15 October, 2023: A Bullet Could Have Killed Her

Mother sees her ever so precious niece in the hospital bed struggling to open her eyes and she wants to scream she sees the IV tubes she sees the wound in her niece’s shoulder ever so close to her neck but at least her niece is alive at least her niece did not have her leg blown off she did not have her head blown off she did not get decapitated at the neck all it is really is a bullet lodged in her shoulder it’s just that the bullet wound is giving Ariel so much pain that she cannot stay awake at least she is alive thankfully the gunman was shot down by the IDF after he had probably killed hundreds of others at the Yakhini enclave

Ariel is lucky she is alive she was not killed she was visiting a friend in Yakhini from her college she was sleeping over with her and then heading to a music festival nearby Ariel is lucky she did not go to that music festival because that was the first place Hamas went when they were attacking the other side of the border if she were there she would have been captured she would have been kidnapped she would have been raped over and over again Yakhini is a hamlet Yakhini is a settlement Yakhini was guarded by fences and officers like any other moshav Yakhini was meant to be safe but somehow the gunmen got in and killed a lot of people almost everyone but not Ariel and her friend whose father worked for the IDF

It has been over a week and Mother did not see Ariel in the hospital because Mother did not know she was even there Mother was afraid for her own life Mother wanted to stay put given that Hamas had breached all of southern Israel and was attacking and killing everyone and Mother really did not know what happened to Ariel Mother was calling her over and over again but Mother had so many other relatives to worry about all across the country and her mind was like a ping pong ball hitting back and forth wall against wall she could not concentrate she could not rest she was afraid she was going to die and she was afraid for her other loved ones as well

So when finally she was called by Mother’s cousin Rachel she came to know that Ariel was in the hospital for all these days of course she came to the hospital which was in Askelon the same city Mother lived in and Ariel was studying in and she asked to get permission to visit but she was not a close relative so it took a lot of calls from Rachel to the hospital to get them to let her in

Now she is seeing Ariel and she could scream so loud that it would cause her lungs to give out and she would faint she is used to seeing Ariel singing in the musicals making videos for her Instagram taking selfies with Mother for no reason always being full of gossip about celebrities Mother has never heard of always full of sass always full of things to say always full of live always full

She is not used to seeing Ariel in so much pain that she isn’t willing to greet her aunt

Ariel will recover says the doctor Ariel will soon be able to talk to her but Ariel is not used to having visitors and Ariel is still unable to manage the pain

Mother starts shouting at Ariel and the nurses have to chide her not to do such things

But Mother is livid Mother is so angry Mother wants to find that gunman and beat him with a brick on the side of the head it has been too long since the Jews have suffered and not just Mother and Father but the entire Jewish population it’s like Jews are born to be killed everyone wants to kill us everyone wants to exterminate us everyone wants to see us gassed to death and it was this way not for Mother but for her parents and her grandparents and everyone so many people did not make it so many people did not survive yes Mother and her family they survived they lived on but so many people were gassed to death were bombed to death were shot to death it’s always been a struggle it’s as if it’s meant to be this way for Jews to find it hard to survive and now it is beginning again now they have come and they are ready to shoot us all once more the whole world wants us dead and all because we choose to practice a religion that is different from theirs

Mother is tired of it all Mother is a human being Mother does not deserve to spend every day afraid Mother knows time and time again a day like this will repeat what has happened to Ariel will come to be her situation as well she will someday see gunman at her door she will probably be shot at as well because it happens every month every year all the time and different people die but people die nonetheless it is destiny it is fate it is like the only thing that will come to her because she was born a Jew and is in Israel

It is just that she does not want this fate for the younger generation she wants everyone to get along if the Palestinians want their land let them have their land but the land they are standing on now this is her land this is where her son was born and brought up this is what she has known as home her entire life she is not responsible for the decisions made nearly a century ago by countries so far far away countries that hated the Jews and wanted them shipped off thousands of kilometres to their promised land rather than having to give them equal rights in their own place Mother has nothing to do with this just because she was born a Jew and an Israeli doesn’t mean she should have to fear death each and every day

A bullet could have killed her and that would have been the end of Ariel this vivacious charming girl that was doing well in her studies that was probably going to be heading off to Tel Aviv after her studies in Askelon that had a bright future and was going to have one yet a future that could have ended nonetheless had that bullet hit her right in the middle of her forehead

Israel is bombing Gaza Israel is razing that land to the ground Mother is not an idiot she knows thousands there are dying thousands there too are in hospitals on the brink of life and death they are humans too they are just like Ariel they do not deserve what the army is doing to them

At the same time Ariel is Mother’s flesh and blood not these Palestinians and this is not about Palestine or Israel this is about Hamas a terrorist organisation that doesn’t care about any one life they just want what they want and they will kill anyone to get it in the name of Palestinian independence they would happily kill all the Jews of Israel they don’t care about the people who now inhabit this land they want to raze it so that the people who descend from those who lost their land a century ago could have it back

It doesn’t matter that there were other people who were born and brought up on it and call it home too

These people are the enemies because they see them the Israelis as enemies rather than people who would be willing to talk if the discourse was civil but the discourse is not civil the discourse is to kill them all and hang their decapitated heads on walls this is how Hamas thinks and they are all over Gaza no matter how many good Palestinians there are there is Hamas and they will keep crossing the border and killing hundreds here or there because that is what they want to do

This is not about Gaza this is about Hamas and they must be ended

The news blares on the other side of them on the TV hanging on the wall and Mother sees the buildings of Gaza smoking

Mother knows that they must get what they deserve and the war will not end until it ends this is not just a war this is not about human beings this is a battle between angels and devils Mother closes her eyes and she prays first for the safety of her family members and then for the recovery of Ariel and then for fire to burn all of Gaza off of the map because Mother wills it Mother wants them to feel the exact same physical anguish Ariel is in just as she wants them to feel the fear and anxiety Mother lives in every day she wants to transfer the feelings to them she no longer wants her family to have it she is feeling like a malakh she is feeling like a celestial being full of rage she wants to snap her fingers and cause them all to perish

Because Mother is suffering she wants them too to feel immeasurable pain