The chil­dren in Gaza, as they wit­ness the de­struc­tion, hor­ri­ble black sights, smoke all around, as they see wounds on their del­i­cate flesh, are cry­ing to the world to wake up and stand for them. At the age when they were form­ing the im­age of the world through colour­ful car­toons, they were thrown into the dark­ness which they would never for­get. We need to speak up or else we will not have any an­swers but shame when his­tory will stand strong as a rock filled with ques­tions, pleads pol­i­tics stu­dent and WSN colum­nist Gurleen Kaur.

DAUGH­TERS OF GAZA ARE PLEAD­ING TO­DAY AS they wit­ness the hearts filled with sor­row and help­less­ness. Yet their de­ter­mi­na­tion to fight back is so pal­pa­ble.  As a hu­man­ist who was pained at the killing of 3-year-old Tanya Kaur in a Gur­d­wara in Kabul, I could not help but share my pain at the mer­ci­less killings of chil­dren in Gaza.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of the bombs,
the de­cay­ing homes, the bleed­ing wombs,
All taken away by ter­ror,
once pro­tected by love and prayers of the moms.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of my moth­er’s screams,
my lit­tle broth­ers’ shat­ter­ing dreams
As they get their legs and arms tat­tooed,
Hop­ing some­body would find the parts of Sahim, Rahim or Karim.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of my fa­ther’s tears,
as he looked at me, in his eyes, fear
Some­thing I had never seen,
His hands shak­ing from the stri­dent noise he hears.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of a sad old voice strug­gling to rhyme,
my grandma singing to me at nine, ques­tion­ing God if any of us would see the next shine
As she in­no­cently tries to lie,
Every­thing’s fine.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of the neigh­bor­hood turned into dust overnight,
my dead grandpa ly­ing next to the heaps of brick of my height
And many beg­ging for hos­pi­tals
To which they no longer have the right.

I am the daugh­ter of Gaza
I am wit­ness of your crimes, of my peo­ple dy­ing, of the ba­bies cry­ing,
and I am ask­ing you what I asked as a daugh­ter in Afghanistan
“Ask your soul,
Which vic­tory does it glo­rify?”