Bomb Number Five, Salaam

[Ghost Dog]

http://english-cyprus.indymedia.org/newswire/display/201/index.php
By Raida Hatoum, and Cyprus IndyMedia
This work is in the public domain

I've lost count of the Days. And the Bombs. And the Dead

Beirut, first weekend of August

Dear Friends,

I am so sorry for not being able to respond earlier to your letters. I was hoping that you won't be worried, and that you would think about the electricity and internet problems as potential reasons for the delay.

Because of the Israeli siege the authorities are increasing the outages and rationing our electricity so it can last for the coming 15 days. As you might know, we were supposed to receive gasoline and fuel but of course Israel changed its mind and the ships carrying the fuel are now waiting in Cyprus.

And I am very grateful for your amazing efforts and courage and the work you are carrying out, all this you are doing, and your words and love are encouraging me really to survive - thus I wrote today to you despite my tiredness of writing about the war... the injured children, the sick and scared displaced children…the massacres of yesterday. And the new ones today…

I love you all please be fine and strong and we shall meet soon my dear friends.

The Israeli war of genocide, destruction and siege is now on Day 24, but for myself I lost count ...as if this is how I lived all my life. Only when the numbers of those who are killed day after day are mentioned in the media I realize that I was paralyzed or numbed... and I realize that the war has eaten up another day of people’s lives.

Till yesterday 955 were killed: 30% of them are children.
More than 3200 were injured: 40% of them are children.
The numbers of the displaced people - refugees - has reached a million.

Those 955 we refer to now as "numbers" and as "death toll"...they were people like you and me, each one of them had a name, a family, a home, siblings, partner, friends... each one of them had dreams and plans for the future. This is War: it sweeps away your face, your name, your dreams, your rationality, it kills your soul if it doesn't kill you for real.

In war there are no real survivors, no real winner and looser, the only real thing is death, violence, more death and more violence, poverty, displacement. And social, economic, psychological and physical tragedy.

/continues...