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Letters from Gaza (19)
...Is the war really over?!
This young girl returned to the classroom at the UNRWA school in Beit
Lahiya after is was destroyed following a direct hit from IDF fire on 17
January. Two little boys were killed in this incident. (Credit:
UNICEF-oPT/Iyad El Baba).
They say that the war on Gaza has finished.
How amazing that a war can start in a single meeting and end in
another, neglecting all the pain, sorrow, fears and worries a
war can leave in the souls and minds of those who suffer its
woes.
Palestinians in Gaza have witnessed many wars
against them by the Israelis. There was the first intifada
and the second, the regular invasions and the closure imposed on
my people - a closure that doesn’t show any mercy - on
Palestinians living their lives, a closure that has no regrets
for, or consideration of, anything at all. Finally, there was
this colosal war against innocent people, children, the elderly,
homes and lands - everything that is Palestinian.
With every war we witness, there are stories
to tell, stories about the brutality and hate of the conqueror.
And with every war there is a will to live and to survive in
order to tell these stories. I am a third-generation refugee. I
have heard the stories of my parents and grandparents - stories
of how they fled their homeland and how some people lost their
children while others abandoned their children on the roads
because they could not take care of them any more. They are
frightening stories that shake you to the core, but the
narrators of these stories have the will to live, to start a new
life, and to raise their children.
The stories we will tell about this
particular war will be beyond any human imagination. The stories
of flight without knowing where to go; stories of whole families
killed without mercy for children or the elderly. The weaponry
used against my people will remain for ever etched in our
memories.
Today was the first day of the cease fire,
the first day that I, as many others, can return to my normal
life. We left the back room to sit in the salon facing the
beach. My kids refused to sleep in their room and in their own
beds, asking, "How can you guarantee that there will be no
shooting"? I know that it will take ages to forget all the
fearful moments they lived. They need time to forget the loud
explosions they heard and they need time to forget the times we
rushed, fleeing our apartment to seek shelter in a safer place.
How can I say the war has ended ?
Salma is still very scared when she hears the
sound of the F-16 planes which, of course, still thunder across
the sky with arrogance, looking down with pride at the
destruction they sowed in our souls and to our properties.
How can I tell Salma that the war has ended ?!
Luckily, my children did not witness the
killing and death of any of their loved ones, their friends or
neighbors. Yet, they still suffer the bad effects that the war
left in their minds and souls.
Other children whose souls were harvested by
the war will never forget the images they saw in front of their
eyes. They will never forget the killing of their parents,
sisters, their whole family. They may never find any peace
either in their minds and souls or throughout their lives,
because what they have seen can never be forgotten. The child
who witnessed the destruction of his house over his head, the
child who was left dying with her family under the rubble, only
Allah knowing if anyone survived; the child who looks around at
the lifeless bodies of her beloved around her, this child will
have these images burned in her mind and soul. This child will
be affected forever. How can these children enjoy life after the
cease-fire?
The children who lost their lives and their
relatives, the children who lost their eyes, their limbs, their
homes, those who witnessed the conqueror’s wide appetite, will
never forget the pain and the moments of fear they lived through
during the 22 days of the Israeli war on Gaza. Their wounds and
loss will always remind them. They have only one question on
their minds, "We have done nothing, so why have you killed us in
this brutal way, without any consideration to our childhood?" |
