On a small piece of land marked by lifetimes of war, every passing moment in which you're alive counts.

The massive Israeli assault on Gaza in 2014 wasn't the first war I witnessed, but it was definitely the first when I felt as if death was waiting to pounce at every turn. Although it doesn't seem like it would make much difference to move from the sides of the house into the middle, I felt compelled to do so because I thought this would reduce the number of souls lost to the shelling surrounding Gaza City, artillery bombing from the east and warships in the west.

I asked my father not to sit outside the house with my uncles and our neighbors. I turned off the power in the house so there would be no light; I preferred the heat and dark more than death. I also asked my little brother not to play with other children on the roof of our house. Their small bodies might be targets for the enemy. I worried about everyone, but didn’t realize that no one was safe regardless who they were and where they hid.

My pregnant cousin, Samar, her husband, Hassan, and their 4- and 6-year-old sons first attempted to escape death by fleeing their house for another neighborhood to the north. However, it wasn't long until a heavy bombardment hit the area of their refuge. Another attempt to escape the unescapable came on July 20, when Samar decided they should seek safety by joining her sister-in-law's family in the city center.

At the time, I was volunteering at Al-Shifa hospital, trying to help in whatever way I could. Then my father called and told me the news. He wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. All he knew was that Samar had been killed. He and my brothers were coming to the hospital immediately.

It took some time for me to comprehend what I had just heard. Minutes later, I got myself together, stepped out of the emergency department and went down the stairs toward the mortuary.

I found members of my family waiting outside. Looking at everyone’s blank faces, it was one of the most difficult situations I have had to handle. I didn’t know what to say or do. I asked what had happened. I was told that Samar was inside her sister-in-law’s apartment when it was hit. The shocking moment was when I learned she wasn’t alone. Both of her sons, Saji and Kennan, were with her when two Israeli missiles hit.

I went into the morgue, put on my gloves and started searching through the body bags. The black bags were everywhere inside the morgue and outside on the ground. There were many others like me looking for their relatives. I finally found a bag containing two boys, lying as if sleeping together, tired from running and playing all day. They were Samar’s sons, Saji and Kennan. Next to them was a bag holding their mother, Samar.

A few days later, Samar’s husband Hassan managed to tell us what had happened: “It was just minutes before we broke our fast for the day. All of a sudden we heard a huge explosion. I was thrown on the floor. Everybody screamed. I had been sitting in the outer room with my father and my two brothers. The rest of the family was in the back of the house. All of them died. Only we in the outside room survived."

Although the building had dozens of apartments housing hundreds of residents, it was their unit that was hit. Later, the Israelis claimed they had targeted resistance fighters in the apartment above Samar’s hiding place, but the missile hit her family instead.

“All of a sudden I lost everything,” Hassan says—his wife, his children, his sister and his mother, all gone in a matter of seconds.

Samar was due to give birth within days to their third boy, a boy who didn’t have the chance to meet and love his family. Hassan himself suffered facial burns, a severe hip fracture and other multiple injuries all over his body. In the hospital, he looked like he suffered wrenching pain in his dreams. I still can’t imagine the feeling he wakes up to every morning.

Samar left with her two boys and her fetus, still sleeping inside her, for the safest place ever—the heavens, where God's justice prevails. May their souls rest in peace.

Meanwhile, Gaza lives on. Palestine survives.

Mentor: Hatim Kanaaneh
Posted on July 29, 2016