The drones never sleep in Palestine
Atallah al-Attar, 35, gets anxious in the evenings.
He lives on his family’s farm in the town of Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, close to the boundary with Israel.
Evenings are when Israeli drones most often fly overhead.
On this particular January afternoon, he softly explained why he has an acute fear of drones.
“The incident is very painful,” he said.
In May 2019, he was working as a security guard at a wedding venue in Beit Lahiya. He was taking a break with a friend, Khaled Abu Qleeq, 24, when they saw and heard Israeli drones flying overhead, which was not unusual.
Al-Attar thought the drones were just surveilling the area, but then the men felt the explosion.
“The explosion made a huge sound and the shrapnel from the missile flew at us,” al-Attar said.
