Killing has many faces
In Gaza, we have learned that killing has many faces, and that it asks neither about age, gender, nor dreams. They have killed the old and the young, women and men, and targeted homes, schools, hospitals, stones, and trees. There was no justice in anything, except that death reached everyone. 💔
But this is another chapter in the genocide: death’s hand reaching even for schoolbooks—the books children carry to nourish their minds and build their futures. 📚🕊️
This is the story of Wafaa Akkiya, a six-year-old girl. On the morning of her first day of school, she went to school carrying a joy that resembled life itself. She carried her books, and perhaps dreams larger than her little heart. But her joy lasted only a few hours. 😔
On her way home, Wafaa was targeted and killed, and her schoolbooks were destroyed with her. Death did not stop at taking a child; it tried to take away what those books promised her: a future, a dream, a life. 🥀
And yet, from Gaza this morning, I say: we will hold on to our schools, our books, our future, and our dreams. We will carry them in our hands, no matter how heavy they become with fear. Because here, a book is not merely paper, and a school is not merely walls. They are our way of telling death: you will not take our future too. ✊📚🤍
Even if it costs us our lives. 🕯️