We Are Gaza

 

They don’t sleep. They don’t eat. They don’t live.

 

What they are going through is hell on earth. A mother holds the body of her teenage daughter that is bleeding profusely.

 

The reason? She is a ‘threat’.

 

Such a helpless soul: a young, innocent and naive human being. As she takes her final breath, she reaches out to her mother, wipes her tears off and whispers, “Allah is watching”.

 

As each day passes, they wish they were never born. Each second, fear seeps into their veins. They survive knowing that the next minute they will be burying their wives, husbands, daughters, sons, mothers, and fathers. Ruthlessness, torture, cruelty, inhumanity, injustice and merciless killings have become a part of their daily lives.

 

That one beautiful bride who was waiting so eagerly for her special day is left without a companion. She weeps knowing that she might never find a soul as beautiful as the one she knew.

 

That father buries his own son who has no arms due to the loss of the true definition of mercy. His beard becomes wet as he cries for the only child he was blessed with.

 

That brother watches his sister being shot because she couldn’t run for her life: the bullet pierced through her belly straight into her unborn child. Such is the real description of animosity.

 

Attacks happen every other second, but the world is quiet and silent. Life continues as if nothing is going on. Remember! As you enjoy the security of that guard at your gate, someone is sleeping outside his home because it’s pointless to go in.

 

As you enjoy sharing a meal with your entire family, a mother is busy looking for the corpses of her three young ones. As you breathe this fine air and enjoy the smell of the tulips and the serenity of the suburbs, a young boy has lost his sense of sight and smell due to the fire rockets being thrown at him.

 

As you sip on that cup of cappuccino hoping you will stay up the whole night, someone hasn’t slept for days due to fear and nervousness.

 

I don’t want to sit here fooling myself that this can’t happen to me or you and that you and I can never lead such a lifestyle. If it ever happens, we have no right to complain when the rest of humanity turns a deaf ear. We didn’t do anything when our brothers and sisters were being tortured. We didn’t say a word or make the world understand that this was not normal. But, it’s never too late.

 

What am I doing about it? What are you doing about it? Most of all, what are we, as an ummah, doing about Gaza? Did we become deaf, dumb and blind? Can’t we hear the cries of our brothers and sisters? Can’t we see the lives being lost? Why the silence?

 

By the time you finish reading this piece, hundreds will have been massacred. We need to speak out. We need to show the world that when a finger is cut the whole body aches. We need to prove that we are Gaza.

 

At the very least, remember the innocent souls in your every dua.

May Allah protect Gaza and grant its people peace and tranquillity. Ameen.

 

See more on Zayara's amazing blog, zarayayarrow.wordpress.com.

photo credit: zoom_artbrush via photopin cc

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