UPDATE:

“Ah ya habibti, keef halek,” Souad asks me how I am doing then sighs a much quieter SIGH than our previous conversations.

Fine I reply, dreading the question I must ask, one that has been overlooked in the media. One that is NOT a priority above the usual NUMBERS of DEAD, the finger-pointing about human shields, and the Americans who have served in the IOF that are snatching headlines like some heroic figures in some super-hero flick. Lately, I feel NUMB, then ANGER, then SADNESS, then I sit down to sift through it all. I wish I could make bread out of their GRIEF, they would never go HUNGRY.

I can’t help but to think that Palestinians have been reduced to nothing more than EQUATIONS, FILL in with the numbers of MURDERED bodies, tally up, then DIVIDE into women, children & men (include the ones in the morgue & on the street) and MEN don’t count because they are by all definitions “COMBATANTS” so they all EQUAL ZERO or DEAD “HAMAS TERRORISTS.” I come back to the phone call, the numbers disappear.

I’m good habibti, how are YOU? I ask, pain already invading my heart.

“Alhamdiallah,” she always thanks God, always. I can hear her adjust the phone to get the speaker closer to her mouth. Now I hear her much better.

I decide to get to the POINT, one that breaks tears in my eyes, every time. How’s the FOOD SITUATION I ask, she SIGHS, this time more DEEP than the last.

“God will provide, most EVERYONE in GAZA is suffering the same, if not ALL of us, MOST OF US THEN.”

“We make due, alhamdillah,” she says with the voices of MANY CHILDREN playing around her, subduing the anxiety I can still hear in her words.

That’s not an answer, I think to myself. It’s a way to dodge a flying baseball about to hit you in the face, many times over. WHAT do YOU have to EAT? I repeat, with enough toughness to get a more detailed answer without being harsh.

“WE, the ADULTS have to SACRIFICE eating IFTAR, to feed the children,” she SIGHS like an ocean begging for the moon to stop interfering with its tides. She wants to be still, I can feel it.

MORE details, I need more details. Like what? What do you feed the children, what does EVERYONE eat?

“We scrape up what we can…bits of stale bread here and there. SOMETIMES WITH za’atar sometimes bare bread. We NEED bread. If we had BREAD then it could fill their bellies, alhamdillah,” she resigns to THANKING GOD, again.

Strength, riddled with holes of sadness. Her composure continues to perplex me but not fool me.

BITS of STALE BREAD and ZA’ATAR? That’s it, for IFTAR?! If she says they NEED bread, then where is she getting the “bits” from? All they have is za’atar, this time I SIGH…deeply agitated and thinking about the pita that sits in my freezer.

What are we going to do about FOOD? What about HUNGER, MALNUTRITION and CLEAN WATER? Has ANYONE thought about these things?

I finish my conversation with her and there are two thoughts that come next; a. she has ACCEPTED a REALITY that will get WORSE everyday b. When will the world realize that besides body parts blown to BITS we don’t have enough “BITS” of bread to feed the living in Gaza.

Tonight, I sat down at my mother’s iftar table, it was ladden with meat, bread, salad, stuffed squash & grape leaves. How much of this will we throw out tonight or tomorrow? I think to myself as my stomach flips and I almost choke on my own throat.

When it was time for everyone to break their fast, I pull a piece of bread from a loaf about the size of my palm, put a bowl of za’atar in front of me, sit down and begin to dip and eat….if they don’t eat, then I HAVE NO RIGHT to eat better than them…

I can still hear the children playing in the back of my mind and I wonder if sometime soon they will STOP. My family watches me eat, each from the corner of their eye.