Friday 10/11/2023

Human, what does this word mean or what do you think of when you say it?

Perhaps you find yourself speaking of dealing with kindness, but what you may not know is that we are now entering a time of barbarism, on the basis that what was happening before was not barbaric. What ‘was’ is barbaric, and what is happening [now] is the shattering of the human and placing them on a slaughter machine.  

The scene is repeated daily, and the scene of the forced displacement of Palestinians is repeated. People are now attempting to leave the northern Gaza Strip, targeted by Israeli machine guns, surrounded by tanks, and planes overhead. They are crossing thousands of meters on foot to reach the southern Gaza Strip, which is also under bombardment. A witness who spoke to me, named Ahmad, said that he had passed through the Israeli checkpoint near Wadi Gaza. He said to me, “ I raised one hand above my head, with the other holding my ID card. Then a soldier came and began opening fire, forcing us to lie flat on the ground. Minutes later, he began calling us by the colors of our clothing to pass into the southern side of the [Gaza] Strip.   

While Ahmed was passing through the checkpoint, I had gone to one of the shelter centers in Khan Yunis to reserve a school class for him and his family in my mother’s name, in order to protect himself and his family from the winter. We waited for hours. People entered after us and registered, but when our turn came, the official said, “We are at capacity.” 

I told him that I would write about what was happening here and went outside. On the way back to the tent at the European Hospital, a girl followed my aunt and said to her, “Don’t him write anything because the instructions came from “above” and he has nothing to gain.”

A few hours later, my grandfather arrived at the hospital after having walked halfway from the north to the south on foot, when three months earlier, he had had a joint implanted in his foot.

The hospital here has become like a beehive. The injured are everywhere and the displaced have no place. There are dozens of martyrs every minute. Death surrounds us on one side and fear of cold and winter on the other.