Yesterday night in Gaza

Written by my niece, Hadeel Abu Oun, for the Facebook page "For Gaza, We Blog" on 19 November 2012, and posted here with her permission.

Yesterday night, I almost closed my eyes to catch some Z's after a bloody , miserable day, I barely slept , the sound of explosions began approaching, it was everywhere, I was telling myself it's ok, it's just one, don't worry it's almost over, another explosion, I said that is the last one then everything will be over, Booomb ! Another one, two and three ... it was too much so that I got up from bed.  With every sound of shaking bombs I was fleeing to my parents' room, daddy took me in his arms, he tried hard to stop my rainy eyes. 

Laying between my dad's arms, covering my head under the blanket , closing my eyes to this dark world, having nightmares even while I'm not sleeping, that was how I spent this night. Daddy was watching the window and warning me with every rocket-propelled, he was whispering LIGHT!  As a sign to hold my breath and get ready for the next explosion!

Daddy thought that I was crying because I was afraid of death.  Not really! It was a crying with a different flavor; I was crying because it was the first time to feel that I'm going to lose someone of my family, despite everything was going, I was not afraid of death, it doesn't scare me anymore, even if I knew I would be underground within seconds... but what is scaring me the thought of losing someone I love in these events, I may lose the life of my father, mother, brother, or a friend. I will be lucky if it is about losing my life only. With every explosion, I could see the death becomes closer to one of them, many thoughts were spoiling in my head , I was extremely weak , it was the first time to feel that weakness, I was someone I've never met before.

Fire, bombs, explosions, blood and death, it was too much for a girl in my age to endure, to breathe the atmosphere of blood smell is something terrible!  As if you are experiencing death more than once while you are still alive!!

Then, for a moment, I closed my eyes. There was an instant of extreme cold and total darkness. Suddenly I was in deep, dreamless, sleep.

I opened my eyes upon my mom , she was raising her hands to the sky and praying to God to keep us safe , this increased my faith , I said to myself: they can never defeat us! I decided to curse my weakness and shackle it with chains, I decided to be stronger, yes stronger!