A child hugs his infant brother in Gaza… a tragedy that shakes the world’s conscience

GAZA, April 11 (YPA) – At a time when statements of condemnation are piled up in the drawers of international bodies and the offices of Arab and Muslim politicians, and the faces of the victims are forgotten behind cold political headlines, the children of Gaza continue to struggle to survive for nothing other than the right to life.

In Gaza, childhood is not born; it is snatched away. There, the infant is born to see the sky raining fire, not hope. There, the child plays among the rubble, drinks tears of loss and deprivation, and grows up prematurely, only to carry his brother and save him from a death that knows no distinction between young and old.

 Hug on the hospital floor

He has a small heart that no longer knows the taste of childhood.

 

In a small corner of the Al-Shifa Medical Complex Hospital in Gaza City, where there is no room for calm except between the bouts of shelling and the echo of explosions, and on cold tiles carpeted only with pain, a Gazan child embraced his infant brother with all the warmth he had left. He held him as if he were his entire world, as if he were the last thing left of his life.

He was not holding a doll or a toy, not even a piece of bread. Just a crying sibling, an exhausted body, and a tiny heart that no longer knew the taste of childhood.

That child, sitting shoeless on the hospital floor, possessed nothing but a small, wounded heart and a crying infant. Yet he carried the pain of an entire people. 

A homeland of flesh and blood

In the arms of his little brother, the infant found his only home after his homes, family, and names were stolen from him.

No sound could be heard above the infant’s cries, and no embrace could be found except in the arms of his older brother, barely seven years old, yet seemingly as large as an entire nation burdened with tragedy.

In the arms of his little brother, the infant found his only home after homes and names had been stolen from him.

The infant lost his mother, his father, and perhaps his home, and perhaps his name, but he never lost this embrace, which had become his temporary home amidst a bleeding nation.

The infant would not stop crying… a cry that even adults could not cry, a cry that could not contain the heart of an infant, not only because of the loss of his mother and family, but perhaps because he felt that this world did not want him alive.

Silent helplessness in the face of tragedy

When the words failed to come out of the child’s mouth, his trembling hand on his brother’s head spoke in all the languages ​​of the world.

A small child with lost eyes staring at his baby brother’s head sat there in silence, interrupted by the sound of his baby brother’s crying that did not stop. The baby’s tears were wetting his chest, and he was gently stroking the baby’s hair as if he was apologizing to him for all this pain.

The infant is crying bitterly because of the loss of his parents and his family under the rubble, while his brother, despite the shock and astonishment, tries to calm him down with light touches on the head. His trembling touches were his only voice, because words betrayed him, just as the Arabs, Muslims, and the world betrayed these children.

He did not speak, did not ask, did not scream; he just sat silent… as if he was trying to keep his brother alive with the love, reassurance, and safety that were lost in Gaza… not with medicine.

Around him inside the hospital were the sounds of moaning, the echo of rockets, and news of those who had just been martyred…but the child, with his small eyes, was bigger than the place and the tragedy.

He seemed as if he was carrying the sadness of an entire city on his shoulders, as if all the devastation contained itself in his features.

The child remained silent and did not speak. Not because he had lost the ability to speak under the influence of shock, but perhaps because he understood that no one in this world, subservient to the power of money, weapons, and American pressure, would hear the suffering of Gaza’s children.

Despite his young age, the child understood that the Arab and Islamic nation to which he belonged had let down Palestine and its holy sites under the influence of American and Western pressure.

When a child becomes a father

In a fleeting moment, the little brother turns into a source of safety, protecting his baby brother, cradling him, and trembling for fear of losing what remains.

 

One of the nurses tried to pick up the baby to examine him, and the little brother flinched in fear: “Leave him with me…he’s afraid.”

He said it as if he were a father, not a child. He did not want to be separated from his brother, even for a few minutes. His heart was not at peace until the infant returned to his embrace.

Childhood under the rubble

The reality of Gaza’s children, who are born in the heart of fire and grow up in mass graves of silence and oblivion.

The recent Israeli aggression on Gaza was not a war on military sites, but rather a war on childhood itself.

Hundreds of children were killed and thousands injured, including dozens of infants who do not know the meaning of bombing or the limits of politics.

Figures received from official authorities in the Gaza Strip reveal a pattern that has become clear in this aggression: children are the most frequent victims.

According to statistics from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of child martyrs since the beginning of the Zionist aggression on the Gaza Strip has reached 17,954.

This baby, whose face was covered in helpless tears, represents every child in Gaza, born in the midst of fire, growing up with the sounds of airplanes, and raised in the arms of a wounded brother instead of a missing mother. 

A picture that shakes the world… but doesn’t move it

How did the video and the photo of the two children spread and remain without any real impact, as if humanity had become just a fleeting post?

The scene was like a picture taken from the heart of war, but this is not a passing snapshot but rather a life hanging on a thin thread of survival.

The video scene, which a journalist documented on his phone, of a speechless child consoling his baby brother did not need a comment. He alone published thousands of words with his silence. The stones of the hospital cried before people, and people shared it on social media websites, searching for a shred of humanity in a world that is unable to protect children from death.

Unanswered question

Who will return to these children what was stolen from them? Who will be held accountable for all this recurring grief?

This scene is not an exception, but rather a title for untold stories… stories of children trying to survive in a world that has turned its back on them, leaving the question hanging: How many children must have their hearts broken before the global conscience awakens from its deep slumber?

Tragic stories resulting from the crimes of the Zionist aggression and the suffering of the children of Gaza do not end despite their abundance, but humanity is almost ending.

In all of this, the question remains: Who will be held accountable for all this pain? Who will restore childhood to those who lost it before they uttered their first words?

 

YPA