In the midst of genocide, love endures

In the midst of genocide, love endures, In Gaza’s southernmost region, I collected stories of women in hospitals recovering from what they call “war wounds” during a recent visit. There is only one army on each side, so it is not a war. Neither side has full military wares.

A mother, wife, and baby were burnt, pierced, torn, and broken. In the five months following their injury, they are only able to reveal the deeper injuries they have sustained.

Their initial descriptions are broad strokes: a bomb hit their houses, they were rescued, they suffered severe injuries, a family member was killed, and the situation was dire. As far as their unimaginable horrors have been concerned, that is all they have said.

However, I strive to find out more details. When you were just moments ago, what were you doing? When you first saw or heard something, what was it? Is there a smell to it? Did it seem dark outside or was it light?

The gravel in the mouth, the dust in the lungs, the weight, the warm liquid running down the back, the twisted finger seen but not felt – I nudge them to zoom into the molecular structure of every fact – the weight, the dust, the weight; the moment of realisation; the fear that no one will return; the ringing in the ears; the strange thoughts; the things that could not move and the things that could; the longing for life. Death and the desire that it be fast.

A powerful military force targeting their lives months or weeks ago had yet to visit, much less verbalize, the minutiae of the genocide. Usually, as their stories progress, they begin to shiver and their eyes darken. They are startled at even the slightest noise.

Few people allow themselves to cry, even when tears pool and fall. Horrors in people’s minds rarely pass through the gates. It doesn’t take superhuman strength to do it. Contrary to what you might think. It is as if they are still numb to the magnitude of what they have suffered and will continue to suffer.

Jamila

As she held her six-year-old son’s lifeless body in the dark, Jamila (not her real name) cried for the first time since her fingers accidentally penetrated his brain. Among the few who sobbed, surrendering to memory, she was one of the few.

They were not targeted by missiles, but by tank fire. Her family ran from one side of their apartment to the other, unable to escape, as a drone hovered outside their building with heat-sensitive sensors.

Before the final blow went through both the boy and his father, she was certain someone behind a screen was playing with them. After that, there was silence in the world. “As if they had come only to kill my beloved son”, she said, “the tank fire stopped.”.

Then, she didn’t cry. There was no sound from her, in fact. Despite my husband’s warning, I did not cry. She said, “I don’t understand why.”.

Having fled from place to place, she and her daughter Nour cowered in terror inside a hospital two weeks later, when an Israeli soldier shot her to death, shattering both of her small legs.

The bullet exited Nour’s right calf, leaving a long scar that ran the length of her right shin. She had metal bars sticking out of her tiny shins. She and Jamila had been discharged days earlier, but for some reason, the doctors allowed them to stay a few more days until they could find somewhere to stay.

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Jamila’s husband lives in a tent with a group of men, barely able to walk due to his injuries. He has been able to secure meager food and water each day. During my time there he visited once after saving up 10 shekels (approximately $3) for transportation and a small gift for his daughter.

It is a private matter for lovers in Gaza to display every ounce of their intimacy, but there is no privacy in a hospital, where 40 patients and their caregivers share a single room with just enough room to walk between beds.

The bombing had destroyed Jamila’s phone so she hadn’t been able to contact her husband for over a month. Her later words told me that she might even have kissed him on the cheek if she had been able to embrace him. Taking the pain of a whole nation and her own on her small shoulders, she said, “He is suffering so much.”.

Nina

It is difficult to resist Nina’s (not her real name) smile and effusive generosity. Whenever I ask her how she saved her husband, she is eager to share her story.

The Israeli bombing near their house intensified only a year after she was married. We can only imagine what has been recorded from some of those nights. Demons from above and below close in, stomping and burning everything around them; thunder and earthquakes; dragons stomping and burning everything around them.

Several of Nina’s family members – parents, uncles, aunts, their spouses and children, as well as some neighbours – decided to leave along with her husband Hamad. Over 75 people were traveling from town to town, unable to settle down for more than a few days at a time in a safe place.

It wasn’t long after Nina left that she found out that her family home had been bombed. The sadistic 20-something Israeli who pushed the button that single instant was responsible for the murder of 80 members of her family – father, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, nieces, nephews, and cousins.

The first time she heard that her mother had been martyred, she was relieved to learn that she had survived. As a result of her injuries, Nina had become her caretaker, and she had been transferred to a hospital. My encounter with this remarkable young woman began in this way.

The group reached a temporary stop in Gaza City, where they moved along fencing walls to reach a shelter. Nina, her husband, and the other members of the group eventually reached a temporary shelter. By going one at a time, they hoped they would not all be killed if Israel fired on them. A loss of one is better than a loss of 75 at once.

The group were split for a long time after one person was shot by a sniper, until they mustered the courage to run one at a time again, one at a time. Parents divided their children between them. It is better to kill half a family than to kill the whole family. Like Sophie’s Choice, they had to make such choices.

Within a short period of time, tanks surrounded their shelter. There was a quadcopter flying into the room, inflicting bullet wounds on the walls above their heads with the help of a new Israeli terror invention. There was screaming and crying from everyone, Nina remarked, “even the men”. “Seeing such a strong man cower in fear broke my heart.”

Eventually, soldiers entered the building. The number of them must be at least 80, she said. Women and children were separated from the men, and the women stripped down to their boxers in winter. Women and children were crowded into a small storage room, men into two classrooms. In the other rooms, the women listened to their husbands, fathers, and brothers being beaten and tortured for three nights and four days, until finally, soldiers instructed them to take their children south based on their broken Arabic.

Nina was the only woman who did not comply. There was no point in caring anymore. The men were being held in rooms where she ran and called Hamad’s name. She was ready to die, but I couldn’t leave without my husband.” There was no response from anyone. As she was being dragged away, it was pitch black. Their laughter seemed to amuse her hysteria, as she fought them. She was dubbed “crazy.”.

It was her husband’s red boxers in the second room that she recognized, so she rushed to him and pulled his blindfold off, kissed him, embraced him, promising to die with him. Alternating between cursing and begging her husband’s release, she cursed the soldiers. He was eventually released after the plastic ties were cut.

Her work wasn’t yet done. She went back inside as Hamad walked away to get clothes for her uncles who were naked in the cold. It would take weeks for them to be released. Execution would be the fate of some of these men.

The two of them were able to make it out together. Their arrival at safety brought them to the realization that his leg had been broken, his wrists were slashed, and a Star of David adorned his back.

As a soldier carved the Jewish symbol into her husband’s back, Nina had heard his screams over the previous days.

Timenews1 provided that news.