Khan Younis: A Gaza City On Its Knees, Now With A Million Mouths To Feed
Original Story: BBC News
Newsflash⚡ directly copies the world’s top headlines and imagines the stories behind them.
This story places the reader in the chaos of Khan Younis, an overwhelmed city in the centre of the Israel-Gaza conflict.
“Every room, every alley, every street is packed with men, women and the young. And there is nowhere else to go.”
You can only stand here and wait. You know more will be coming, you know there will be a flood, but not of water, not of careless elements, no. There will be a flood of humans. Of living, breathing flesh. And soon this small courtyard, the courtyard where you started, where you began so many of your own adventures, will be overrun by people who do not know and do not have the time to know about you. It is a desperate situation. But you know there is no help, you know there is only you, and you can only stand here and wait.
The people who had been lucky enough to get into cars arrived first. Actually, many people had gotten into cars. But only some of the cars had held enough fuel. It was really pot-luck; the people who filled their tanks on the Saturday made it. The people who were running low on the Sunday didn’t. It was as simple as that: the unfiltered carelessness of luck. And so the lucky ones arrived first, and told you to prepare. They told you to stand here, and wait.
They were hungry. And this was before the lights went out in the supermarkets, before the aisles of the department stores became the most dangerous streets in the city. There would be need of food, they assured you; there was simply nowhere else to get it. And there would be need for other things, too: water, shelter, and listening. But you have always been stubborn - your sisters would tell you as much - and when it comes to water, you are as fragile as everyone else. But there is one thing you can do, and have always been able to do - cook. You have always known how to cook. And so the idea struck you. When the courtyard began to fill with bodies, you gave them a simple instruction. You told them to stand here, and wait.
The habit began with your father. Before he disappeared, he would stand at the stove in your kitchen, and turn greens into purples into yellows and into magic. The dishes he served were flavoursome, and always modest. There was no need to make a show of things - there were mouths to feed. And mouths could never care about the thought that went into a meal; they could only detect the experience. This was the way of the knowing cook. And he showed you as much, for the seventeen years that you knew him. You learned a lot, standing next to his left arm as he powdered spices and double-chopped the onions. His movements had become engrained in your arms, spine and neck, by the time he left to buy cigarettes one day, and told you to stand here, and wait.
Back to the present. You still have an electric stove from the days that you and ‘the untouchables’ would do the cookouts, beneath this very same rectangle of the night sky. The cooker is old, certainly, but it fires back into life without a problem, as if it hasn’t forgotten the courtyard, as if it remembers the bench it is sitting on. And so you turn it on, keep it heated, powder the spices, chop the onions. You empty your cupboards - hiding whatever you can, so that the people who come to live with you will not find it, so that you will still be able to cook for them tomorrow. The bodies in the courtyard are hungry, and they watch you. They smile at the thought of cooked food. For them, it has been a while. Some bodies approach you and beg. You smile at them, keeping your elbows tucked in to your sides, and tell them to stand here, and wait.
You have enough ingredients for two days. And this will be the end of your cooking, the end of your park-bench restaurant. You have run out of bread and run out of milk, both of which you gave to the mothers, and some of the bread to the fathers. Only now you have your cooked food, which you serve directly into the hands of the bodies, for them to eat quickly. You do not have enough plates. But soon there will be nothing, there will be no food and there will be no cooking. There will only be the bodies and the desperate eyes of humanity without a home. You will not put food into their hands, you will not be of any importance, you will not be able to help any of these bodies. Soon, you will be one of them. And then, you will have no other choice.
You will only be able to stand here and wait.
If you have read this,
please consider donating to the Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territory Appeal, an initiative of the International Red Cross.
More than 338,000 humans have been displaced from their homes. The Red Cross is a politically neutral organisation dedicated to relief from suffering.
read the original story (BBC News):
Khan Younis: A Gaza city on its knees, now with a million mouths to feed - BBC News
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
Beautiful writing on an ugly situation. 👌
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