I would think of leaving.Ìý I mean we all want peace, nobody, I think, wise enough would want war [indistinct words] just to go on.

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White

Dalal Al-Taji, Heather Stone, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to In Touch when you both must have many other things on your mind.Ìý And we can only say – do stay safe.

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Al-Taji

Thanks Peter.

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Stone

Thank you, Peter and thank you Dalal.

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Al-Taji

Thank you, Heather.

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White

That’s all for today.Ìý From me, Peter White, producer Beth Hemmings and studio managers Andy Garvey and Chris Hardman, goodbye.