Waad

One of the few survivors of the attack

on a Gaza City refuge – that had once

been a school – is a five-year-old girl,

who walks alone through the burning building.

Her name is Waad. Most of her family

have perished, including her mother.

Traumatised she speaks softly: ‘I love Mama

as big as the sky and the earth – and the stars.’

She is surrounded by concrete rubble,

domestic detritus, and the unfound dead.

 

An hour or so’s drive away, a horde of

well-fed men is striding through the narrow streets

of old Jerusalem chanting ‘Death

to the Arabs!’ Though the Arabic

and Hebrew for ‘death’ and ‘love’ have the same

Semitic roots, the child and the chanting mob

seem galaxies apart.