This War Terrified Me

I’m a Palestinian child who has suffered a lot since the war began, I heard the sound of airplanes and I was very much afraid. I have become used to invasions, for each time they invade Al-Shawka area many people fall as martyrs, but the fear is not the same each time.

I was afraid each minute asking myself whether I’m going to live or die, I wouldn’t sleep as I thought all the time of this same question. It is my right to live happily without fear in security and peace. I wish to be like other children, to have parks and a place to meet and people to look after us.

We are tired of playing on the street, even there we are afraid. Many of my friends have been killed in the street because as we play the bombs that the army has planted explode and the children are hurt or fall martyrs.

What have we done that we should be hurt and die, they followed us to our homes and we ran away to a place we thought safe but they reached it so where do we go? Tell me where? What have we done to them?

Our neighbor was killed with his children as he lit a fire for his wife to bake and cook for them as there is no gas and no electricity. Has breaking wood to light a fire become an act of terrorism as they say? What are we to do? I am very afraid and I want to live. I don’t want to die. I want to rejoice and build my future and become a doctor to treat people.

When the Israelis withdrew I was happy that they left while I was still alive. But I saw the destroyed and burned homes and the children who were hurt, the destroyed schools and universities. Before that I was not afraid. But this war has terrified the old and the young and everyone. I want to say that I am an innocent Palestinian child; I don’t carry a weapon but only a book and a pencil to learn.

Amal Al-Hissi (10 years)

Al-Shawka border area- Rafah

PBBY Library

Translated by Hadi Ruhayem