In Memory of Elusive Peace

For 17 years, I have kept this little memory of him. A frame of the mosque with bullet marks. He had signed his name along with the others. This was in Syracuse University in New York in 2006.

- Chinki Sinha

“This is to remind you of us,” he said. By “us”, he meant Palestinians. He is a radio journalist. I write in the present tense because I don’t want to think he is dead. He said his mother always kissed him off his head when he would leave in the morning for work. I think he mentioned that he lived in Gaza or Ramallah.

I am in touch with a few others who were there that evening. From Egypt and Poland. But he was lost to us.

He wrote Palestine underneath his name.

In June that year, there was yet another conflict. Operation Summer Rains was followed by Operation Autumn Clouds and there was a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, which broke down in 2007. There have been many escalations since then, many strikes and many lives lost. The other evening, someone posted about children writing wills in Gaza. In October 2023, war broke out again between Hamas, the militant Islamist group that has controlled Gaza since 2006, and Israel. Thousands of people have died on both the sides. Among them, many are children.

Nearly half (47.3 per cent) are under 18 in Gaza. A 2021 report by the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor found 91 per cent of Gaza’s children suffered from conflict-related trauma. A 2022 report by Save the Children found 80 per cent of children reported emotional distress.

I stumbled upon a will written by a child named Haya in Gaza on the website of ANECD (Arab Network for Early Childhood).