Gazan Family Opens What's Left Of A Home

Reporter's Notebook: As The Al-Ajramis Try To Rebuild Their House, They Do Not Forget Their Hospitality

(CBS)  This story was written by CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey.

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By its very definition, war would seem to negate civility. Why would people who have no reason to be anything other than angry, bitter and infused with a desire for vengeance offer hospitality to strangers intruding upon their suffering?

And yet, in this reporter’s experience at least, more often than not they do.

The ordinary Palestinians of Gaza take it to new levels.

Bumping our way through the devastation of an area that had been repeatedly pulverized by air strikes and tank shelling, we came across the men of the al-Ajrami family hammering a two-by-four across a gaping space in what was once (by Gaza standards) an upper-middle-class home.

They were trying, with a few nails, a hammer and a pair of pliers, to fix what for most of us would have been written off as an insurance claim. The difference is that here there is no insurance, and the home owners have nowhere else to go.

The Palestinians trapped in Gaza hold it as a truism that every bomb, rocket, mortar, tank and artillery shell that explodes among them is either made in or paid for by America. But even though we identified ourselves as being from a U.S. television network, they invited us into what remained of the house, into which they had sunk their savings barely a year ago.

Not a pane of glass remained. Holes had been smashed through walls by shells - and the occupiers making entrances and sniping positions. Doors were broken, furniture wrecked. Everything was covered with dust, broken masonry and plaster.

One had to wonder what kind of a reception a TV crew from an Arabic network - al-Jazeera, for example - would find if they crossed the property line of an American home blown apart by an Islamic faction.

Family patriarch Abdel Nasser al-Ajrami said the entire family had been sheltering in the room he was trying to close off when an Israeli soldier burst into the adjacent room, tossed a grenade, and closed the door. The carpet is seared. A pit has been blown in the floor, and the walls and ceiling are peppered with holes from small, sharp-edged, arrow-shaped projectiles called flechettes, a weapon designed to clear enemy positions like bunkers, not family living rooms.

The al-Ajramis were ordered to leave, and their home became an Israeli base.

When the fighting was over, the family came back to chaos.

“They even destroyed our personal memories,” Abdel Nasser’s wife Samaia said as she swept dirt, while her three-year-old granddaughter Saly, dressed in a pink jump suit, collected stray bits of debris. “They broke everything. Is this the culture of Israel? I don’t know how those people could come into a well-organized house and leave it destroyed. With no reason.”

All the Hamas rockets that had fallen on Israel, she believed, did not inflict as much damage as the Israeli shells had done to her home.

Nonetheless, Mrs al-Ajrami was determined to clean up, clear up and make it home again. Her family, she said, had to stay together.

“I wish that the American people could come to see the tragedy we have to live in,” she said. “I want the American people to understand that we have been destroyed without any reason. I’d like them to sympathize with us and help us.”

It came out not as a whine, but as a simple statement - a message from a woman who perhaps hoped other women might understand and, one supposes, in so doing make some small difference.

As for what difference she thought a TV crew might make, Mrs al-Ajrami didn’t say. But she did insist we join the men of her family in what remained of their living room for a cup of sweet, steaming tea.

As we sipped it, Abdel Nasser said there was something that puzzled him. Why, he asked, did we think that in a house with three bathrooms the Israeli soldiers who had taken it over would choose to defecate in his wife’s cooking pots?

He seemed more perplexed than angry, but perhaps he felt that to vent rage in front of guests would be a breach of hospitality.

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casualties.
These Gazans refuse to understand that they share the responsibility (for all damage and civillians killed) with the Hamas leadership because they supported Hamas and and helped Hamas to win elections in the Gaza strip.

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casualties.
These Gazans refuse to understand that they share the responsibility (for all damage and civillians killed) with the Hamas leadership because they supported Hamas and and helped Hamas to win elections in the Gaza strip.

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casualties.
These Gazans refuse to understand that they share the responsibility (for all damage and civillians killed) with the Hamas leadership because they supported Hamas and and helped Hamas to win elections in the Gaza strip

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casualties.
These Gazans refuse to understand that they share the responsibility (for all damage and civillians killed) with the Hamas leadership because, thanks to their stupidity, they supported Hamas and and helped Hamas to win elections in the Gaza strip

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casulaties.
I wonder if these Gazans ever got the message that they share the responsibility for all damage and civillians killed with the Hamas leadership because, thanks to their stupidity, Hamas won elections in the Gaza strip

[wilkokke]

How can Israel ever make peace with primnitives who think that Hamas terrorist are great people and that nothing should be done to stop Hamas?
They no not want to understand that, because Hamas terrorists were hiding in residential properties, Israel destroyed some of these hiding places. The alternative, fighting door-to-door and house-to-house, was not practical because because that would have caused too many Israeli casulaties.
I wonder if these Gazans ever got the message that they share the responsibility for all damage and civillians killed with the Hamas leadership because, thanks to their stupidity, Hamas won elections in the Gaza strip

[ritakaruna]

Thank you for some remarkably honest coverage of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Wonderful humanizing story by Allen Pizzey of his visit to a family in Gaza. Both informative of the side we rarely get in U.S. media, and touching. As an American Jewish woman who has visited Palestinian homes I know the graciousness and hospitality described. Rita Karuna

[truth_peace]

"Gazan Family Opens What''s Left Of A Home" by Allen Pizzey

Thank you CBS for an honest portrayal of Palestinians. Its a departure from their usual description as fanatics.

[nahed-2009]

Thank you for this powerful story. The cause of peace can never be advanced by starving innocent men, women and children. Our security and image in the Muslim world can never be advanced by enabling such catastrophic conditions on the Palestinian people.

Peace in the Middle East can only be accomplished when the pain, suffering an legitimate needs of both Palestinians and Israeli are recognized and addressed. That is the only way to reconciliation, healing that will lead to a lasting peace.

[nahed-2009]

Thank you for this powerful story. The cause of peace can never be advanced by starving innocent men, women and children. Our security and image in the Muslim world can never be advanced by enabling such catastrophic conditions on the Palestinian people.

Peace in the Middle East can only be accomplished when the pain, suffering an legitimate needs of both Palestinians and Israeli are recognized and addressed. That is the only way to reconciliation, healing that will lead to a lasting peace.

[alive09]

The brutality of the Israelis shows yet again. They have behaved as if they are above the law. I just hope they (soldiers and leaders) will be brought to justice soon.

[wardoglrs]

This is a glimpse of our future people

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[truthnow3]

What the IDF thugs did to this home is standard operating procedure for this gang of thugs and thieves. Palestinians have routinely either been evicted from their homes while the IDF use the homes as sniper bases to target whomever they desire to shoot. When they leave, the house is ransacked and filthy.

Today war criminal Ehud Olmert declared that he did not know of any military that is more "moral."
Olmert wouldn''t know morality if it stared him in the face.

[binkyneen]

Your story on the West Bank was horribly one-sided. Did it occur to 60 Minutes to present the Israelli perspective? Did it occur to 60 Minutes to reveal how that land became available to the Jewish settlors in the first place? Like, after three large Arab countries ganged up on little Israel in 1967? Jews have every right to be live in the West Bank and prosper. As a matter of fact, why doesn''t the United States simply hand over California back to Mexico? At least the Mexicans aren''t out to kill every last American, right? What you accomplished was to add lethal fuel to an already seething hatred for Israel and then attempt to justify it by portraying how awful the Palestinians have it under Israel rule? Israel wouldn''t have to go to such measures if there weren''t so many Palestineans, who''d like nothing better than to blow up as many Israelli civilians as they can in one Pizza parlor blast! Hey, why not incite a few more enraged Arabs who know only to blame Israel for all of their troubles instead of pressuring their leaders for economic, educational and social progress. Try a little fair & balanced journalism next time!