The Gaza boy
It was early morning, or was it middle of the night? As the ground shook and he opened his tired eyes he wasn’t sure anymore.
The boy wearily pushed himself up to sit. Outside there were screams and explosions, to him it was all muffled as his ear drums have been damaged a few days ago.
As the day before, still not comprehending the reality of the living nightmare, the boy looked around for his mom and dad. He desperately cried out for them, but there was no answer. He saw some rays of light break through the cracks of the cellar cover. It was morning after all. On all fours he crawled to the top. His fingers and hands felt immense pain, the bruises and dried blood under the broken finger nails told a story of pain unimaginable for such a little guy.
As he crawled out he instantly shook with fear as all he could see was destruction, flames, and dead bodies. In the air there was a horrible stench of blood and gasoline. The boy pushed himself against a cracking brick wall and sat. His eyes, filled with tears, were darting around, still in hope of seeing his parents.
His throat was dry, his tummy was sucking itself in. He had never been hungrier than this. Taking all of the strength he had left the boy stood up and walked to the middle of the street. His legs wobbled. That’s all the had strength left….as he collapsed on the bloody asphalt.
As his final energy drained he could not comprehend how this was happening, or why…
How can we?
Multiply this by hundreds of thousands of children, across the entire Middle East. Take your pick: War, torture, and annihilation perpetrated by autocrats, such as Bashar Al Assad; perpetrated by Jihadi terrorists such as Hamas; perpetrated by Islamist states such as Iran. Look beyond the borders of a tiny strip of Mediterranean coast run by a death cult, whose people have been infantilized by the UN. Look north, to the autocrat Putin's indiscriminate bombardment of Ukraine, to satisfy his mad dreams of a greater Russia. Hear the cries of the dead children of Mariupol. There's no end to this, unless people actively choose peace and coexistence. It's a sad truth that, according to the Koran, there is no compromise between the One True Religion and the unbelievers. Muslims must rule over infidels. This little suffering boy in Gaza is being promoted as a martyr for Allah. He has been sacrificed by his own people, who insist on waging a Jihad that they cannot win. It's astonishing that such world truths need to be explained to people in the West. Even so, they stop up their ears, and believe that this is a textbook story about "the oppressors" and "the oppressed." They do not understand Islam.
The situation in Gaza is so horrible. I yearn for peace there, and everywhere.