A Midnight wasn’t for Sleep

It was a night that was supposed to be an ordinary night, but it wasn’t. I recall the nuances of that night, what happened. I hadn’t anticipated being given a chance to recount to you that nightmare night, if only words can truly narrate it!

It was the third of April this year, at midnight, when Gazan people knew this wasn’t a time for sleep. I did not feel sleepy, as if I had foreseen what was to come, and so I remained awake, preparing for something that lay hidden in the hours ahead.

I was scrolling through videos on my laptop randomly while my mind was filled with thoughts of how trivial these people’s actions were. Or maybe I was judging it by comparing it to what people in my city are interested in. Suddenly I heard a noise—but it wasn’t from the videos I was watching; it was from the window that faced the street. I guessed these sounds were from people fleeing, as usual—fleeing had become routine, so I ignored the sounds and remained in my place, returning to scrolling with a trace of fear.

This time, the sounds grew louder than before, so I moved closer to them, and then the night truly started!

I saw my mom awake and moving about. She was preparing bags and placing important papers in them. At first glance, I thought my eyes had fabricated a vision before me, so I closed and opened my eyes again and again, but it wasn’t an illusion. I was looking at my mom, and she was silent. I dared to ask her about what was going on. She told me that all people in our area must leave right now; that’s what I came to know. I went to the window, and, surprisingly, it was the same window I mentioned in the last diary, “Pains Creep Through the Window.” Maybe I ought to name this window henceforth the window of pains.

I looked out of the window; there were a lot of people—men, women, and children. They were walking without knowing the right direction. The sounds of these agitated people reminded me of what I should do. I went to wake up my sisters and brothers, speaking softly so as not to startle them. They assumed I was rousing them for the Fajr prayer, but in truth, I awakened them to escape terror, not to find serenity in devotion. We wrestled with time to survive, so if anyone was late for a second, he would be in the grave. So, we put the most important stuff in bags and ran to leave this perilous area!

We were walking in the street with a lot of people we didn’t know, but we had the same drifting feeling. Step by step we moved farther from our home, and with each step we took, our hearts were throbbing strongly. Dad heard we should go to a school—I forget its name—so we moved to that school. While we moved, my imagination summoned random, haunting, and rapid images and news about school targeting. I felt as if this were the final moment of my life. We reached the supposed area of that school, but we didn’t find it, and we didn’t even find any humans there. We returned to our area—the threatened zone. Suddenly we heard formidable explosions, which were the scariest sounds I had ever heard. Then, my nephews broke down in tears, which sharpened the clamor surrounding us. We were still in the street; the sky was still seeing us. No one knew what we should do, and all we hoped for was that the sky would not see us, for the sky too had become a source from which doom comes.

I didn’t know what made my older sister remember our uncle’s home, which we were close to at that time. She knocked on the door strongly; my cousin opened the door, and he really knew why someone had knocked at such a late hour, but this time he didn’t know who the knocker was. He looked at us, realized the fear in our eyes, and saw the fabric bags on our backs, carrying what we had taken from our home inside. We gathered in the living room in my uncle’s home. Each one of us was checking on the other. The sounds of the mighty explosions, which had begun earlier, hadn’t ended. Each one of these explosions was stronger than the last one. My uncle’s wife poured water for us, as if to douse the flames burning within our hearts.

The reasons that made these terrible actions increase were that my father and my brothers didn't agree to move very far from our house, so our hearts were torn in two: one fearing for our father and brothers, the other fearing for our home. We had no awareness of what was taking place in the area of our house.

While we were sitting in the living room, three women and a kid came to my uncle’s house. At first glance, I didn’t recognize them, nor did my uncle’s wife either. But this didn’t stop her from opening the door and allowing them inside! After a short while, I noticed these three women were our neighbors! I felt no guilt for not knowing them because I believed fear blinds the eyes from recognizing what is in front.

In the midst of these horrible situations, a kitty came among us; maybe it was searching for peace that didn’t exist or to create the peace that humans failed to create. It made a gentle atmosphere; we touched the kitty’s fur softly, and we were scared to press upon it suddenly with force—because of the might of the explosions.

By the mercy of Allah, the sounds began to slow down little by little, then my cousin told us that my brother had said, "You should return to the house—in two groups." We have been afraid of this idea—dividing us into groups, which had hunted us since the beginning of this relentless war—and we still hoped to push the thought away from our minds. Our uncle’s wife and my uncle suggested that we remain a little longer, but we longed to return home, unable to endure the wait any longer.

I was in the second group. I was walking with my sisters and many people in the street. My steps were weighed down with fear: one pressing forward to glimpse the house, the next recoiling, terrified of the truths it might reveal. I dared to look at the house, and I wasn’t able to say anything except "الحمد لله."

I was repeating it again and again because there was nothing else I desired to say. We reached the house carefully; the shattered glass was everywhere; all the windows had been blown out into the middle of the house, the doors were buckled, and countless things had fallen into disrepair, but all of that is bearable as long as we and our home are safe. For the neighbor’s houses had sustained significant damage, and the land in front of my house had been bombed—turning all the vans that were there into heaps of scrap.

We cleaned the glass on the floor and arranged everything we could at that time—4AM. My nephew, who was about three and a half years old at that time, asked my father in the midst of this chaos, "Grandfather, why didn’t you catch who did this to our house?"

The question echoed inside each one of us; my father didn't answer it. He left it unanswered. Maybe he wanted him to realize the answer by himself, as we had, and to understand exactly how this person was and how his allies were.