Nakba #14 - Dunia Hameed

“I always slept next to my grandmother. I used to lie there hugging her. One evening, I woke up to gunfire and bombing. There were only children and women in the room. It was crowded. Everyone was lying on top of each other. Then I noticed that my grandmother had been shot in one breast. She was bleeding heavily. Even my twelve-year-old brother Ahmad was shot by the occupation soldiers. He was hit in the chest and shoulder. We screamed and cried and ran out of the house before it collapsed. My father was a resistance fighter and fought against the Jews. He was always armed with weapons and ammunition. He and the other men defended our village. When the ammunition ran out, he and the other men fled to another village. My mother held up a flag made of a piece of white cloth and shouted, ‘Salam Salam, don’t shoot at us, Salam Salam, we surrender.’ Then they stopped shooting. The occupying forces gathered all the women and children in the courtyard of a large house where we were ordered to sit down. The wounded received no care. All men and boys over twelve were gathered elsewhere. We never saw them again. My brother survived because our mother dressed him in women’s clothes. We left everything and ran up into the mountains. During the escape, I saw many dead and wounded. Eventually, we were reunited with my father and his brother. We were eight siblings, father and mother, and my uncle and his family. We were many.”