Do you remember?

You must never forget, for this is a war on your memory too.

How far does your memory go?
Do you remember when they bombed the first hospital?
The shell-shocked father who carried his son in a grocery bag?
When they fired 355 bullets at Hind’s car and wrecked the medics’ van?

Do you remember when they bombed that school?
And human remains were fished out from the bloody pool?
When bodies were handed like meat by the kilo —
30 for a child and 70 for an adult fellow?

Do you remember those uncontrollably shaking children?
The children with vacant eyes and faces covered in soot?
The children lying lifeless, unattended on cold hospital floors?
The children with their parents stacked up high in overflowing morgues?

Do you remember the journalist whose face they melted on his chest?
And the one whose car they bombed after giving it a deathly chase?
And the one who bled to death as they never allowed him to evacuate?
And the ones they burned to death in their ramshackle tent?

Do you remember this beheaded baby? And this beheaded baby?
And this beheaded baby? And this beheaded baby? And this beheaded baby?
And this beheaded baby? And this beheaded baby? And this beheaded baby?
They are all real and their count is well over forty.

Do you remember the doctor who they tortured to death?
And the one they raped to death?
And the one they took away but claimed they couldn’t trace?
And the one they released after months of trying to erase?

Do you remember when you had your eyes on Rafah?
And they said it was a red line?
Now there are no lines in Rafah — only rubble.
Yet there was no fallout, as they jive in their protected bubble.

Do you remember when they massacred those gathering for flour?
And gunned them down, scattering them like petals of a fallen flower?
And the food-shaped bombs they left like unexploded mines?
And the drones that wailed like babies, drawing men to the firing line?

Do you remember the dismantling of the largest hospital in the enclave?
And when they blew up the sole cancer hospital in the enclave?
And when they bombed every day for months the biggest hospital in the north?
And when they were done with it, there was nothing left in the north?

Do you remember the professor who was buried dismembered?
The child who wrote her will because she knew they would get her?
The nameless buried in shallow graves, who find no rest even in death?
They exhume the dead to steal their organs — depravity in their every breath.

Do you remember the night of the worst bombing?
And the night that topped that night of the worst bombing?
And the next night that topped the previous night of the worst bombing?
And the night they slaughtered 200 babies in yet another night of the worst bombing?

Do you remember the death marches of the stripped naked men?
Their bodies marked with signs of torture most inhumane?
And the 15 who never made it back after answering the duty’s call?
Only to be slaughtered and buried in a shallow mass grave?

Do you remember the skeletal men released from their dungeon?
Deprived of food and water, their bodies forgot to function.
Did you see how scabies turned their flesh inside out?
They were lucky, for they killed 60 who will never make it out.

Do you remember the ones run over by bulldozers, reduced to minced meat?
The child with Down’s syndrome, left for the dogs to feast?
The one who burned alive in his hospital bed, tethered to an IV drip?
The countless incinerated while they slept in plastic sheets?

Do you remember the father who placed a chocolate in his dead son’s cold hand?
The mother who tied her hijab to stem the blood on her son’s blown-off leg?
The old man who lost his entire clan of 70 people and called it an earthquake?
The long march back to the north, only to be bombed all over again?

Do you remember the thousand-pound bombs they dropped?
By the last count, they’ve rained five Hiroshima’s worth of bombs.
Do you hear their maniacal laughter as they pound tents with tank shells?
Do you see them rain phosphorus from the sky and how the skin burns?

Do you remember the man whose face was eaten away by dogs?
The children staring in horror at a rotted away skull?
The evaporated bodies leaving a husk for where a person once was?
There are still thousands in the rubble, and we’ll never know who they were.

So, how far does your memory go?
Do you remember it all, and more?
You must never forget, for this is a war on your memory too.
In this grotesque assault on life, did your humanity survive?
If you can’t fight, do you shout? If you can’t shout, do you curse?
If you can’t even curse, are you even alive?

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