Front Burner - The harrowing return to northern Gaza

Episode Date: January 31, 2025

It’s been nearly two weeks since a ceasefire brought more than 15 months of violence in Gaza to an end, and now, hundreds of thousands of Gazans are returning to the north, or what’s left of it.Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian freelance journalist, joins us to share what he has witnessed since becoming thrust into this role of war correspondent, how Palestinians are feeling about this fragile peace, and what comes next.Warning: this episode describes upsetting accounts of war and despair. Please take care while listening.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

It is a wild time in the world right now. And sometimes it's actually hard to figure out what's what. The current is here to help. My name is Matt Galloway and we bring you conversations to expand your worldview, solutions to some of the wicked problems of our time. Like is Canada underreacting to Trump's takeover threats and our phones rewiring our brains? We'll also bring you great stories you might never heard of before, including

why are we suddenly obsessed with doppelgangers? You can find The Current wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube. I'll talk to you soon. This is a CBC Podcast. Hey everybody, it's Jamie. It's been nearly two weeks since a ceasefire brought an end to more than 15 months of violence in Gaza. And now hundreds of thousands of Gazans are returning to the north, or what's left of it. In addition to the physical damage to Gaza's infrastructure, the health ministry there says more than 46,000 people are dead.

According to figures from the United Nations and Reuters, more than half of those killed were women and children. So today on the show, we're talking with Abu Bakr Abed. Abu Bakr is a Palestinian freelance journalist from Deir al-Bala. When I spoke to him over Zoom on Thursday, he was bundled up in a few jackets because it's quite cold in Gaza right now. We discussed a lot of things, including what he's witnessed since being thrust into this role of war correspondent,

how Palestinians are feeling about this fragile peace, and what comes next. I want to give you a gentle warning here that this is a difficult interview to listen to. Abu Bakr gives some very harrowing accounts of war and despair. There are some details in here about children that are tough to hear. All right, here he is. Abu Bakr, I want to thank you so much for being with me today. You're so welcome. It's my pleasure to be here. So in the hours following the ceasefire, there were scenes of jubilation, right? Really as people on the ground started to come to terms with what an end to violence

was going to mean for them. And can you just take me to that day on the ground? What were you seeing and hearing from people when the ceasefire was announced? Everyone was playing the drums, everyone was chanting in thees, in thousands, out in the streets just to say that this was our day and just to say that this war has come to an end because, you know, to taste displacement is absolutely horrifying. To taste all parts of death is absolutely unbearable and to go through starvation, freezing temperatures and all these horrifying acts is unimaginable

for any human being around the world. And it was very hard to speak to any glamour of all, but we as Palestinians and particularly when I talk about myself, I just said to myself from the start that whatever happens, and despite the fact that I was many of my family members, many of my friends and colleagues, I just clung onto a source of hope that it kept inside me. And yes, in the end, we were happy that this ended. We know that there are a lot of questions over this, this idea, and we didn't know if it will hold or not.

But until now, things are going well. But yet, we are still suffering. The humanitarian situation has not improved totally. But again, we were happy. Everyone was happy that the bloodbath has really stopped, which is the most important thing. Abubakar, I want to say how sorry I am to hear that you lost family members and friends. I'm really, really sorry to hear that.

Do you mind if I ask you a little bit more about what it's been like for you? Personally, you're a reporter, but obviously, I think as you mentioned, a Palestinian first. This has been one of the deadliest wars in recorded history for journalists. I know investigations by the United Nations, interim force in Lebanon, the Guardian, and the Committee to Protect Journalists have concluded that many of your colleagues were targeted with violence over the course of Israel's campaign in Gaza. Can you tell me a little bit more about what that was like for you working in these conditions? People are not aware of what being a journalist is like inside the besieged territory. People are not aware of

the hardships we are facing because journalism simply means death in Gaza. As a name, I wouldn't call myself a journalist. I would rather say I'm a genocide documentor because it is just like we are being killed, we're being tortured, we're being stabbedved and we're being, like, in every way, we're being brutalized. I remember when I was doing stories because I'm a digital MTV reporter, I remember like many times it was walking kilometers just to file a story. I was writing Amid the Darkness and Amid the Bombings, the continuous bombings. One of the nights that I vividly, vividly remember was November 23rd of 2023. The next neighborhood was completely flattened and hit by at least four F-16 rockets.

Each rocket causes a crater that is so big, so huge. I was violently awakened back then, and I was violently brutalized as everyone in my neighborhood. So despite that, I just kept writing, and just kept writing, and just kept reporting, and kept talking to people. So it wasn't easy. It's never been easy to do any kind of reporting against Saeed Khalsa on the ground because you talk to people who are simply very much traumatized and brutalized by the war and then you are putting more trauma to yourself, more pain to yourself.

So your pain is being compounded when you do any kind of reporting. This is apart from the fact that you see every day scenes of pure horror inside the hospital. You see people dismembered, incinerated, immolated. That is something I saw myself. This is the brutality that we are talking to people about, but people do not care. That's, that's a huge dilemma for us. It's very frustrating when we see a human being's life, because we are of the same

composition of the same composition, of the same human composition, but then we have to go through all of this, all these episodes of horror and terror just to let people know that we are being killed and we are being genocided here in Gaza. So it was a big problem that you are doing this reporting and you know that you might be the next target. This is also, as you said, in addition to mourning the death of more than 200 journalists in Gaza. And so it's a frustrating and it is very, very heart-wrenching.

I wonder if I could ask you, I have watched you and your colleagues report over the last year with an immeasurable amount of bravery and grace. And where does it come from? How do you do it? Because it's our home land. It's our home land, so do you too. Like, I know that at any time I will be bombed, I know I'll be targeted, I know that I will be losing my life at any point, I know.

But I want to give it, because I'm the rightful owner of this land. This is not the start of my story. When I was born back in 2002, I was born to this conflict. I've been through four wars before this. I lost many of my family members, not only during this war, but during the previous ones. So look at it, I'm an accidental war correspondent, that's not the thing that I want to do. As a young, ambitious and passionate man. Everyone has their ambitions and their goals and their aspirations. But for me, it's not war.

It's football, but I had to do it because it's my home. I had to risk myself and put myself in peril because it's simply my homeland. I want to live. I want to be able to like deserve to live in dignity that is what is happening to us we wanna really really wake the world and it's one of. That's what we want to tell you what but even when you did all this reporting and we were reporting tires without at all and putting ourselves in peril all the time and without any water, without any means, without any right means at all, then we were disappointed. We were absolutely let down. I don't know why.

Again, we don't have, me personally and for so many, we don't have any political affiliations. We don't have the laws. We deserve to live in peace. Why have I been occupied, subjugated and suffocated in a tiny area of land that is just 360 square kilometers? I can't move outside Gaza at all. I need a permission.

Look at other people who are my age around the world. They can really, really move around the world, but I can't because I'm being, this is my story. This has been my story for the past 17 years. When this, seeing is strictly postage on Gaza started, the people are not conscious about that. So they have to be. How old are you?

I'm 22. I've recently become 22. MUSIC I'm Natalia Melman-Petruzzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme, Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest

mountains, K2, and of the risks it will take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Have you heard much debate or discussion about the nature of the deal, about the terms of the arrangement or the politics behind

it? Or are people there just happy that any agreement was struck and maybe less interested and invested in the details of it? They were, again, the most important thing for them was that they would not have to endure more losses and that this log bank stopped. That is the most important. Now, forget about the buildings destroyed. Forget about the colonies, which is unfathomable. Forget about all the previous killings and the atrocities that are going to be revealed in the next days and that have been revealed already around different areas in Gaza. But what is really significant for us is that this has stopped.

We cannot really keep losing people. We cannot really keep mourning our deaths. We cannot really keep grieving our losses. We will have to be conscious about the fact that we haven't yet grieved the losses of our loved ones during the war. We all have to be aware of that. So I know, we know at some point that this ceasefire deal might be violated and this war might be continued or resumed.

However, this can really give us a time to relax, to breathe again, to feel human again, because we were simply trapped in all of humanity during the past 14 months. So the equation is very, very crystal clear. But people are deliberately, you feel it as a Palestinian sometimes, that people in the West particularly, in other areas of the world are deliberately turning a blind eye and this is what is happening. This is absolutely unacceptable. I don't know why this is happening, but again, this CS5 deal can bring a huge source of relief

and reprieve and respite from what has been happening because people need time to recover, to rehabilitate, and also to forget about the pain that they had to endure. Since the ceasefire, have you seen people start that process of grieving? Yeah. I've seen people who were not able to go to the graves of the loved ones in the family numbers. They went there and kept it quiet for hours. Some people could not really believe, can't really believe that their loved ones or family

numbers or maybe friends would believe that they have departed this world. They cannot really leave. And on a personal level, my very dear friend Hassan Mata was killed back in December 2023. I haven't seen his grave yet. He doesn't have any political affiliations at all. I just keep asking myself all the time, like, why was he bombed? This this is absolutely insane it's insanely brutal and just see people some people here haven't yet find their loved ones who were killed during the course of this genocide they haven't yet they're still searching under the rubble to see their loved ones i talked to people from different areas and i've sort also seen myself of people who are really retrieving skulls,

toes, hands, fingers, limbs from under the rubble of their loved ones and their family members who have been killed during the past 14 months, particularly around the Mediterranean corridor. This corridor which has been debated over by the two sides, there is really snipers and quadcopters, as well as Terrans, have been shelling the areas very, very, very continuously without any stop at all. So many people are still being recovered from those areas and many of those bodies are decomposing. So the scenes coming out and emanating from there are beyond imagination. They are absolutely super horrifying and super terrifying. Today, I saw one of the young men who returned to his home in Gaza, and he found his sister was killed probably some months ago in his home and he just found

the jaw, the lower jaw of her, only that. So he took it and took it to the graveyard and put it there along with her body. So what is that? Sorry, that was really difficult to hear. It's fine. Look, I don't want you to... Yeah. We are hopeful, but we want to tell you what has been happening for us, although we're not a party. We haven't been a party to this war. We're just like inhuman beings around the world. But some people in the West have been given

Consent to the Israelis to continue this This is the problem. But yes, this is only one story of millions of story Every single one in Gaza has a tragedy to tell but yet we're still hopeful and we want to rebuild We want to do everything that we can just to live and tell people that we live in dignity, that we should live in dignity, we deserve to live in dignity and to do all of the things that we loved. Gaza has always been marginalized, ostracized, has always been a lower class, a lower tiny area that people don't care about. We had to go through a genocide so people could really look at us.

Why? Why we needed to lose more than 41,000 people and over 10,000 on the Robo and more than 110,000 have been wounded so the people could really look at us. This has been the same story for the past 17 years. One thing that I want to tell you, my neighbor was bombed in November 2023. He's a disabled person, a child, sorry, a five-year-old child.

He is disabled. His family was bombed during this war in November 2023. His family wrote his name on the wall so that people probably can find his body under the window. He's still on the level since November 2023. What on earth has this child, disabled child, what threat has he posed to this really army? What threat? This is my question.

And his family, for one year, hasn't been able to get his body or any of his body parts, any at all from under the water of their home. I have been watching people make the journey back to their homes in the north, like watching images and videos of them. And as you've mentioned, the UN estimates that around 66% of the physical infrastructure of Gaza has been damaged or destroyed. Much of the worst destruction is in the north.

And for those people, what are they returning to today? And without water and food and medicine and shelter, how are people able to make this trip home that I've been watching? How are they able to live on the ruins of their former homes? They're coping with such a dilemma without any life means at all. They are returning to piles of rubble because their homes have been reduced horrible.

Simple as that. And more than half a million people have made the journey back home. Now, the water available in those areas in the northern part of the Strait is not available. It's not enough. And it doesn't meet the needs of the least demands of those people. And the number now, they can shelter in there. And a lot of families scenarios haven't changed. They are getting back to a tent, they are now living in a tent. The same that has happened to them

were occurred to them for the last 14 months. So nothing has changed. Israel continues locking shelters, caravans, and containers from entering Gaza. Why is Rio continuous doing so? We are in a ceasefire deal. It's a ceasefire time. Why?

What is the threat of allowing caravans, containers and shelters, public shelters from getting into Gaza and helping those people? Yesterday, one of the children that we've seen in Beth Hanon in the northern part of the strip, and Beth Hanon is now a flat landscape of just debris piled up over there, and it's very glacial there. Of course, when you live in an agricultural land,

in a flat land without any homes, without any population around here, then the weather will be so, so much worse and glacial. Now this girl who is just one year old or six months old died from hypothermia. This is the eighth case in Gaza that has died from hypothermia. This girl didn't have any blankets though, didn't have any blankets, they didn't have any rain of flies, they didn't have any proper shelters,

any medicine, any food. So how can people cope? How simply, how can people cope with this absolutely disastrous humanitarian situation beyond disasters? So it is the same. You shouldn't be surprised if more people are dying from the same disease on the next days because people haven't got access, haven't obtained access yet to

all life means in northern Gaza. They have to walk kilometers to get a gallon of water. They have to walk kilometers for a plate of wine. So what does that feel like? It's not an it's in your name. It's like you probably I couldn't tell you a story to tell but believe it or not animals in the forest have access to water, have access to life, to all life means, have access to food. But we don't. But we don't. Especially for children. Half of the population in Gaza is children. What I can see right now in the streets, believe me, and come to Gaza, I hope you come one day and see that with your eyes, by your eyes, what I can see is just every street in Gaza now has at least three to four people amputated, particularly children. It's a whole generation

of amputees that is co-authored by the US, that is co-authored by Israel, and its intent of just genocide and exterminating a whole population. People have to be aware of that. Simple as that. I wanted to ask you about, beyond the ceasefire, many of the central demands of the Palestinian movement, demands from the days of your grandparents really, remain unresolved. The demand for statehood and the demand to end the Israeli occupation, for example, in terms of many of the longer-term goals of the Palestinian movement. How likely or achievable are these in the eyes of many that you've been talking to on the ground lately?

Or are they even a priority anymore? It's a priority. We will not rest until Palestine is free, as simple as that. Because again, I am a refugee inside Deir el-Bala, although I still have a home in Deir el-Bala, but I'm still a refugee in Deir el-Balah. Although I still have a home in Deir el-Balah, but I'm still a refugee in Deir el-Balah. My hometown is Beir Beiras, which is near Jerusalem. That is the area or the hometown

that I haven't seen in my life, that my grandparents were expelled from, that my parents haven't seen ever in their lives. This is what I'm here for. This is what I'm struggling for. I'm fighting back against war. But again, we will not risk the other younger generations that are going to fight at full power and with everything we can until we sweep Al-Asqa'i free.

Abu Bakr, can I ask you, how are people on the ground there thinking about their relationship with Hamas? Again, most people here in Gaza don't have any political affiliation. Now we know that Israel is the main reason behind all this happening. I told you from the start that who destroyed people's houses? Is it Hamas? No, it's not Hamas. It's Israel.

Who bombed my neighbor? It's Israel. Who really made me or obliged me to go through salvation? It's Israel. It's not Hamas. It's not really logical and it's not under the international law regulations that you put or you apply a collective punishment strategy on a population that half of which, management strategy on a population that half of which is children for an action that a few people of the population has done. So for me, I don't have any political affiliations. Why I lost my family members? Why did I lose my third year spring? Why did I or was I subjected to all of this?

The same for thousands, for many. You cannot really blame or punish others for something a few people have done. So it's not about Hamas or any political parties. It's about Palestine and Israel. If this is a war against Hamas, why all those children have been killed? all those children have been killed.

How are you thinking about your own next steps and your own future? That's a really good question. And honestly, as I said, because the next World Cup is going to be in your homeland in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. And I told you from the start that I'm a football reporter and commentator. That's what I've been doing all the time. But I was evolved into more of a walker's wonder because it's my homeland. It's my hometown. It's cause I, it's a part of my heart. It's my heart really. So I was involved into this to do the reporting and really convey

the message of my people. So the first thing that I'm really looking for is to re-build my future and really direct my compass into this whole, to this whole reporting. And hopefully I can really, you know, I can really do the reporting that I've been tweeting that I've always, always been desiring particularly about WordCub. I was utterly devastated that they didn't attempt the pre- this World Cup or even do underreporting about it in Qatar, although it was in our country. But this time I hope that I will have the chance to go and do the reporting and forget

about the war reporting completely and just be in Canada, be in those countries and just do what I love because I deserve to do what I love. So I really hope to become or to forget about the war reporting and go for the football reporting. And hopefully I can be in the United States, Canada, and Mexico for the next World Cup in 2026. That's going to be a dream. That's going to be my ultimate dream, to be honest. And I think given what I've been doing, particularly during the war, I've also been reporting on the murder of my homeland players. More than 300 and so many players have been killed in Gaza. Almost all stadiums, only one stadium is still standing, which is the Aldura Stadium in Dener

Balak. So it's not, it's not what I wanted to do reporting on the amount of my football players or my home-grown football players or on the destruction, the massive destruction of football facilities here. It's not what I wanted. But what I want is to be standing on a football pitch and see the Pias of Bayern and really cheer in on the top of my lines for the Pias, for the teams that I love.

Ali Becker, I want to thank you so much for this. You too, thank you. Alright, that's all for this week. Frontburner was produced this week by Ali Janes, Matt Amha, Kieran Outtorn, Lauren Donnelly, Mackenzie Cameron, and Marco Luciano. Music is by Joseph Shabison, our senior producer is Elaine Chao. Our executive producer is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.