ZIAD IN GAZA

 I once read that you are “as old as you feel”. I guess there are no children nor youth left in Gaza if we apply this equation. We have turned into a place of old people waiting silently for a miracle to happen, or for death to select them. Every day, every moment, our souls are getting older.

The kids have gotten really old recently. Physically, after almost five months of staying with the hosting family, the grandchildren are much taller. But it is not their bodies that grabbed my attention, it is their innocence that I see being stolen from them day after day. They are traumatised, they have lost friends and they haven’t had a normal life in a long time.

I was on my way out when I saw the youngest grandchild holding a piece of bread in her hands. I asked her if she was going down to see the other kids in the street. “Not until I finish my bread,” she said. “My mother told me that not all children have enough bread. And if I go down and eat in front of them some might feel sad.”

We both paused for a couple of seconds until she asked: “I do what my mother tells me, but why don’t all children have bread?”

I stood there, startled by her question. Then, she saved me by adding to her thought: “… and chocolate and potato chips and cotton candy and … ”

She started counting all the fun delicious things that children eat. Then, a couple of cats came up and she started telling me what each one of them did the previous day. Apparently, one of them approached her sister while she was playing and she patted him.

I said goodbye to her and left.