This is just a phone call that happens every morning. It’s the first thing I do to start my day.
This time it wasn’t a promising phone call with my family. My mother said that my sister’s house, where all the family including 10 children are staying, is without windows and doors. Everything collapsed when the other house on the other side of the street was bombed last night.
My family escaped quickly to another neighborhood and spent the night at someone’s apartment who embraced them. Then in the morning, they went back to their house and tried to clean up the broken window glass which was scattered all over.
I asked my mother where they stay in the house since even the walls got broken. She said that there’s a room that still has walls!
This morning didn’t feel fine. I barely heard what my mother was talking about; her voice was weak and sad. It’s like last night’s bomb targeted her strength that I always believed in. She said, ‘I’m talking to you while watching the neighbors evacuating their homes… we will not leave, where to leave? Do you know where we should go?’ There I felt totally helpless and tried to push down my tears away from my throat. What could I answer my mother? She seemed to be very lost and tired of the unpredictable situation.
As I understood, people there started evacuating without knowing where they were going. They were escaping the horrific loud explosions, but bombs kept falling everywhere. So it’s pointless to leave for somewhere else.
It could be my last phone call to my mother. I’m not pessimistic; it’s just the truth of what she described to me of a dead neighborhood right now.
The civilians of Gaza are in deep pain and in a terrifying panic. They are humans; they are not heroes with superpowers to stand against unfair war. They are not miracle shields, and they are not numbers in this genocide.
Kawther Ljustermo 