The air in Gaza no longer knew how to be still. It pulsed with the acrid stench of burning flesh and phosphorous, clinging to the ruins like a shroud. The streets—once vibrant with the scent of za’atar and the shouts of children chasing soccer balls—were now a grotesque tapestry of shattered concrete and torn limbs. Bodies lay in unnatural angles, some half-buried, others suspended grotesquely on jagged rebar, as if the city itself was trying to hold onto them one last time.
The American SPICE2000 bomb—2,000 pounds of precision-engineered carnage—slammed into Khan Yunis, shredding Palestinian children into semitic confetti as Netanyahu, the bloodstained architect of their suffering, glided through Western capitals on red carpets, his handshake diplomacy ensuring Hungary’s convenient exit from the ICC to spare him the inconvenience of justice. Gaza, a 360 sq km slaughterhouse, has absorbed 79,000 tonnes of hell—six times the firepower of Hiroshima—leaving schools, hospitals, and UN shelters as mass graves in a graveyard where 19,000 children and 70,000 souls have been erased, one child butchered every 45 minutes for 535 days straight. The arithmetic of genocide unfolds in real time: 30 tiny coffins lined up daily, 60+ world leaders averting their eyes, and 2 billion Muslims—their ummah fractured into voiceless, stateless specters—left to whisper prayers over the ruins, their faith in humanity as shattered as the bones beneath the rubble.
The Mother and the Rubble
A woman clawed at the wreckage of her home, her fingernails long gone, her hands raw meat. The dust had settled into her wrinkles, turning her skin to cracked porcelain. “Yusuf…” she croaked, the name tearing from her throat like a splinter. Just hours ago, her six-year-old had been pushing a toy car along the floor, making engine noises with his lips. Now, only his small hand peeked from beneath a slab of ceiling, fingers still curled—not in pain, but as if frozen mid-play. She pressed her forehead to the rubble, her sobs silent. The bombs had stolen even her screams.
The Sky Was Full of Children
It happened too fast to be real. A father sprinted, his daughter’s pink dress fluttering against his chest, both of them slick with blood and dirt. Then—light. The explosion didn’t roar; it ‘unmade’ sound. The force hurled them upward, the girl’s body spinning like a leaf in a storm, her limbs splaying as if trying to grasp the sky. They landed in a tangle, the father’s arm still wrapped around her, both now still. No dramatic music. No final words. Just the distant wail of another missile finding its mark.
Nearby, a boy stumbled forward, his left arm a ragged stump, his face a mask of soot and shock. He didn’t scream. Didn’t call for his mother. He just… stared. As if waiting for someone to pinch him awake. Then his knees buckled, and he folded into the dirt, his blood pooling dark around him.
The Poison in the Wind
In the corpse of Al-Shifa Hospital, a doctor knelt beside a convulsing child. The boy’s lips foamed pink, his skin bubbling like wax. “It’s in the air,” the doctor muttered, his gloves slick with fluids he couldn’t name. Around him, children gasped like fish on land, their tiny chests heaving for breaths that wouldn’t come. “We don’t have antidotes. We don’t even know what this is.”
Outside, the wind carried a metallic tang. People dropped mid-step—coughed, clutched their throats, collapsed. Their last sight: the indifferent blue of a sky that had watched it all and done nothing.
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The Ummah’s Empty Chairs
In marble palaces a thousand miles away, men in crisp thobes stirred sugar into teacups and murmured about “restraint.” Summits were held. Statements drafted. Condemnations “noted.” Meanwhile, in Gaza:
A father cradled his daughter’s body, her braids crusted with blood. He didn’t rage at the warplanes. He turned his face eastward, toward the capitals of the Ummah, and whispered:
“We called you. For years. For decades. With every bomb, every mass grave, every starving child—we called you.”
His voice cracked. “Where were your armies? Your boycotts? Your fury?”
Silence.
Somewhere, a TV played footage of diplomats shaking hands with the killers.
The Accounting
As the last generator sputtered out, as the last child’s breath faded, the final sigh of Gaza rose on the wind—not a plea, but an indictment:
“When Allah asks us, ‘Did Ummah forsake you?’… we will say, ‘They had power. They had wealth. They had our names on their tongues.’”
A pause. The crunch of boots on glass.
“And when He asks ‘them’, ‘Where were you when Gaza burned?’… what will they say?”
The sun dipped below the horizon. Somewhere, a banquet began.
The Graves Speak
Beneath the rubble, beneath the unmarked mounds of fresh earth, the voices lingered:
“You were supposed to come.”
“You were supposed to care.”
“Now we sleep. And you? You will never forget.”
