Rifqa

No Moses in Siege

On July 16, 2014, four boys—aged between nine and fourteen— were killed by Israeli naval fire while playing soccer on a beach in Gaza City.

Was it because there were no more graves in Gaza that you brought us to the beach to die? Was it because rubbling us in our houses, like our cousins, like our futures, like our gods, would be a bore? Was it because our cemeteries need cemeteries and our tombstones need homes? Was it because our fathers needed more grief?

We were limbs in the wind, our joy breaking against the shore. Soccer ball in between our feet we were soccer in between their feet. No place to run. No Moses in siege.

Waves stitched together, embroidered, weaved un-walkable, indivisible, passage—implausible, on most days we weep in advance. We looked up to the clouds, got up on clouds. Here, we know two suns: earth’s friend and white phosphorus.

Here, we know two things: death and the few breaths before it.

What do you say to children for whom the Red Sea doesn’t part?