Amal means Hope in Arabic. Amal is the name of a girl, the daughter of a friend, she also was my patient when I worked in Gaza.
I’m in a state of shock, helplessness, and hopelessness.
I have to call all my friends, colleagues and patients in Gaza, but what should I tell them?
Are they safe? Did they survive? How?
I call a friend and his daughter is on the phone, crying, shouting:
Are you aware of what’s going on here in Gaza? Do you have electricity to be able to watch the news about us? Did you ever see such a misery?!
Dozens of children have been killed and I am less than 2 hours away! As a doctor I have to watch the catastrophe of my people unfold on TV, like everyone else around the world — watching TV, crying non stop, trying to find answers for Amal!!
I call my friend who is a clinical psychologist. He describes what is going on with his own family: “You won’t believe it, we are so scared. I am so sad that I can’t even hide my fear.
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How can I help my children? As a clinician and a father I lost my credibility in front of my own children, I feel so helpless”.
“We all sleep stuck to each other in order to form one body. If we die we’ll die together! It’s so painful to feel the horror, as you loose interest to live! As if there’s no difference between life and death!” I’m crying.
I try to call another friend who’s a pediatrician working in a hospital: “What’s going on there?” His voice comes through the phone sad & quiet: “Difficult to explain. I’ve never imagined one would live to witness such a savage way of killing children”
They are planting bullets in the hearts of little Gaza children — hatred, revenge, an attitude of “never forgiveness” in the hearts of millions of Arab children world wide! What would Israeli leaders tell the new generation about their aggression against Palestinian children? What would they tell their own children? How are they going to find excuses? Is there any excuse to kill children? What is their excuse?
“Did you see the little girl on TV sticking to the rescuer’s arms, not allowing him to leave her because she doesn’t feel safe? Will she feel safe one day? I will never forget another little boy brought to the emergency room. I will never forget his deep, loud cry: ”Mama”. I remember his tears, his eyes wondering, as if to say: “What did I do? Why?” I wish that Israeli leaders could hear this cry! How would they feel?
Do Israeli leaders know how it feels when a mother runs to hospitals searching for a husband or a son or a daughter? Is he/she, injured, alive, going to survive? Is she going to forget or forgive? How can she forget? How can she forgive?
Do political leaders know how it feels for a doctor to find and treat an injured baby with no family around, with no identity?
Who is the winner in this crazy, senseless war?
The killing, shelling, slaughtering, the disabling of women & children continues! What do they expect, in return?
It is a historically irreversible crime Israel is committing against its own nation!
What did Israel achieve in sixty years — a militarized state with no respect for any living human being, no values, no moral, no conscience, no principles, no boundaries, no manners! How will Israel survive?
As a mother, as a human being, as a woman with a humanitarian mission for our children to dream, forgive, love and to live in peace and dignity, how am I going to continue with my mission for a better future for all Palestinian children and the children of the world? How am I going to implement a culture of peace, forgiveness, acceptance of the other, after this systematic killing of Palestinian children? I have just joined the World of Children’s honoree to become one of eight change makers, who’s remarkable work on the ground work has significantly improved children’s lives! I have just received an International Award, the “CHILDREN’S NOBEL PRIZE®”.
How can I continue with the vision, the mission that I was honored for!??
It’s a humanitarian catastrophe against Palestinian children in Gaza. What the Israelis have done is an act of aggression against all children of the world. They have no excuse! Children are children everywhere.
Amal continued to call, to express her feelings and to tell me her stories and events she has witnessed: “We are so frightened, we can’t sleep day and night. They keep shelling everywhere and from everywhere. My friends ran away from their home to the UNRWA school and the next day it was also shelled. There was killing everywhere. There was no safe place, not even our moms’ bosoms. My friends’ house was bombed and they stayed for hours stuck to the body of their mom — not moving, not breathing from terror, only to discover later on that their mom was dead.”
What should we tell these children? How can we explain to them what has happened and why?
Dear Amal: I have no answers for your questions. I am also wondering — did the Israeli leaders not think of the moral and political consequences? Did they think of the emotions of the masses in the streets of the whole world? Did they think of the impact of this “anti human, anti-civilization, ugly, crazy war? Did they think of the impact on the future of Israeli children? Did they think of the impact on the Palestinian children? Did they think of the impact on children around the world?
Dear Amal, Dear Children of the World: What Israel did and is continuing to do is immoral and outrageous. I was on the edge of loosing the most precious value I’ve always had — LOVE, HOPE, FORGIVENESS! This horrible experience taught me that they can steal our land, they can kill our children, they can kill our loved ones, they can destroy our homes, clinics, mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, and they can defeat our political leaders. Yet they can’t and will never be able to steal our dreams and our hopes!
Dear Amal, keep up your dreams!
One day a just peace will come!
By: Jumana Odeh MD, MPH
Ramallah – Palestine
March 2009