It was 61 years ago in June but I remember the night in my early life as if it was today. This night gives me some sense of what is means to be a child in Gaza, who is experiencing days and nights that are far far worse. I was 7 and my brothers 5 and 1 After an unusually hot and stifling day, the sky darkened over the housing development that we called home with hundreds of other families. A powerful lightning storm developed that even as a child I knew was something to be feared.... our dinner was interrupted by explosions of thunder that rocked our home. We were sent to the neighbors upstairs in our building to play with the toddlers who were frightened by the storm. We were singing songs with them (for them) as all hell broke loose. A tornado ripped through the housing development like a bomb, like lots of bombs. Windows started to smash all around the mother and her two children and the two of us.... We were hurried to the lower floor of the building by this frightened mother.... a large chunk of glass smashed into the head of the little boy that was walking with us..... blood gushed from his head. We pushed our way into our apartment on the lower flour........ furniture was dancing in the air..... a huge truck smashed into our apartment...... I was lifted into the air and smashed eventually to the ground. My mother grabbed her youngest son from his crib and lay over him..... she saved him... the crib was flattened and covered with large chunks of glass. It was as if a bomb had exploded... and then total silence.. not a sound...... Except for sudden and growing screams that I remember to this day. We threw off the debris that was covering us and went outside.... There were injured everywhere....dead cows from a neighboring farm were hanging from what trees remained.... The neighborhood was in rubble.... brick houses totally destroyed. I know now that many were dead. I remember that we took a cab and moved in with Nana (my grandmother) for a few days.... and then later moved to an old house that was provided for us..... I remember distinctly that Mom ushered us into the basement of our future houses every time that another lightning storm hit.... she still looks to the sky with fear as dark clouds gather 61 years later. I remember distinctly losing control of many bodily functions for the next couple of years. And often arriving at school with wet pants... That was 61 years ago, and that night still remains with me. I can only imagine the trauma that children are experiencing in Gaza right now after 7 weeks of bombing and explosions and images in the news and in front of them as they walk streets that are either partially destroyed or fully destroyed. I can only imagine the trauma of those children who have been so badly injured during attacks on their homes.... i have seen many of them who are injured from head to toe.... and likely injured within in ways that we cannot imagine. The trauma of being thrown in the air as a bomb explodes or thrown from your bed and being buried in rubble. The trauma of being held by a mother or father who has been martyred beside you. My own early trauma gives me some small sense of what my young Palestinian brothers and sisters have suffered in these last seven weeks. We looked to the sky for so many years after our experience of the explosive side of nature. Every time the sky darkens, we prayed. I still hurry to shelter when the sky grows dark. And now my young brothers and sisters look to the sky when F16s approach at all hours of the day, and dread the dark night when the voice of bombs and rockets are all they know. But this is no aberration of nature.... a freak storm that hits a neighborhood. What these children are experiencing are crimes against humanity. This is an act of man - an act carried out ruthlessly by our Israeli neighbors - an act in which my own country and its government are complicit. I will never forget the storm of 1953. These children will never forget their discovery of mans inhumanity to man. Israel has taken its place in the darkest episodes of history... may God forgive them.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 09:44:15 +0000
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