October 15, 2023 Death in The Middle East

Everything was gone.

The explosions rocked the street and her home tumbled to the ground. Fatima stood and held herself. Numb. Her whole body shook as she stared at the rubble that used to be her home.

If she’d have been a few minutes earlier she would have been inside that burning hulk of concrete that lay tattered in front of her.

Why did they have to destroy everything? 

Part of her was happy about what Hamas had done to those hated Jews. The rest of her railed against the horror of it all. She’d grown up in the Gaza Strip and it was all she knew. Now it was gone. 

Why did they have to destroy everything? Her mother was inside that mass of destruction, her father was long dead. A victim of the last Israeli push against her people. Her people had nowhere to go. 

No one wanted them. The Palestine nation was a tattered remnant of what once was. Her grandparents told her stories of being young and living in a place of beauty. Then the British came and said they had to share with the Jews. What right did they have taking away her nation? 

No one seemed to care.

And now it was all a crumbled mess. Fatime stared into the sky and watched the jets fly overhead. She shook  her hand and cried. But there was nothing she could do. She was a speck on the world. A tiny creature who had nothing. Now, she had no one. How could this ever end?

She heard the evil Jew spout off his hatred of Hamas. She heard the words when he said they would wipe Hamas from the face of the Earth. Did the fool really think there was a victory in the destruction of everything in Gaza? All it would do was create more hate, and more violence. 

Fatima never used to hate the Jews as much as she did at that moment. For a time, when her dad was alive she argued that they needed to find peace with the Israelis, peace would be the way to love. But then they took him from her. She never knew freedom after that. Now all she knew was hate.

And pain.

She would go find the ones fighting back. And she would do what she could to find revenge. 

There was nothing else left for her now. 

***

In retaliation for the attack by Hamas on Israel, the Israeli military bombed many parts of the Gaza Strip. They have ordered everyone to abandon their homes and flee Northern Gaza before a full-on military strike. 

There is no end to this conflict. By attacking innocent civilians they are causing another generation of hatred.

There are no winners. Only death.