Najwa Shiekh Ahmed Nusierat Camp-Gaza Strip

They said that the war on Gaza has finished, how amazing, that a war can be started in one single meeting, and finishes in one single sitting, neglecting all the pains, sorrows, fears and worries a war can leave in the souls and minds of those who attend it's woes, and pain.

Palestinians in Gaza have witnessed many wars against them by the Israelis from the first Intifada, to the second one, the regular invasions, the closure imposed on my people, a closure that doesn’t have any mercy on the people harvesting their lives without any regret, or consideration to any thing to finally the great war against innocent people, children, elders, houses, lands, every thing that is Palestinian.

With every war they witness there are stories to tell, stories about the brutality , and hate of the conqueror, and with every war there is a will to live, and to survive in order to tell these stories. I am as a third Palestinian generation heard the stories of my parents and grandparents, stories on how they flee their home land, on how people lost their children, while others abandon their children on the roads because they could not take care of them any more, fearful stories that shakes you to the core, but the narrator of theses stories have the well to live, to start a new life, and to raise their children.

However, the stories of this war sound something beyond any human imagination, the stories of fleeing without knowing where to go, the stories of complete families killed without any mercy for their children, or elders, the weaponry used against my people remains for ever.

Today was the first day of the cease fire, the first day that I as many others can live their normal life, we left the back room to sit in the salon opposite to the beach, my kids refused to sleep on their room, and on their beds, saying that "how can you guarantee that their will be no shooting" . I know that they will take ages to forget all the scary moment they lived, they need ages to forgot the loud explosions they heard, and they need ages to forget the times we rushed leaving our apartment to seek shelter in a more safe place, then how come I can say the war has ended!!!.

Salma until this moment feels so scared when she hears the sound of the F16 plane, which of course still thundering the sky with arrogance, looking with pride to the destruction it made in the souls and properties, then how can I tell Salma that the war has ended!!!

Luckily my kids did not witness the killing, and death of any of their beloved, friends, or neighbors, but they still suffer the bad effects that the war left in their minds and souls.

Other kids where the war was severely harvesting the souls, destroying the houses, will never forget the images they saw in front of their eyes, they will never forget the killing of their parents, sisters, or their complete family. They will never witness any peace either in their minds, souls or on their lives, because what they have witnessed is hard to be forgotten. The child who witnessed his house destroyed on their head, keeping him dying with his family under the rubbles of their house, and only Allah knows if any one of them was still a life looking to the other bodies of his beloved around, a scary moment that will be carved in his mind and soul, affecting his life for ever. How come that this child and many other like his case will enjoy the life and believe in a ceasefire.

Those children who lost their lives, and the lives of their parents, those who lost their eyes, their limps, their houses, those who witness the appetite of the conquer which is widely opened will never forget the pain, and the scary moments they lived during the last 23 days of the Israeli war on Gaza, their wound will reminds them, their loss will remind them, with only one question in their minds, we have done nothing, then why we have to be killed in this brutal way, without any consideration to our childhood???

-###-

January 20, 2009 By Najwa Sheikh Ahmed, Nusierat Camp, Gaza Strip. Najwa Sheikh's blog: http://www.najwa.tk/