Mother’s Day is Sunday across most of the Middle East but, for the third year in a row, Niveen Gharqoud, a Gaza resident, will be spent without four of her five children.
They have not met since 2018, when she sent them to live with their father Sami in Qalqilya, a city on the West Bank on the military wall that separates Israel from the territories. Palestine.
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Niveen Gharqoud sits with her son Amir at their home in the middle of the Gaza Strip March 15, 2021
(Photo: Reuters)
She lives in Juhr Edeek, a small town west of a separate border fence that separates the Gaza Strip. Between the two obstacles is Israel, which it cannot cross.
So the only way for Garqoud and the only child still living with her is to electronically close the 120 km (75 mile) gap.
“One hour is all I have to do with my kids,” said Garqoud as she prepared for her Mother’s Day mobile. “Nothing will satisfy me but to be with my kids on Mother’s Day. “
Behind the family divide lies a complex system of restrictions that Israel applies in the areas it captured in a war in 1967. Israel says it needs the system to protect its own citizens. Palestinians say it is unfair and unruly.
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Niveen Gharqoud looks out from her home in the middle of the Gaza Strip 15 March 2021. Photo taken 15 March 2021
(Photo: Reuters)
Gharqoud hoped that most of her family would be better off outside Gaza, and that she could join them later. “(But) three years of efforts didn’t work for me,” she said. “A checkpoint stands between my kids and me.”
COGAT, Israel’s military link with the Palestinians, said it is limiting “only humanitarian-specific issues” in the number of Palestinians allowed to travel to Israel and the West Bank of Gaza because the enclave is under group control. Hamas Islamic weapons.
COGAT said Garqoud’s application for travel was rejected “after careful scrutiny” because it did not meet the required criteria.