Atef Abu Saif: We’re OK in Gaza, though most of us have been forced to leave our homes and flee to live in schools. From flight to flight, from tent to tent. Some of us, who find no place to stay in the schools and no tent to enter, take up residence in the street. We spread out the earth beneath us, and cover ourselves with the sky. We hang our laundry on the sidewalk railings, wash it with the saliva of life itself, and dry it with the flame of death that hangs over the neighborhood.
We’re OK in Gaza. The ambulance is still running; its efforts are without equal. The journalist’s camera swallows up the news of our deaths, delicious platters and savory pastries to be stored away by the media agencies. In the eyes of the world, we are still the executioners, despite our blood spilling like milk from a child’s cup.
We’re OK in Gaza. If only we knew that this war would end, and that we would be rescued from it as we were rescued from the one before. We’re OK in spite of it all.
– “Hello, Gaza? Are you OK?”
– “The owner of the number you are trying to reach is dead.”
More here.