Small Bodies

I cannot take one set of small bodies being more important than the thousands of other small bodies on the other side of the wall.

It’s the inequality that kills me. Watching it daily, how did I not notice it before Gaza? Or was it not egregious enough to break through our perception? Watching Palestinian people be so worthless in the eyes of the entire world, watching the Israeli Armed Forces dump their bodies, excavate their bodies, drive over them, steal their organs—bodies of people they tortured with glee, before turning them into lifeless bodies.

Watching Hamas hand over the small bodies of the Bibas children, small bodies that were never supposed to be taken in the first place; how desperate you have to be to steal small children, to have a bargaining chip, to force the world to pay attention to your decades-long plight, acknowledge your existence—how desperate you have to be to resort to war crimes to bargain for your human rights that should have been inherent?

I don’t want to hear judgments from the warm sofas in your living rooms, all of you who bark at strangers on the street who bump into you and invad…