The people of the Gaza strip awoke on Dec. 7, 2002, the second day of Eid Al fitr, to news of an appalling massacre in Bureij refugee camp, located in the middle of Gaza close to the green line, and home to 25 thousand refugees expelled from their homes in 1948. At 2 AM that fateful morning, ten people were killed when Israeli occupation forces invaded Bureij.

The preceding day had been festive. Eid Al Fitr is a time when family members visit and give one another sweets. When the first day of Eid is over, homes begin overflowing with married sisters, aunts, daughters, and buzzing with visitors. The tide of guests continues till late in the evening, after which parents gather their children, still in festive garb, and plan for the next day.

It was at this moment that Ahlaam, soon to become one of the ten victims of the massacre, gathered Sayf, aged four, Badr, three, and eight-month-old Ro'a, and described the outing she'd planned for them the next morning - a trip to a fun fair. She undressed the children and laid their clothes on the bed so they would be nearby as soon as they woke up. Then she kissed them all goodnight and stayed with them until they fell asleep. Then, her husband Mohammad told our counseling team, she joined him in the bedroom. He burst into tears: "The second day of Eid never came," he cried. "Ahlaam left and she will never return".

He collected himself and continued: "We have been married since 1996. Six months ago we moved into this apartment. It is the first home where we have lived independently. I am a carpenter and she is a schoolteacher. Our only concern has been to bring happiness into our children's lives. We were very happy about our new home and worked together to furnish it; we both strived to raise our children's standard of living and ensure that they would have a good future. When we moved into the house we dreamed that our children would grow up and get an education. Sayf would study medicine, Badr would study engineering, and Ro'a would be a teacher like her mother. What really scared us was that our children might one day become orphans" -- his eyes again filled with tears; the counseling team listened, watching the children sitting almost motionless. "I went through life as an orphan," said Muhammad. "My father died when I was fourteen. I was the youngest child; I lost my father and lost every sense of protection, security and love," Mohammed continued, weeping. "Ahlaam also lost her mother when she was thirteen; she had five brothers and four sisters. The youngest was nine months old when his mother passed away. Ahlaam was their mother, their counselor, their father and their older sister, she took care of them as best she could." A pause, and then Mohammed said,"I must show you her blood and the place where the bullet entered. In the bedroom on the east side of the fourth-floor apartment there were two bullet holes in the window. "This is where murder entered," he pointed at the bullet holes. "The Israelis came from the east. I awoke at two in the morning to the sound of gunfire. Because our apartment is on a high floor we have had to go downstairs to my brother's house. It gives us more protection from the bullets that tanks and helicopter gun ships have fired at every moving object during invasions. In a previous invasion the bullets passed our balcony. This time I woke Ahlaam up. She went to check on the children, then returned to our room and started running frantically between the two rooms. Suddenly I heard her cry out, 'Help me Mohammed, I've been hit.' She went to the children's room again, blood spurting from her body, then she fell down in the corridor. I went to her. Blood was coming out of her mouth because of a bullet in her face, and there was another bullet in her side. A barrage of machine gun fire had been directed towards her. You can still see their marks on walls of the house.

"I was dumb-struck. I ran around the apartment crying, 'Ahlaam!' I couldn't call my brother over the intercom; I went downstairs saying that Ahlaam had been wounded; I burst through the door of the ground floor house shouting that she had been injured. When I went back upstairs, my brother and the neighbors had taken her to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir El-Balah [nine kilometers away]. They didn't have trouble getting her to the hospital because she was the first casualty in the camp. The army hadn't yet reached our street, so there were no soldiers to prevent ambulances from moving, as is usual in an incursion. At the hospital they applied emergency aid and said her condition was critical. Her father, who is a nurse, and her brothers, also came to the hospital".

"At this point I felt extremely thirsty and asked for water, I also felt dizzy and stunned. While Ahlaam was being transferred to the hospital she kept asking about the children, especially our eight-month-old daughter, Ro'a. She said she felt that she was dying, and her children would have to live without her, making her greatest nightmare come true. I tried to calm her by telling her not to fear, that she would return to her children and take them to the fun fair and give them a good education as she had always wanted"

"From Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital they transferred Ahlaam to Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza city [20 kilometers away] because the operation she needed could only be performed there. They gave her a blood transfusion of three units, and prepared nineteen units more for the operation in Al-Shifa hospital. But the transfusions couldn't make up for the severe blood-loss she had suffered, and she died upon entering the operating theatre. I just felt extremely thirsty and I couldn't breathe. Then I couldn't endure it any longer so I placed my head on my sister's shoulder and wept uncontrollably for ten minutes.

"We took her home. Her body was laid in our bedroom. People came to offer condolences; everyone wanted to see her for the last time. I would burst into tears whenever anybody offered their condolences. I still couldn't believe she was dead; here she was sleeping on her bed; my young son would clutch her feet saying, 'Get up mama, all the kids have a mother, but you are dead and I don't have a mother anymore.' I couldn't stand it any longer; I went outside to cry. Then I went inside again to find consolation in reading the Koran."

Ahlaam was carried to the mosque. The people of Bureij recited the funeral prayer, and then proceeded to the cemetery. Ahlaam's eldest son Sayf followed his mother trying to take her home, until someone finally sent him home. "I carried her coffin all the way to the graveyard," said Muhammad. "In the meantime the nine other martyrs killed by the Israeli army were buried. I stayed in the graveyard with her coffin until all the martyrs were buried, then I stayed behind in the graveyard for an hour after the burial. I didn't want to go home. How could I go home and leave my wife here? How could I leave her here while her children were without her at home?

"I returned home with feelings I cannot describe. I was left with my three young children who had just been orphaned. Their mother had put them to bed the night before and their clothes were where she had left them, still waiting for them to wear to the fun fair. Her blood was all over the place in her bedroom and the corridor. I couldn't think, I couldn't resist, I just burst into tears. I noticed that my daughter wasn't in the house; I went down to the street in a frenzy looking for her. When they brought her, I took her in my arms and started crying loudly with all my relatives around me.

"On the night that Ahlaam passed away, I went home with feelings of grief, rage, and exhaustion. I fell asleep in our bedroom with my sons Sayf and Badr beside me. The house without Ahlaam left me with a great emptiness. I would try to sleep, only to be jolted awake by nightmares. The children would ask repeatedly about their mother; one kept asking how she could leave us like that; he kept saying he would bring her home. I kept looking back at the course of my life, my memories, my losses and tragedies. I felt that the greatest of these tragedies was Ahlaam's death and the loss of my dreams.

But I forgot all my sorrows when I married Ahlaam. We lived six years of love and understanding. The children filled the house with joy. As for her school job, she considered it a holy duty. She used to tell me that even if we became millionaires, she wouldn't leave it because she was responsible for her students. They were grief-stricken when they heard the news of her martyrdom; they couldn't go to school without her there.

In the days and weeks that followed, what added to the household's grief was the reaction of the youngest son, Badr. He would cry himself to sleep, then awaken crying, "I want Mama, I want Mama." During our home visits we found him suffering from regression, wetting and defecating in bed. This continued for about four months. We advised the family how to help him; he is now able to control defecation but still suffers from involuntary urination.

Mohammed found it difficult to give his children the care they needed. They went to live at their grandfather's house with their aunt Etimad. She is a year younger than Ahlaam and, in the minds of all the family members, nearly Ahlaam's twin because they were so close. Ahlaam's death was very painful for Etimad, who left her job to care for the children. She embraced them and gave them love, even though she was suffering from the loss of her sister. Abd El Salaam, Ahlaam's youngest brother, suffered the most because he was only nine months old when his mother died; Ahlaam was the only mother he had ever known. Abd El Salaam's grief continues till this day. He rarely goes to university, and even though all his siblings continued their education on Ahlaam's insistence, his education is on hold because of his depression, sleep disturbances and loss of interest in anything.

Four months after her death, Ahlaam's husband Mohammed still experiences recurring episodes of intense grief. He goes to the cemetery to sit by her grave for one or two hours until he feels relief; then he goes home. The children used to ask him to take them to the cemetery, but they stopped a month ago. The younger boy, Badr, still suffers from withdrawal and doesn't like to socialize.

Ahlaam has left, but her children, siblings, husband and father have to live through the pain of this loss. Will this pain ever end? How can it subside for her orphaned children and for her husband, orphaned as a child and now widowed? How can they forget when every Eid they will have to live through their loss once again? Instead of feeling relieved and celebrating the Eid, the memories of their loss will return.

The Trauma Counseling Team of the GCMHP has repeatedly visited the family in order to provide support, and debriefing that are necessary to alleviate the suffering of the family and minimize the aftereffects of the loss of Ahlam. We will continue to work with the family and hope these efforts will be successful in increasing the family's capacity to cope with their tragedy.