This photo inspired me to write these words…
My little Child,
One day you will return to your normal life, you’ll go back to your school,
You will walk along the streets that you used to walk and play at,
Everything is going to be as it is but with a “FEW” changes:
the streets are completely destroyed,
Martyrs here and there, dust is everywhere,
you will no longer see the buildings that were in the neighborhood ,just smoke and fire that comes out of them.
You will no longer play with your best friend because the ghost of death has lifted off his life,
But don’t worry about him, he’s happy here, he’s a little bird in Paradise .
You will no longer see the faces that you used to see.
One day you will grow up, I will be there…
Oh baby! Don’t cry,I can see loads of questions through your eyes,
Don’t be surprised all of these feelings are from the aftermath of war, all of these questions are from the world’s silence.
Please do not cry, wash your tears with a hopeful, loving smile,
The brave men never cry
My little child, one day, I will see you as the bravest man
A man that will defend his rights, his land and his just cause, and one day I will see you as the most beautiful groom with his most beautiful bride,
I will type a kiss on your forehead and on hers,
It’s all right that Allah chose me to be beside him,
I promised myself that my soul will always be around you…
Yes baby, Smile… Smile, and never lose your faith in God,
Just promise me to be strong enough to convey our just cause to the whole world and tell them that my parents have paid their lives to deliver it,
Tell them that we are human beings, we dream to live a life of dignity,
Tell them that through the death we sing for love, life and peace.
My little child, I have to go now, please take care of your little brother,
Tell him that death separated our bodies but it can never separate our souls,
I will always be there,
Just be strong,
be one hand to defend your just cause, to overbear your enemy!
With love and peace from Gaza
The older boys expression breaks my heart.
It seems obvious he’s lost someone very close to him.
Does he look any different from any boy we might see on our own streets?
Does anything make him different, except being where he is, and at the end of Israel’s vile cruelty?
The first part of this program is Jon Donnison on his young colleague Jihad Misharawi, whose baby son was murdered by an Israeli bomb:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01p02n9
Towards the end of his piece, he notes that the figures for Israeli “wounded” given by their ambulance service include people with bruises or suffering from anxiety.
I heard something about that in a prog on stats (“More or Less”) earlier – someone had queried Israel’s numbers of wounded, and they discovered that one incident, in which 111 people were included, consisted of 3 with minor shrapnel wounds, 27 who had tripped or stumbled on leaving the vicinity, and the rest were described as having suffered shock. So I guess we can take any figs the Israeli gov gives with a great big bucket of salt, and reduce by a factor of at least a hundred.
I think this particular conflict affected me more than the previous ones, and not just because I live so close to the conflict area but because now I’m not just a Palestinian activist. I’m also a Palestinian husband and a Palestinian father of a 7month old baby who could be just as old as the baby in that young child’s arms. When I look at my wife and son, I can’t imagine for the life of me what the mothers and fathers in Gaza must be going through. I can’t imagine the amount of pain the parents of murdered children are feeling, or the pain of a young child who no longer has parents and cannot feel the warm embrace of his mother or father anymore. There is nothing on this earth I would not do to protect my family. Its quite stressful knowing that as careful as you are and as responsible as you try to be for the safety of your family. There are somethings over which you do not have control. I think this is something that Western cultures take for granted. What are the odds of being struck by lightning in the United States? 1 in a million? What are the odds of being hit by a drunk driver? Who knows. But here, there is always the chance that when you kiss your wife and son and say goodbye to them in the morning….there is always the chance that you may never see them again. That is something that I have grown to fear more than death itself. I couldn’t imagine how my young wife and my baby boy would live without me? How a boy could grow up and not knowing his father. Or how I could live without them? This is something that a lot of Americans probably don’t think about but its something that we, here in Palestine, think about every day. How many more families are going to be destroyed before someone finally says Enough is Enough and holds Israel accountable for its crimes? How long will we continue to live like this, denied of our basic human rights, or dignity of living life free human beings?