I'll live in a tent next to my demolished house

DOCTOR TELLS OF DESIRE TO RETURN TO GAZA WHEN FIGHTING IS OVER

- JOSEPH TIMAN

DR Mona El-Farra has lost everything. Her family home, her precious childhood memories and many of her friends and colleagues.

But the doctor from Gaza who left for Manchester soon after war broke out in October has not lost hope.

She wants to return to the wartorn territory when the fighting is over, telling the M.E.N: “I will live in a tent next to my demolished house.”

Her children, who live in Manchester, were visiting her when the latest conflict started. She took ‘the most difficult decision’ to leave with her daughter who has a health condition while her son returned to the UK two months later when ‘the soldiers were too close’.

Their home in Gaza City has now been destroyed, as has Dr El-Farra’s childhood home in Khan Yunis. The southern Gaza home where she grew up was filled with ‘precious’ memories of her parents, siblings and relatives who she will ‘never have the joy of seeing again’.

“Every day I’m waiting to hear bad news,” Dr El-Farra said. “Every day I hear about another family who’ve been wiped out from the civil register. It’s been extremely difficult. Inside, I don’t feel I’m leading a normal life. But I keep working because it’s my duty.”