slip-sliding away…..

For Ward Al-Sheikh Khalil, who escaped the bombing of Fahmi al-Jarjawi school this week. Innocent women and children were sheltering there, before the army decided they were a threat and reigned terror upon them in the middle of the night – at 1 a.m. She was the only survivor in her family – which has become commonplace in Gaza under the genocide.

A video explaining the event is up first, followed by a poem.

---

---

Like a Ghost

Like a ghost,
she walks,
stalks,
through the school,
flames searing
her whole family
as she can do
nothing
to save them.

Like a ghost,
she leaves.
No traces
left
of her siblings and mother,
except
skeletons
and charred remains.

Like a ghost,
they will
eventually vanish
from her memories,
fading with time’s endless march
as she grows…
if she grows –
outlives,
this genocide,
this erasure
of a people,
all
for a strip of land
so prized
by these devils in suits….

But

Like a ghost,
their spirits will live on;
haunt the sand and rocks,
sea and air,
all of them
remembering
the noble ones
who lived and laughed
here,
breathed their last
here,
departed worldly life
here,
moving on
to a realm eternal,
far kinder
than this cruel,
coloniser-dominated world.

Like a ghost,
these images will live
in the heads
of all who witnessed them,
but could do
nothing
to stop
the madness.

---

To stay updated with what’s going on – from on-the-ground and connected sources (rather than the mainstream media), follow these individuals:

Gazan journalist Bisan Owda (still in Gaza at this point)

Gazan writer Mona Ramadan (still in Gaza at this point)

Gazan journalist Mohammed R. Mhawish

Gazan poet and recent Pulitzer prize winner Mosab Abu Toha

Palestinian-AmericanImam Omar Suleiman

Gazan journalist Motaz Azaiza

Palestinian-American Author Susan Abulhawa

---

Interview video courtesy of Middle East Eye.
Thumbnail artwork: unknown