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Now it’s 2024, and the cemetery you were buried in was razed by Israeli bulldozers and tanks. How can I find you now? Will my bones find yours after I die?
She never hears the young man’s voice again.
You can make tea with sage or mint. If a neighbor or a passerby smells it, an invitation to join is extended. You put more cups on your table, you walk to the garden and pick more fresh sage or more mint.
In Jabalia Camp, a mother collects her daughter’s flesh in a piggy bank, hoping to buy her a plot on a river in a faraway land.
The scars on our children’s faces will look for you. Our children’s amputated legs will run after you.
He left the house to buy some bread for his kids. News of his death made it home, but not the bread. No bread. Death sits to eat whoever remains of the kids. No need for a table, no need for bread.
When we die, our souls leave our bodies, take with them everything they loved in our bedrooms: the perfume bottles, the makeup, the necklaces, and the pens. In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed. Nothing remains for the soul. Even our souls, they get stuck under the rubble for weeks.
children play soccer on the beach they are eight eight bombs thump the field four kids killed
Turn off the lights in every room / sit in the inner hallway of the house / away from the windows / stay away from the stove / stop thinking about making black tea / have a bottle of water nearby / big enough to cool down
On your knees! A new soldier calls me by my full name. He even says my grandfather’s name. I love the name of my grandfather. I hate the soldier, I hate his name, which I do not know. Your ID number, say it aloud! Remove your clothes, even your boxer shorts. Turn around.
On your knees! How many passports do you have? Stay on your knees! My son’s American passport, my Palestinian passport, my two other kids’ passports. We were going to the Rafah Border Crossing, I say. Shut the f*** up! On your knees!
On your knees! Terrorist! On your knees! Show me any proof, I ask. A slap across my face. You get us proof! On your knees!
Interrogation. Two hours later a soldier in English says, We are sorry about the mistake.
Angel of death, When you collect the souls of those killed in an air strike, do you mind leaving a sign for us, so we know who is who? Because last time my old kindergarten teacher couldn’t recognize her daughter’s face, which ear or arm or bloody finger on the dusty streets was hers. And a father wouldn’t recognize which was his child if it wasn’t for the size of shoes (28 European size still on the sole) that he bought her for the new school year.
Nakba, the year when Israel was founded after expelling 800,000 Palestinians and destroying 530 villages
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed in a tent, looking for water and diapers for kids; destroyed by bombs; a generation under the rubble
I saw the best brains of my generation protruding from their slashed heads.
A girl passes by, sees the bleeding door, opens it. A corpse lies beneath. The earth weeps. Though some fingers got cut, the dead young man still clutches in his hand a very old key—the only thing he’s inherited from his father. It’s the key to their house in Yaffa. He was sure it’s been destroyed, but the key will be his passport to Yaffa when they return. Now, neither he nor their knocked-down house in the Refugee Camp can stand.
