HOSSAM MADHOUN’S MESSAGES ABOUT HIS EXPERIENCES DURING THE ISRAELI ATTACK ON GAZA IN 2014
26 August 2014
I had an email exchange with Hossam yesterday and I didn’t have enough time to post his reply. Take a look at what he had to say about the bombing of the tower block in downtown Gaza. Anyway, this is what Hossam sent today!
Another night when death was knocking on doors! With every bombing you believe it is your door. It is your turn. Are you ready?
How? How do you get ready for death?
What you should do?
OK, this is what I do. I make sure that I dress well because I don’t want those who will move my body to see me naked; I also want to appear nice when my relatives and friends take their last look at me.
But you know, this is not guaranteed. Maybe I will die in pieces and my clothes will be also in pieces; maybe my body will be burnt, and then my clothes will be burnt too.
But I do dress well.
I will meet death with a smile? That’s a lie told only in Hollywood movies! My face will be shaped according to the level of fear I will be at the moment death comes.
But maybe I will be smiling, as death might come suddenly. This has already happened to more than 1500 people in Gaza. They did not expect death, but it came through an artillery shell, or a tank bomb or an air strike or an F16 missile, or naval bombing or some bullets in the back while they were trying to run for their lives.
So it is possible to meet death with a smile, but nothing is guaranteed.
While waiting for death, I try not to sleep so I can spend the last moments, minutes, hours looking at the angel face of my wife, visiting my daughter’s room to put what I expect to be the last father’s kiss on her cheek.
And it is not so difficult to stay awake, the sound of bombing and shelling and air strikes and bombardments keeps me awake as much as I want.
Other preparations for death knocking on the door?
During the day, you make sure that no one is angry with you, because you want people to say good things about you when you’re gone.
You make sure that you left no debts, because you don’t want people asking your wife and child for money that they may not have after you’re gone.
You make sure that home is a safe place (or at any rate make it a safer place than any other place is) for your wife and daughter. You want them to live. Of course you want to live too, but they are the priority.
Another two huge tower blocks in Gaza were bombed last night; another 100 families in the street with no shelter.
Another five tower blocks were warned to evacuate in order to be bombed; hundreds more families are in the street without shelter; thousands more people lose their dreams; hundreds more children wonder why their parents had to wake them up in the middle of the night to get them to run away from home, refusing to let them take their favorite toy;
hundreds more fathers can give ….. can give nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing to their children, to their wives, to their old parents, to themselves.