Newspaper 24, 6.02.09
When 18-year-old Alena with her husband left for Palestine to visit his parents, she did not know neither what is "the Gaza Strip", nor that she will stay there for 10 years. And on coming back to Ukraine, she did not assume that she will be absolutely alien here. Without documents, without diplomas, without rights – henceforth she is alien in her old-new native land, too.
Alena El Sabi was evacuated from the Gaza Strip with the first group of the Ukrainian and Russian refugees which were taken out through "a green corridor" and by planes of the Ministry of Emergency Measures of Russia were sent to Moscow. Therefrom Alena with two small sons returned to native Dnepropetrovsk by train.
How did you come to Gaza?
I and my future husband Khaled got acquainted when I studied in Dnepropetrovsk Machine-building College, and he was a 4th year student in the Medical Academy. In 1998 we got married. When I was 18, we gone to Palestine to get acquainted with my husband's parents and stayed there. We celebrated our wedding according to Muslim customs.
Why you stayed?
His parents did not let us go. My husband is a free man; he likes to travel around the world. They were afraid that he will not return any more, and did not give him the money to go. Khaled studied in Dnepropetrovsk to become a doctor, but he did not receive specialization. Therefore in the first year in Palestine he finished his studying.
In Palestine I worked as a nurse-cosmetician. There this profession is very much appreciated. I learned colloquial Arabic. In our family we and our children know three languages: Russian, Arabic, and English.
Is it possible for fellow citizens of the Gaza Strip to send children to study abroad, to build a house?
Yes, but so was before. Now, after revolution, it is unreal. Many went for work on the Jewish part. But when two years ago HAMAS came to power, Israelis blocked the borders. FATH (the party, which ruled in Palestine before HAMAS – a comment of «24») forbade the people to work at the new power, gave out material aid to make it people to sit at home.
The unemployment started. Plus intermissions with electricity, fuel, and water. Last two months we cooked on paraffin stove.
Could your husband come to you?
No, they did not let him off; he is a citizen of Palestine. I do not know when we can meet. Just once we talked on the phone about three minutes. My husband told about the killed Ukrainian woman Albina. It happened so that her husband is Khaled's friend, they studied together.
How did you live when operations started?
In the morning we went for work, children gone to kindergartens and schools. Operation began at half past eleven. Nobody understood how it is all serious. We watched TV, where they showed corpses and said that the war has begun. In the streets there are a lot of people, and planes fly. It means they will bomb. Nor we went for work any more; neither our children went to kindergartens.
Did you hide in bomb-proof shelters?
There are no bomb-proof shelters there. We just stayed in our homes without light and gas. I called to my mother at the third day, "If something happens to me, try to take away the children. You still have Dima (my brother), live for him and grandsons". And so we lived almost week under bombardments.
Then my cousin called me and said, "Call the embassy, you should take out the children, you are still young, you should live!" The council said that if I am ready to leave at the building of the Red Cross buses are waiting. He told that they will try to negotiate to stop bombings from five to seven. But all this time the "green corridor" was bombed. My husband told, "As soon as you will embus, you will be killed". But I risked anyway.
Alena, how did you arrange your life at home?
I have to find the work. After all, I entered the institute in Palestine. There I left my certificate on leaving the school and that I have qualification of a nurse. I only could take the inquiry that I worked 8 years as a nurse in a hospital. My passport and my children's birth certificates are in English, I still have to translate and to assure them at the notary.
There are also problems with the housing. My parents are pensioners; they live in a small flat. And we live in an old house of my aunt which was empty for many years. In the first night we nearly were not poisoned by gas – the equipment is old. I cannot get my children a kindergarten, for there are no vacant places. I gone to the district executive committee, I thought, they could help me somehow, left them my phone number. They said, "You wanted to come back home? So here you are!"
Inquiry
Within January, according to the data of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, from the Gaza Strip were evacuated 141citizen of Ukraine. Nearby 200 persons who initially expressed desire to be evacuated, after the armistice announcement refused and stayed in Gaza. Under the data received from refugees, in the Gaza Strip were closed all banking establishments, and, consequently even well-off citizens were compelled to be evacuated at the expenses of public funds.
With Alena El-Sabi conversed Natalya Belovitskaya (Dnepropetrovsk)
"24"
(published in reduction)
