The blue fighter – We Are Not Numbers

Aug. 6, 2014

“Allah akhbar, we won!” were the words being shouted in Gaza streets. They were enough to make my mother cry her anger out, while feeling her heart shatter, thinking of how harsh and miserable the past days had been.

My mother Wessam is a strong woman, a wife, a mother, and a reporter.

Three months before the 52-Day War began, she gave birth to my baby sister. But when the war started, she had to leave and go to work. I still remember her routine: she wakes up, gets ready, and hugs us goodbye. It’s normal to us but to her it always feels like the last goodbye. She takes her Qur’an and hugs it while going down the stairs, then gets in the taxi and prays that both her and the driver stay alive.

After a long risky day of covering the actions, she might be lucky enough to go home and not spend the night in her office chair, like usual. She tries to find a supermarket to get diapers for my baby sister, then goes home holding them in one hand and her helmet in the other. When she finally sees us, a feeling of happiness and safety fills her body.

When Ramadan starts, she does the same thing, but she comes home 10 minutes before Athan al Maghreb, Islamic evening prayer time, to make food. The Israeli forces always bomb at the time of Athan al Maghreb. They do it every day, so it feels absurd when they don’t.

That was her routine and she couldn’t imagine that the situation would get worse, but misery in Gaza has no limit.

Every war has one night that no one can forget. For us it was the night when they bombed with poisonous gas. We trapped ourselves in our parents’ room. My baby sister was crying and screaming, and we did our best to keep her from inhaling the gas. That night was full of terror. Yet I woke up the next morning to a silence that was even more terrifying than the bombardment.

The days passed by and finally they announced a cease-fire. I was in my room sitting beside the window — how brave of me —-when all of a sudden I heard “We won, we won!” I was so happy that this all was over, but when I thought of how many people were killed, I didn’t think this was “winning.” All the people who were killed are not numbers. They are martyrs, and that’s exactly why my mom was crying her heart out.

Can you imagine how that hell feels like heaven compared to now?

Oct. 7, 2023

“Go to your grandparents’ house, now!” my mom screamed when another war started. She went to her battle, and we went to our escape. We didn’t see her for two weeks — she just called us every time she moved from one place to another due to the Israeli forces’ threats.

When we had to flee to the south, we were finally reunited with her. She hugged us tight and told everyone about what was currently happening, as if she was still working. I asked her if she would stop working now that we were going to the south, to which she answered, “I don’t know, I just left the hospital and came here. At the end of the day, I’m human.”

Within minutes of arriving in the south, she put on her blue vest. “What? Really, you’re going again?”” I asked, said because my heart couldn’t take the fear that I felt every time she stepped out the door. “Do you want me to be a coward?” she replied.

We saw her every week or two, and the suffering was intense. We complained all night about sleeping on a mattress while she was sleeping every night in a car. She always came back home smiling to give us hope.

My mom is a very funny and free-spirited person. She would always tell us funny stories about her little adventures. The stories this time were unlike the others. She told us about her adventure with the secret bathroom. She had to go miles searching for a bathroom and even spent days without one, until she found a small one that was quite far from Nasser Hospital where she was reporting from.

She was smiling and laughing while telling these stories. How much pain can you go through until you get used to it?

Dec. 4, 2023

What do you do when you have to report about your own grief?

This was the night no one was able to forget. The Israeli forces bombed right in front of the house that we evacuated to in Khan Younis. I have never been more sure of anything in my life as I was that we wouldn’t be alive the next morning. Just minutes before my mom had to report live, she got the news that our house was being bombarded. I would describe this as the essence of cruelty.

My mom left everything, and she called us to make sure we were still breathing. She tried to come home, when a sentence from my little sister ached broke her heart. “Mom please don’t come here, stay away.” My mom lost her mind when she couldn’t call us because the communications were cut off. She told me that she had no idea how she waited until the next morning to see us. When I saw her, her eyes were drowned in tears; her face had no color.

My mom and all the journalists report about people’s suffering including their own, which adds to their pain.

My mom is filled with agony and anger, and she wishes to cry them these feelings out, but she has no time. Maybe she will let it all out when a cease-fire is announced, maybe when all of this is over, or maybe never.