A bomb was dropped on Gaza

But it wasn’t just a bomb that was dropped on Gaza.

A bomb was dropped on Gaza
They tell you 56 people died
You read it and moved on soon
Probably said a prayer or two
Perhaps shed a tear too

But it wasn’t just a bomb that was dropped on Gaza
It didn’t just kill 56 people
It tore through their flesh, reduced them to meat,
Turned them to ashes from intense heat,
Their erasure from the civil registry complete

It took away dreams, hopes of lives short-lived
It made little children orphans, left to weep
It made mothers desolate, unable to sleep
It made fathers cry in agony, in pain so deep
It made craters, reduced homes to ash heap

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It killed the father who went for milk for his newborn,
Whose mother was too fragile, too weak to feed
But he is now unrecognisable chunks of meat,
The mother, fragile and weak, must take the lead

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It killed the eldest son, incinerated in the blast
He grew before his age, taking on the family’s task,
A student still, his dreams couldn’t last
A future stolen, now reduced to the past

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It killed the child, just 5, now dismembered, dead
The father, left cradling his beloved’s head
Conceived after years-long wait
Now he faces the future with extreme dread

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It killed the father, who had buried his days-old son,
Who was frozen to death, his warmth undone
The heartbroken father joins his boy,
Now the mother longs for the same joy

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It burned the little rose, all of 10
She had penned her will to divide her possessions,
Some for the siblings, the rest for her friends
In tears, the mother now tells stories of her little hen

They never tell you who the bomb killed:
It killed a man of 86, who’d buried dozens of kin
Made refugee in 48 as a kid,
He dreamed of returning to his home in al-Lidd
Now he ascends to heaven, to a house splendid

I only told you stories 6
Out of a total of 56
Can you sit through the rest of the statistics?
These are crimes most sadistic
By a criminal that knows no ethics

This was just one bomb that dropped on Gaza,
But tens of thousands more have come before
And these are just 56 dead,
There are hundreds of thousands more
Each one a universe, with stories galore

They never tell you who the bomb killed
Because you might identify with those stilled,
You might see yourself in their dreams unfulfilled,
Picture them as humans with hopes yet unbuilt —
And it’s not good for business that thrives on blood spilled

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Eid Mubarak to each of you and yours!

I hope that next Eid for our brothers and sisters in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, and Iraq are in better circumstances after two successive Eids in the middle of unimaginable suffering.

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