Isabel Maxwell: My Friend Izzeldin

[Israel Insider]

Back at the end of October last, I was in Tel Aviv at the international conference celebrating the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Peres Center for Peace activities, which I attended in my capacity as a member of the Board of Governors. There were 40 international guests including many Palestinians and Palestinian students too, who were highly participatory and I felt encouraged for the first time since the Lebanon War of the summer before.

Little did I know then that within three short months, Israel would plunge into Gaza, and that I would become a telephone witness to the unspeakable tragedy of one recently widowed Gazan doctor, whom I had befriended 10 years before when he was a resident at Soroka Hospital and I was receiving an award from there and getting involved with helping fundraise for the hospital.

By now most of the readers of this column will know the public story: the doctor from Jabalaya who was trained by Israel and treated Israelis and Palestinians alike at Soroka Hospital. A peace activist, whose three daughters of his 8 children, were horrifically killed last Friday when his house was bombed during an exchange of fire between an Israeli tank and Hamas. There was Bisan, aged 20 who had taken over her mother’s role and was also a student - she had been thrown from a bed to the floor. Mayar, 15, and Aya, 14, were also dead, along with Noor, a 17-year-old cousin. Shatha, 17, who was badly wounded in the eye, was a straight-A student, and another niece was badly wounded too.

I have decided to repeat here something of my private conversations with Izzeldin, to testify to the ‘WYSIWYG’ of the man – What You See IS What You Get – his outlook from the time of Soroka many years before, till now, had strengthened if anything. We talked at length about the special responsibility he had, as an international spokesperson for his country and as a bridge for peace through medicine. I would telephone him on his cell phone in Gaza and his streams of conversation and my questions and expressions were punctuated throughout by the heavy noises of gunfire and bombs and artillery – for me, a most surreal and uncomfortable experience.

Here I was, looking out at the blue Pacific Ocean with the little white sails of boats skimming along in the distance, and the sun beaming in the sky, while 10,000 miles away my friend has not left his home in 19 days and lives in total fear of it being reduced to rubble at any moment. At one particularly loud explosion, I said in alarm, “Izzeldin!!! I’m so worried for you! Please! What is happening?!”

“Isabel! The house is shaking! The whole house is shaking! So close!!”

“Izzeldin! I don’t think you should be speaking on the phone any more! Please go and be with your children!” He told me that his brother was there and it was OK and he wanted to go on talking. I got the impression it somehow helped him to be talking to the outside world…….and so I kept going….We talked about his children, about his poor dead wife, and how she had died….about his dreams for the future…..

His streams of consciousness were of this nature – he would say things like:

“Isabel, I know, I know so much I have the responsibility for building bridge to peace. All my life I have worked for peace I been all over the world, in Israel, in Canada, in Afghanistan, in in Germany, in England, all these places I have been and you know me, Isabel, I love my work, I love helping people for the peace, my children I want them to know a better world, I want my people to know a better world. The tunnels are no way for a people to live! It is disgusting. They are Mafia who control those tunnels. The Leadership is no good, no good! I stood for Parliament as an independent and you know I got 6,000 votes in my area. I was very popular in my area - the people they know me well, they know what I do. I love Gaza, I love my people. They deserve better” Come to Gaza, it’s nice here, when things are better, you come.” When the fighting has died down
I am dying to take my camera outside and take pictures of my house….. “

But the last comment I heard before his life changed for ever, was one of such simplicity and so human -

Isabel. You know what I want most right now? I want to take a shower.

“Izzeldin, take good, good care, we are working so hard on getting you and your children out.”

“God willing, Isabel, we will make it through. “

“Yes, yes, I’ll talk to you tomorrow…”

When I woke up in the morning of the 16th, my thoughts turned immediately to Israel and my friend in Gaza…. I opened up my email anxiously as I have done for the past three weeks, and the worse news hit me. My friend Moshe emailed me from Jerusalem to inform me that he had seen the tragedy of Izzeldin played out on Israeli TV – HORRIFIED, I tried to call Izzeldin, hoping against hope it was a mistake. His phone answers and all hell breaks loose on the line. Sirens are blaring, his voice is horribly strained and different.

“Who’s this? Who’s this?”

“Izzeldin, I raise my voice into the phone speaker, “It’s me Isabel, ISABEL”–

“AAAARGH ALLAH ALLAH, THEY KILLED MY CHILDREN, MY CHILDREN!!!

Why? Why? What did my children do to deserve this? What did I do? ALL MY LIFE I WORK FOR PEACE Allah Allah . Isabel, tell me! What did I do, what did we do?? AH!!!

I’m devastated at this torrent of anguish and grief and shock that is pouring down the phone into my ear. I’m destroyed for him and to be speaking to him at such a traumatic moment, is beyond heart-breaking –

“Izzeldin! I’m sooooooo SORRRRRRRY, soooooooo SORRRRRY…..
I have to raise my voice – “WHERE ARE YOU ? WHERE ARE YOU ?
WHO IS WITH YOU ?

“I’m in the ambulance, ambulance, ah Sala!!!!!! My daughter my daughter.” “Where are the others? Where are your other children?!”

He does not answer, but cries out in great gasps and gags -

“THEY KNEW MY HOUSE THEY KNEW ME I AM GIVING INTERVIEWS ALL THE TIME TO THE ISRAELIS. OH MY GOD. ALLAH , ALLAH AAAAAAGH”

Suddenly, the ambulance sirens blare very, very loudly and Izzeldin starts: “I ahhh” . Then the phone clicks off.

One man’s life and his whole family, changed in the flash of a bomb, the blink of an eye, the horrors of war…… an unwanted symbol of all that is terrible in this enduring conflict – and yet, in his extreme grace since the tragedy, for I have spoken with him since, a beacon of hope for new leadership in Gaza.

Whether one is Israeli, Palestinian or an international citizen who believes that the only way out of such a conflict is to once and for all achieve a peaceful agreement between these two States - Israel and Palestine, one thing is clear to me: Israel and Hamas owe this man and all civilians who have lost dear ones in this war the deepest regrets and apologies for what this conflict has perpetrated on the innocent.

May the Obama administration actions enable the Cease Fire to hold in Gaza so that not one more child will die in vain and new seeds of hope can actually be planted and grow to maturity at last in the memory of Izzeldin’s dear children and all the children who have died so needlessly in this unspeakably sad conflict. AMEN.

Isabel Maxwell is a peace activist and international business consultant.

[defors]

This raw account of humanity shows us the true tragedy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. So many innocent people have been lost in vain and I can only share with Isabel’s prayers for an end to this bloodshed. Thank you Isabel for sharing this part of your friendship with Izzeldin with all of us. It is indeed sad that the lives of so many innocent people have been changed forever…from what I have heard, seen and read, it is clear that Dr. Izzeldin is a decent man, a man who loves life and been a peace activist all his life. And so I won’t be surprised if he continued the same road he started, the road of reconciliation and peace. But I wonder sometimes, what and where would most other innocent people who have been damaged by this recent war end up??? The worse thing that came out of this war is that Israel created yet another generation of Arabs, Muslims, and groups all over the world who not only hate Israel and Israelis, but anything Jewish at this point… very very sad! Lets pray for better days to come.