18 May 2021
Amal Zaqout, Medical Aid for Palestinians’ (MAP) Community Programme Officer in Gaza, shares her message to the international community about the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
What do you know about fear?
Have you ever lived under brutal aggression?
Have you ever seen your son shivering as a bird frightened, and you cannot do anything to calm him down because you are trembling like him? It is the harshest pain. To feel helpless in front of your child when you are unable to protect them is the worst feeling that a person can experience. You feel overwhelmed and defeated. Yesterday, I didn’t feel alive, but I was still breathing.
Have you ever felt like this?
When you can’t protect your loved ones and prevent fear and pain from them; this makes you die while you are alive. When one of my friends is waiting for his house to be bombed, and I can only tell him to run to my house so that we can suffer together, without having any strength to help him or protect him, it is killing my soul.
Have you ever experienced this?
You and your children sleeping in their full clothes and shoes, for fear of waking up from a warning rocket to get you out of your house because it will be destroyed in 10 minutes.
Have you ever experienced your pet panicking, and you cannot explain to them what's happening when they’re scared, shaking? And you hear their heartbeat out of fear, running around terrified?
Have you ever seen your friend run down the street frightened, looking for shelter from the bombing and coming to you with his family terrified, not knowing whether they will find their house after the airstrike?
This is the situation we are all facing in Gaza right now.
Please make an urgent donation today and support our essential medical response in Gaza.
Photo: The wreck of a large apartment complex destroyed by ongoing Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, in Beit Lahia, Gaza on May 13, 2021. (Credit: Habboub Ramez/ABACAPRESS.COM).
