Update: (7PM Gaza local time, July 26)

Asmaa answers the phone. I greet her and ask how she is doing?

“Mmmm,” she answers.

I feel it and hear it in her “mmmms” that she is down. For the first time in weeks, there aren’t any sounds blaring in the room where she is. NO voices, no sounds of WAR, no children playing. The QUIET scares me and her mmmms are haunting.

I try to keep my voice “normal” but I don’t know how to anymore. I can only imagine how they feel. Did your family go to the Shujaiya to see your home? I ask and expect another mmmm.

“DAMAR,” she says in Arabic. DESTRUCTION, complete and utter destruction. I tell her I saw the pictures.

“Mmmm,” she replies again. I ask her how is her mother and where is she. “She isn’t near me, here, talk to my brother.” Asmaa passes through the room, a door opens and the SOUNDS of their reality comes back all at once.

He is polite, his voice filled with a panic, PANIC of the sort that is confusion and helplessness.

He says, “DAMAR, damar, damar.” DESTRUCTION, DESTRUCTION, DESTRUCTION. “We went to the Shujaiya today, there is NOTHING left. If there are homes standing they are unlivable, gaping with holes. DAMAR. What are WE to SAY? WHAT are WE to DO? NOTHING is in our HANDS. Take care of yourself,” his voice is in a rush and hands the phone to his mother.

His words echo. NOTHING is in our HANDS. After seeing the destruction and DEATH, he resigns to believe that they have NO control over ANYTHING.

Their “fear” of speaking on the phone is gone now, they want to talk. I only imagine that in their minds there is nothing left to LOSE.

Souad’s voice is louder, not in the usual tone of softness I am accustomed to. “DAMAR,” she begins. “They are still retrieving the dead from under the rubble, from EVERYWHERE.”

We’ll rebuild ALL of GAZA, we’ll rebuild your home I reply, trying my hardest to keep HOPE alive.

“I would rather LIVE IN A TENT than to go back to the way we were living before. WE WANT CHANGE. WE CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS ANYMORE,” she sighs DEEPLY.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper in English.

“People are all over, in the streets, all HOMES and SHELTERS are OVERCROWDED, we are sending some of our family to other places because EVERYWHERE IT IS TOO CROWDED. We are like a LITTER OF CATS, MOVING FROM PLACE TO PLACE with our CHILDREN AKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” her breathing is heavy.

There are no words left for or of consolation, I love you, I say.

“And we love you, please don’t worry about US,” she repeats over and over again. “Alhamdillah, alhamdillah, alhamdillah, alhamdillah,” thank God, thank God, thank God for “EVERYTHING” she says.

Did you see ANY humanitarian supplies or medical aid come in? I ask swallowing hard.

“NOTHING we haven’t seen anything YET,” she says, out of breath. There is commotion in the background. I can here bodies in motion, people moving and talking. If there are food supplies and medical aid then they haven’t seen it yet. “The mosque and neighbors are still cooking for each other, they are giving out a loaf of bread here and there, some fava beans. Alhamdillah,” she sighs.

During the “cease-fire” did they stop the shelling?

“NO, in other parts of Gaza we could hear it, I can hear it now,” Souad moves through the building I can hear her clothes and scarf brushing up against the phone.

I love you, I tell her.

“I love you too,” she says, I hear a little one’s voice in the background.
“Ahmad says he loves you too, he wants to talk to you.

Ahmad’s voice is with me now. “How are you?” he asks.

I’m good I reply and YOU?

“DAMAR. WE are fine, I wanted to tell you that I LOVE YOU A LOT,” he says it with the sweetest voice, absent of the deepness he usually tries to conjure in order to appear and sound “older.” In my mind, they are a lot older than anyone of us will ever be, they have seen and experienced MORE than anyone ever should.

I love you habibi I tell him. Take care of yourself and your mother. He hands her the phone.

“I have to go, take care of yourself my dear,” she repeats. And YOU take care. I wait until she hangs up.

DAMAR. DAMAR. DAMAR. DAMAR. DAMAR. DAMAR. DAMAR…..