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your dignity theirs
to take at will
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A Palestinian man cries in front of his destroyed house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014
![Gaza residents who returned back to devastated border found large-scale destruction: scores of homes were pulverized, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets.]()
Gaza residents who returned back to devastated border town of Beit Hanoun found large-scale destruction: scores of homes were pulverized, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets: photo by Hatem Moussa / AP, 26 July 2014
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More than 160,000 Palestinians have been displaced during the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014
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In Beit Hanoun, the streets were filled at midmorning with frantic residents, many of whom had walked several miles from temporary shelters to inspect the damage to their homes and retrieve belongings: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014
This man made one last trip back to his house in Beit Hanoun to save his bird, Zooba: photo by Kristen Chick via Twtter, 26 July 2014
Mustafa al-Masri carried a yellow birdcage as he struggled to create a path between chunks of concrete, steel rebar, and downed electricity lines. He had just returned from making one last trip to his home to save his canary, named Zooba. Inside his home, one of few in the area left intact, he found signs that Israeli troops had used it as a base. Packaging from American military rations lay on the ground, with a bottle of bug spray with writing in Hebrew, and an intravenous line apparently used by a wounded soldier. There was evidence that the soldiers had used the house during clashes with militants. Spent bullet casings littered the floor under a window in his parents' bedroom, which had been ransacked. And on the roof were more spent bullet casings under an opening in the wall, as well as the launchers of two used light anti-tank weapons.
Kristen Chick: Amid cease-fire, Gaza residents return home to find widespread destruction, Christian Science Monitor, 26 July 2014
Kristen Chick: Amid cease-fire, Gaza residents return home to find widespread destruction, Christian Science Monitor, 26 July 2014
Your family's gone,
home gone,
your history, memories,
your humanity
and your canary
home gone,
your history, memories,
your humanity
and your canary
O let us hope
has flown away
your dignity theirs
to take at will
your life
fleeting
on the wing
and on the next roof
a slight lifting of the wind
a slight lifting of the wind
no more than a whisper
the blast
itself
the white sheets
itself
the white sheets
flapping
in the moment before
A Palestinian man cries in front of his destroyed house in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014
Gaza residents who returned back to devastated border town of Beit Hanoun found large-scale destruction: scores of homes were pulverized, wreckage blocked roads and power cables dangled in the streets: photo by Hatem Moussa / AP, 26 July 2014
More than 160,000 Palestinians have been displaced during the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014
In Beit Hanoun, the streets were filled at midmorning with frantic residents, many of whom had walked several miles from temporary shelters to inspect the damage to their homes and retrieve belongings: photo by Oliver Weiken / EPA, 26 September 2014