Shadow of Resistance

Chapter Thirteen

It seems that all what my parents told us and what I told Sarah was just a lie that we were trying to fool ourselves with. Israel declared that this is a war not just some bombings. Today is the ninth day since the beginning of this chaos, and the rockets are still falling in every part of Gaza.

No ten minutes pass without hearing an explosion or the sound of a building falling. The situation is getting worse everyday. Hospitals are filled with injured people, buildings all across Gaza receive 2 hours only of electricity per day, and food prices are getting higher and higher. Even water supply has been particularly challenging.

Today Israel announced that it will start full scale ground invasion on Gaza and it won't stop until all of Hamas's tunnel system is destroyed. Hamas's tunnel system was built during the past seven years in a brilliant way. It is like a huge maze under the ground that no one can escape unless he is one of them. It caused Israel a lot of pain so they decided to destroy it, whatever it takes.

On the other side, Hamas's attacks aimed to bring international pressure onto Israel with the strategic goal of forcing the latter to lift the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. Also their goals include ending Israel's military attacks, and releasing Palestinian political prisoners. The number of Palestinian political prisoners is estimated to be in the thousands or even tens of thousands, and they endure severe torture every day they stay in prison.

Neither of them wants to stop, and we are the ones who get killed in between. Israel is not fighting Hamas, it is fighting all of the Gazans. If they wanted to destroy the tunnel system why would they target residential buildings, or why would they destroy the infrastructure of our power system. It is clear they want to scare us to leave our land.

Omar, my parents, and I are all sitting in the living room together after my father insisted that we always stay close to reduce the chance of any one of us surviving alone and losing the rest. None of us can bear living alone without the rest.

We are all watching TV when we hear my mother's phone ringing.

She picks up the phone, and a couple of seconds later, she runs to her room. Dad follows her while Omar and I look at each other, worried and confused. Moments later, They return dressed up, their faces a mix of sorrow and concern.

"Everything is okay," Dad says. "We have to go for a couple of hours, don't go anywhere and stay together."

Mum leaves without saying anything and dad follows her and closes the door. The weight of the situation hangs heavy over us, while we are trying to believe that everything is okay, especially that we don't have anything to do other than waiting for them to come back.

I get a card game and play with Omar trying to kill time until they return. Although this didn't help and I couldn't think about anything but bad things, I think I succeeded in taking Omar's mind off the situation.

While I am sitting with my back to the door playing with him, the door opens.

"Hey it is Mariam and Jasmine" Omar shouts before I turn my head. "Is Aunt coming to stay with us?"

When I turn, I see dad holding both of them, and they are both covered with dust. I then notice mum's face, her face bores the telltale signs of prolonged crying. Her eyes were red and puffy, and the skin around them was swollen. Her cheeks were streaked with dried tears, and her eyelashes clumped together.

That is when I realised that something bad actually happened. Her eyes get filled with tears when she hears Omar asking about our aunt. She chews her lower lip and runs to her room when she feels that she can't hold her tears anymore.