Foreword
This is the third installment from our young writer in Gaza, Abood Abed Alrhman. It is another story of hope, of resilience, and of a mother’s love. It arrives on a weekend when the meaning of Easter and resurrection feels painfully fitting.
Through these stories, we bring Gaza alive. We bring Palestinians alive. We bring their humanity back into clear view. Through Abood’s words, one can feel every emotion, every fear, every small joy, and every moment of pain.
–Manufacturing Dissent
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On that night…
silence was not peace… it was an open grave,
and the faint breaths beneath the rubble… were screaming without a sound.
It was not the only miracle…
but it was one of the most terrifying moments at the beginning of the war.
In the early days of the incursion,
as the occupation entered Gaza under relentless, heavy bombardment,
the sky rained fire,
and homes collapsed over their families without warning…
as if the earth itself was swallowing its children alive.
That night…
a house was struck, collapsing on everyone inside.
Ambulances arrived,
trying to save whoever they could,
under merciless shelling,
and under a darkness so heavy… it felt like the end of the world.
They began pulling the family from beneath the rubble,
with suffocating difficulty,
and after long suffering…
they managed to rescue them.
But… not all of them.
There was a young man…
nineteen years old,
the eldest son…
whose voice no one heard,
whose body no one could find.
They searched among the cold stones,
called his name through the dust,
dug… and then stopped.
They couldn’t find him.
The silence was terrifying,
as if the rubble hid a dark secret…
or a body that would never return.
The ambulances left…
carrying the survivors,
leaving behind a question that haunted everyone:
Was he dead… or could he still hear them?
When the family regained consciousness,
their first trembling question was:
Where is our son?
They were told:
We didn’t find him…
he may still be under the rubble.
The mother collapsed.
She cried until her voice broke,
feeling as though her heart had been buried with him… beneath the stones.
But that night…
it wasn’t over.
She saw him.
In a dream that felt like a message from another world,
his voice was weak… afraid:
“I’m here, mother… I’m alive.”
She woke up trembling,
her heart pounding as if trying to escape her chest,
certain that her son… was still waiting for her in the darkness.
She rushed to ask for help,
but reality was colder than her hope…
no one responded.
She returned broken,
haunted by a terrifying thought:
What if he is alive… and dying slowly?
She slept again…
and the dream returned like a nightmare she couldn’t escape.
This time…
his voice was crying out:
“Don’t leave me, mother… I’m under the room… I’m here…”
She woke up screaming,
as if she had risen from a grave.
She ran to her destroyed home,
fear filling her eyes,
faith guiding her trembling steps.
She shouted:
“My son is here! He’s alive! Under this room!”
No one doubted her…
perhaps because fear was stronger than doubt.
They began to dig,
with their bare hands,
pulling through death itself…
searching for life.
Time was merciless,
and the silence… grew more terrifying.
An hour…
then another…
two and a half hours of slow horror.
Then…
a hand appeared.
Cold… covered in dust… but moving.
He was lying there,
his body barely alive,
but his fingers… were resisting death.
He was alive.
After 72 hours under the rubble,
in a darkness like a grave,
without food… without water… without a voice…
he was still holding on to life.
It was not just a miracle…
it was a mother’s cry breaking through death.
In a place that swallows the living,
and carries the scent of endings…
a mother remains the only one
who hears what cannot be heard,
and sees what cannot be seen.
A mother…
is the only thing
death cannot defeat.
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‘it was a mother’s cry breaking through death.’ This ripped through my soul
Mother BEE 🐝 Mother ME 👩