Picking up the pieces?

Picture it. A smashed cup. A broken glass. A shattered vase. Picking up the pieces and putting it together will make it all better. But the human soul departed can never be recaptured in this life. Pieces of your son, your daughter, your father, your mother? They are in pieces in Gaza. A bloody game of carnage: what I went through in Palestine was horrible.

I will describe only what happened with me. Is that selfish? No, because as I wrote above, the list of what happened in Gaza is endless.I am a Computer Engineer living in Gaza and because of the siege and the rough situation we live in, I have had to work as a teacher in a local school.

It was Saturday the 27th of December. Students were preparing to enter their exam halls as it was the 1st day of final exams. I was supervising one of the rooms when suddenly the bombing started all over the school. One bomb, two bombs, three, four, five …… 60 F-16 fighters were all over the sky and were destroying any tiny atom of peace in your heart. The students were really frightened. Everyone reached for his mobile phone to contact the ones he loved and care about but there was no connection. Soon the news started coming. They destroyed all the locations of the local police force. We really couldn’t believe the news but as we were evacuating the school, we saw all of Gaza was in shock and in such pain.

Let us leave that day and start going around some of the daily life in war.

Many families from all around the strip moved to their relatives houses that were away from the Israeli killing machines. No one was safe. If you were away from tanks at the borders, you found F-16s and Apaches in the air, everywhere. If you move from the centre to the costal area then say 'Hello' to the gun ships in the sea. So it was attacky by land, air and sea- Full entertainment. The children were always gathered at the most safe location in the houses. Elder people and women would pray constantly for this to end and for victory to come. Men and young people took care of their family needs. As you all probably know, there was no food, no water, no electricity, no gas, no oil …….. The list of 'No stuff' will be endless too. Long hours of waiting for bread. I guess none of the readers had to stand 7 hours in the cold wind, heavy rain with continuous bombing all around the place for loaves of bread. Palestinians did.

As I live near a major hospital in Gaza Strip, I could see the people coming to recognize if any of the wounded was anyone they knew. The sorrow, the tears and the blood are to be put on another endless list. Why did I use the verb recognise? Because some people did not have faces left on them. Israel used Gaza Strip as an experimentation field for its feapons that are forbidden. Did you ever see the "Hands of death??", I am talking about the white phosphorus bombs.

It will be one of the most unforgettable moments of your life, when you watch a friend dying and to see a man so burnt that his family can't even recognise him. I lost many friends in this war.

What do Gaza's people expect after all this horrible war? We expect that the worse hasn't even come yet. Really, it makes me angry to see how the world reacts towards to a major case like this. You see people dying in front of your eyes and you do nothing serious about it as if the matter was not important. It is not important whether you agree or not. Israel was really happy about the world's actions because they were slower than a snail and weaker than nothing itself.

Still people here are living it to the max. Enjoying their lives, living as good as they can, raising their children and teaching them not to forget all those children, women, elder people and men that stood for their cause against all those who didn't want to and to appreciate the gift of life and death in this holy place because who knows, you may die now, few moments later or tomorrow from a rocket that is signed with LOVE.

Mahmoud A. Shalabi

This was published in ISOC NEWS