As I lay in bed, I heard gunfire, getting nearer. It was now only a few hundred meters away.

My anxious, restless mind conjured images of dismembered bodies, shown every day online and on TV.  It was impossible to sleep. My mind wandered.

When I was a student, one of my professors said something that still sticks in my mind: “The need for safety precedes any other basic human requirement,” he said, citing Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. However, there is no safety anywhere in Gaza.

I turned on my side and tucked my hands behind my head, staring at the stars. “When is it going to cease? When will life be normal again? When will I return to my English teaching job? Are my students still alive?”

As I brooded, my eyes fixed on the night sky, I was jolted by the terrifying roar of two consecutive missiles, accompanied by a blinding orange blaze. Night became a hellish day.

Next, I heard shouting from a nearby house. I hurriedly grabbed my phone, turned on its flashlight and dashed to the street. The black fog of the bombardment made the night darker and blurred my vision; I could barely see my hands in front of my face.

A search for survivors

Pleading voices guided me to where the airstrikes hit. I realized that it was another house leveled to the ground. As my feet drew me toward my stricken neighbors, the cries became louder and the fog thicker.

Once I reached the site, a survivor whose head was covered in blood emerged from under the rubble and he pleaded with me to rescue his family members still in the house. “Please, there are dozens of my family members under the rubble, please! They are alive!”

Unfortunately, I was the only person there. The other neighbors had evacuated the area days earlier; the Israeli army had not warned residents to move, but the hovering warplanes scared most into leaving.

Blood pounded in my ears as I faced the reality that the remaining part of the three-floor house could be bombed again. Nonetheless, I was determined to rescue whomever I could. I swallowed hard and climbed up the half-shattered walls onto the second floor.

A miracle of God

Inside, th darkness seemed impenetrable, and the smell of death almost suffocating. The beam of my flashlight

was useless. I shouted, “Is there anyone here? Can you hear me?”

But all I could hear was my own breathing.

After a while, a few other people showed up and joined me, lifting up stones. “There’ss someone here,” shouted one, pulling at the rubble with his bare hands.

“Are you sure? I don’t see anything,” responded someone else.

“I heard a voice coming from here,” insisted the man, pointing at a spot.

Together, we began to throw aside the charred stones and blocks. To our shock, we saw thee hand of a child buried half a meter under the mound of rubble. We redoubled our efforts.

It seemed impossible that the child could be alive, but thanks to God she was gasping for breath. I felt a tinge of relief.

As I searched for other survivors, I thought about the dusty face of the little girl. It was familiar to me. Yes, we lived in the same neighborhood, but I didn’t remember someone like her in the area. “Is she one of my students?” I wondered. “But I teach boys, not girls.”

No pulse, no breath

I worked harder now to find her siblings and parents. Suddenly, my body froze: I spotted the corpse of a boy, lying face down, with blotches of blood encircling him.

With shaking legs and reluctant eyes, I approached him. I rolled him onto his back so I could check his health status, as I was trained in first aid.

“This can’t be real! No!”

I turned away in shock. I saw the other men busily searching, but nothing else mattered. The dead boy was my favorite student, 8-year-old Mohammed Almedfa.

He considered me more like a father. My eyes brimmed with tears. At that moment, I realized that the girl was Mohammed’s sister who used to come with him when I was teaching him English in the nearby mosque.

I placed the back of my hand on his nose to feel for any faint breathing. No pulse, no breath. His soul had departed his body.

Mohammed died in his childhood, stripped of his innocence, due to no fault of his own. He will never call me “my teacher” anymore. Yet his laughter still rings in my ears.

Are his parents also dead? What about his rescued sister? Will she be alone to face life’s hardships?

But I say, Mohammed is alive in the most important sense. Through this story, he will become immortal This earth is full of cruelty and injustice, and that must change.

Postscript

Two weeks before the war, I asked my students to write about nature’s  creatures. This is a page from the story Mohammed wrote:

The clever child Mohammed said: Salamu Alaykum (peace be upon you) … How are you, dear uncle?

The elderly man replied: Waealaykum Alsalam (And may peace be upon you) … How are you doing, my son?

The clever child: Good, thank God. Can I sit next to you where the peaceful nature is, my uncle? I saw the nearby mulberry trees. I love them so much.

The old man: You are welcome, dear son.

Mohammed: I was visiting my grandfather and then I entered this beautiful place. I am mesmerized by the beaming sun, the colorful birds, the sparrows’ songs, the high sky and the fresh air.”