Gaza, Written by Nagma Amir

Share on Facebook Tweet on Twitter https://kathaanantah.blogspot.com/2024/01/gaza-written-by-nagma-amir.html Ghaza Am I in a dreamy- world, or have I woken up in a dream? All around me are corps laid, countless dead bodies are everywhere in surrounding: someone’s arm has been cut off, someone’s body is torn with many wounds, and someone’s head is separated from the body; Oh God, where am I? Which place is it? On one side of me is the boundless ocean and its waves hitting the shore, and on the other side, a strip of land five miles long and about 30 miles wide. There is smoke in the sky, buildings have collapsed, trees have fallen on the ground, and those trees are still standing; their branches and leaves have burnt. Hey, is anyone there? Hey, is anyone there? Who are you calling? A voice came from among the corpses. Are you alive? I turned towards the voice. Yes, I am still alive. He groaned. Who are you? And how did it happen to you? I asked the question. He looked me up and down with sorrowful eyes and said. I am Gaza. You are significantly injured! Come with me; I’ll take you to the hospital; maybe your life will be saved. He looked at me puzzled, and then spoke in a low voice. Which hospital will you take me to? I said, Al Shifa. He said in a sarcastic tone, why are you joking? I said, “What kind of joke?” He said, don’t you watch TV, and don’t you even read the newspaper? I looked into his eyes and said, “I also watch TV and read newspapers. But at this time, I am asleep. Maybe I woke up in a dream. And I’m walking in my sleep.” He said, “Truly, You are asleep. Not only you but the whole world is also sleeping; international organizations, human rights activists, the United Nations, no one is waking up; all of them are in sleep, a deep sleep; otherwise, the atrocities that are being committed here, a person who has a heart in his chest, how can he remain silent on more than 20000 deaths?” Such stories of cruelty and barbarity were created here, and the limits of atrocities were crossed to such an extent that there is no example of it in history. The dead include not only men and women but also innocent children, the old, the sick and the disabled. The hospital had to issue death certificates for those newborns whose birth certificates had not yet been made. God knows how many corpses were dug into huge pits and buried together in mass graves, and thousands of people who died in Israeli bombings did not need to be buried; they were buried under the debris of buildings. Or should I say, the earth swallowed them alive? You must have seen on the television or read in the newspaper the students of Britain’s Cambridge and Oxford Universities writing the names of the dead in black on the white sheet. By mentioning the name of the deceased these students were trying to convince the world community that there is no exaggeration in telling the digits of dead in frequent Israeli bombardments; they were doing so because a head of a so-called civilized and powerful country had said that the Palestine casualties were not as much as stated. The massive devastation and exaggerated death toll in Gaza are propaganda against Israel to defame and an attempt to mislead and garner sympathy from the international community. The so-called champions of democracy were not only saying that the countless deaths of Palestinians had been exaggerated, but they were and still are continuously supplying Israel with ammunition and weapons. Otherwise, perhaps after so many deaths and destruction, the Zionist forces would not have had the courage to continue such barbaric offensive attacks, and the war would have stopped. It is not that the people of this insensitive country are as cold as its rulers; the common- people there, including not only Muslims but people of other religions, even Jews, raised their voices against the war and war crimes. They are agitating and taking out demonstrations and processions, but the rulers are turning a deaf ear. You may have seen the shrouds on the stairs of the BBC’s London office on YouTube or read about them in the newspaper. Those shrouds were placed there as a symbol of those who died in the indiscriminately Israeli bombing in Gaza. But maybe not! Perhaps you might not have seen anything because you are asleep and still in deep dreams; how can you see while sleeping? If you had witnessed all this barbarity, viciousness and killing of innocent civilians who were neither armed nor engaged in the fight against the Zionists, you would neither eat food nor drink water, nor sleep at night, nor be able to pass the day comfortably. The screams of helpless people and the flowing red blood would have made you uneasy. Look at her, yonder at that little girl; her tongue is dry with thirst, and her throat is pricked. She rubs her tongue repeatedly with the water tap in the hope that there may be a drop of water left in the faucet, and her tongue gets wet. He was speaking non-stop and telling stories about what he had suffered during the Israeli bombing, and my sad and tearful eyes were trying in vain to count his wounds. I said, ‘Leave these things now; you are significantly injured. Come with me to Al Shifa Hospital. Otherwise, you will die. Your condition is terrible. I had not even finished my sentence when he said, “You will take me to which Al Shifa Hospital and get me admitted? Look at these ruins, where I lie injured, counting the last breaths of my life. Once upon a time, the same place was Al Shifa Hospital. The Red Cross staff took me here when they saw me lying wounded under the debris of a tumbled house, and as I was severely injured, the doctors admitted me and shifted me to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit). The doctor was bandaging my wounds, and a nurse was penetrating an injection in my right arm. Just then, the sounds of aeroplanes flying triggered coming, and it seemed like a thunderstorm had occurred. Doctors, nurses, hospitalized patients and pregnant women started running here and there to save their lives. Those disabled Patients who could not run away somehow crawled and hid under the bed. Such women who had just given birth or were in the process of giving birth were unable to get out of bed and were killed in the bombing along with their newborns. And then Israeli tanks encircled this place. After some time, the creaking of heavy boots was heard, and the soldiers entered the hospital. Several doctors and other hospital staff were taken into custody. Someone was saying that Hamas’s resistance group Al-Qassam had laid tunnels under this hospital. But they neither found any tunnel nor any Hamas operative here. Nor could they rescue any hostage. They wanted to show the international media that al-Qassam Brigades fighters operated from tunnels under al-Shifa hospital. But when they failed to demonstrate this to the world, they became so enraged that they blew up the entire building of Al Shifa Hospital with dynamite. The result was that almost all the patients and injured admitted to the hospital lost their lives.” His eyes were red, as if blood got mixed into tears, and his breath was puffing. Perhaps he wanted to say something more, but he started coughing violently and pressed his chest with his injured hand and then staggered and fell to the ground. I shouted someone is here, someone is here? Give him some water. But my voice bounced back from hitting the shore of the distant sea. Meanwhile, the thunder of aeroplanes was heard in the sky, and then thousands of cluster bombs fell on the ground, and fire broke out all around. And everything went up in smoke.