Lynn Ruane (Independent)

Today, I find this Commencement matter a little difficult to think about. Before I came into the Chamber, I got word that one of the families I reference in this have not heard from their three children in Gaza since I met them last week. That mother is Bushra. I met her and her son Mohammed this day last week. There are currently ten families still awaiting reunification with their children and siblings. I met this young boy last week who had lost his leg in an Israeli airstrike and lost his father in that same airstrike. His mother came here with him to seek medical care through the medical evacuations but he was split from his three siblings who are orphaned in the Gaza Strip and who are receiving some basic care from their 81-year-old grandmother who is not in a position to care for them. They have been displaced three times since Bushra arrived here with her son.

Mohammed spoke about missing playing with his siblings. I have done nothing but think about play since then, which is probably an unusual thing to think about but we heal grief through play. When we think of our sibling relationships, it is a moment where we feel freedom. When you think of the hypervigilance Mohammed and his family must have felt in Gaza and the trauma they experienced, we truly feel our sovereign selves when we engage and sit into play because, for those moments, we can at least be free from the trauma that has completely enveloped their lives.

Mohammed currently does not have his three siblings with him and that is an absolute travesty. There is a fine line between not being dead and being alive. When we provide physical care to somebody to keep them alive, we must understand that, as a whole person, as a whole family, we cannot keep them alive but then kill them spiritually and psychologically. We need to ensure that, in saving Mohammed, we also save his future and he is not left to carry the burden of wondering where his three siblings are today and not being able to connect with them and know they are still alive. They are also only children. We cannot orphan children in Gaza when they could be here with Bushra and with Mohammed.

Last week when I met this young, amazing, resilient boy, beyond any resilience I think any of us could comprehend, we went over to the canteen to buy a bar of chocolate and he chose a Kit Kat. He then communicated through his mother that he chose that because he could break the fingers into one finger of chocolate for each of his siblings. If we can see the level of bounds of that young boy's heart, we have to be able to keep his heart healing and keep it growing because his progression, his rehabilitation and his life depends on his family being here with him, just like those nine other families. Like I said, we cannot just focus on the physical living of an individual, we must focus on the whole. We must focus on their spiritual and psychological well-being and we must focus on being able to keep families together so they can begin to process the grief and trauma they have endured and they can do that together.

What we need to know today is what actions are being taken to reunify those families. The ten families are waiting and I paid particular attention to Bushra and her situation today, purposely because their father is also gone so they are on their own. There currently has been no communication for seven days with those young children.