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“Whose child is that?”
“How the fuck should I know? We have to go back. Take her, take her.”
“Where to?”
“You will have to figure that out for yourself,” he said, as the door slammed closed and the ambulance immediately began reversing.
Ammi turned to a courtyard that was overflowing with voices. The cries of widowed parents, the shouting of hospital staff, and the silence of the blood-stained ones; they spoke the most loudly. He had a child in his arms. All around him were faces - some of which he recognised - twisted into unimaginable shapes either by loss, or by injury. Nobody was carrying anything, nor did anyone have their belongings nearby. There was nothing to anchor them. The feet that could still walk moved towards the hospital entrance, the legs that had lost their strength were held up and dragged. This was not a place for staying still, and, Ammi feared, it was not a place with anywhere to go. But the people here had abandoned the idea that there was anywhere to go. Their movements were almost empty - in them, there was only hope - kicking and screaming as it trickled red into the tarmac.
Ammi was not injured, Ammi worked here. Last night, he had slept for two hours beneath a row of chairs in the staff break-room. The chairs had been occupied, and the noise was deafening, but it had been like this the night before, and the night before that. He wasn’t used to it - his body had simply exhausted itself a long time ago. He had transferred into a state of psycho-energetic debt, where days spent now would be shaved off his life at some later point. His sleep was now a forceful thing that landed on him like a sand-bag. But he accepted the terms. He had a child in his arms. There were things he needed to do and, to begin, he would have to begin moving.
“Eitan!” Ammi called out to a man in an official vest. The man was busy and could only turn his head. Ammi did not need to say anything else; he had a child in his arms. Eitan gave a nod, a violently carefree snap of his neck, and went immediately back to unloading the ambulance. Immediately Ammi began to walk towards the entrance.
The girl could not have been more than five. She was shivering, and her thigh was wrapped in several tea-towels. She was not looking at anything. She was wearing a pink zip-up hoodie, grey trousers, and one silver-coloured trainer. The other shoe had been lost, revealing a small, blackened foot. He had a child in his arms. Her clothes were also dirty. They were now two miles from the blast site, but the smell of smoke had been woven into their fabrics, so that even now it hung in the air, a relic of fire and evil, persistent, and daring you to breathe.
They reached the entrance to the hospital. Ammi had not had time to look at the photographs, but he imagined it was exactly like the photographs. The most injured were slumped in the chairs. Those who were injured, but who could still sit down and stand up, were sat in front of them on the floor, spilling away from the walls. In front of them were people who were not injured, but who were old or young or alone and had nowhere else to go. There was a thin strip of tiled floor still visible, maybe five or six feet wide, that served as a channel for the movement of doctors, emergency volunteers and the hopeful. Ammi wedged himself into line and walked along the route, treading sometimes on peoples' feet, hands or legs, nearly losing his balance. He had a child in his arms. He had to keep going.
“Where?” he asked a nurse, who was pouring water over an elderly man’s bleeding forehead.
“E,” she replied, without looking. “It’s the only space. Everyone to E.”
Ammi walked on.
He took a sharp left and entered E-block. The corridors here were the same, only now there were hospital trolleys with people lying on them, motionless. In this part of the hospital, there was just as much noise, but Ammi noticed, there was more silence. He had a child in his arms. He kept moving, quickening his steps until he finally arrived at the hand-off point. Joseph, the only pair of empty hands, reached for her immediately. Ammi almost fell as he let go of the five-year-old’s body.
“Whose child is that?”
“I don’t know,” Ammi said. “But there are many, many more. I am already losing time, they need me there. I have to go back, I have to go, you can take her, you take her now.”
“Where?” Joseph asked, his eyes darting over the stained tea-towels.
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” replied Ammi, squeezing his eyes shut for several seconds, grinding his teeth. “You will have to figure that out for yourself.”
And he turned to stumble back towards the overflowing courtyard.
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Read the original story (BBC News):
Panic and confusion at scene of Gaza hospital blast - BBC News
A Final Request:
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More than 600,000 humans have been displaced from their homes. The Red Cross is a politically neutral organisation dedicated to relief from suffering.
disclaimer:
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.
I’m going to unsubscribe. I don’t agree with the way you are trying to create division. Did you include the 100,000 displaced Israelis who still cannot return to their homes? Or are you just quoting Hamas numbers which they have been forced to admit as a health ministry that the deaths of “civilians “ were inaccurately over exaggerated?
Hopefully this latest boiling point will move the situation to a workable solution. Although it's already been going on since 1948.