Photo/Illutration Yoriko Yamamura says Palestinians appear to be trying to make the best of each and every day due to their constant fear of Israeli airstrikes. (Provided by Yoriko Yamamura)

Yoriko Yamamura is feeling frustrated at her inability to do virtually anything to help Palestinians in their greatest crisis following the unprecedented Hamas raid on Israel that shook the world for its savagery.

“They think they are being disregarded by the international community,” said Yamamura, who has worked to support Palestinians since 2016. “I want to at least tell them that Japanese will not abandon them.”

She previously lived in East Jerusalem and organized cooking classes for mothers in Gaza.

Yamamura, who now resides in Japan but travels back and forth to Palestine, received a message from an acquaintance in Gaza who was “almost unable to breathe under the tension” after the Islamic group attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

“It is irritating,” Yamamura said. “The only thing I can do is to pray that there will not be a ground invasion.”

Yamamura said Palestinians could have been celebrating a bountiful autumn had the latest round of hostilities not broken out between Hamas and Israel.

She still recalls the taste of rice cooked with eggplants and cauliflower that she ate after harvesting olives with locals during her first visit to Palestine 11 years ago to help with farm work.

Miki Yoshida, who works in the Gaza office of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is staying with three Gazan junior high school students and a teacher in Jordan after visiting Hiroshima immediately before Hamas’ attack on Israel.

The students, who have been in touch with their families on and off, are increasingly anxious about the situation.

In Hiroshima, the students visited the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and other places and talked about their dreams of forging careers as scientists or journalists.

“They said they wanted to tell people in Gaza how Hiroshima rebuilt itself (after the atomic bombing in 1945),” Yoshida said. “The fighting does not give rise to anything and brings hopes and dreams to a halt.”

Campaign for the Children of Palestine, a nonprofit organization in Japan, issued a statement Oct. 9 calling on the international community to double down on efforts to seek an “equitable and peaceful solution” to the conflict.

The group works to rehabilitate children injured or disabled by war and other causes as well as repair educational facilities and provide necessary materials. Some facilities have been damaged in recent Israeli airstrikes.

“Children are growing up in the depth of war,” said Masayuki Teshima, who heads the group’s office in Jerusalem. “Why do they have to repeat such horrible experiences?”

(This article was written by Natsuki Edogawa and Kazuki Uechi.)

* * *

The previous photographs including those taken in the West Bank were replaced on March 5, 2024, with those taken in Gaza.

Related News