HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014
10 July 2014
A reply to an inquiry about his well-being from a friend in the US
How do I feel? Sorry my friends, you are asking me the most difficult question I ever had to answer. Ask me if I am alive, that’s easy, yes I am, if I am safe, that’s also easy, no I am not, I could be another number in the news any moment just like the 91 Palestinians who have been killed during the last 3 days, just another number, oh how much I hate numbers, imagine you you live 46 years full of actions, memories, achievements and failures, love and pain, being well and getting sick, getting married and having a lovely daughter, and suddenly you are nothing but another number in the news.
No I am not fine (sorry if I sound tough) and please don’t take it personally
I am just angry, frustrated, afraid, yes I am afraid, for the safety of my daughter, my wife, my old mother, my brothers and sisters, my niece and friends. So I panic about receiving this phone call which already more than 100 people received
A phone call from the Israeli army asking to evacuate the home in 10 minutes in order to destroy it
Just imagine that moment when the Israeli army calls and orders you to evacuate your home to shell and destroy it within ten minutes. Imagine that! Just ten minutes and your little history will be wiped off the earth, your gifts and photos of your brothers and daughter when she was a baby, the stuff you like: your chair, books, the latest novel you read, a letter from a emigrant sister, memories of moments with whom you love, your habits of petting a gardenia on your window, your old clothes, your wife’s gold and the money you saved over your life. Oh! Everything comes to your mind and astonishes you! And then, you take only your identification papers inside a candy tray and go out to die a thousand times or, instead, you stay and die for once
Some families took the first decision; some others took the second decision, which is right? Who is wrong? From the outside you may think it is easy to answer, but from inside??!!! Believe me it is not that easy
For the third day, bombing continues, nevertheless what do you hear in the news in the west? But from inside I can tell you, what is happening here looks like nothing you ever knew, 91 persons killed, if we would consider the men are all terrorists, how could anyone consider the 24 children, the 16 women, the 12 old women and men among out of the 86 as terrorists
As I said earlier, I hate numbers, so, those 86 are:
Hossam lists all the names and ages of the dead in Arabic
Read Hossam’s next message. Next