أسودُ القصف.. أحمرُ النزف

Death in Palestine is not a single color.

It is a painting in the colors of occupation:

Black of the bombardment.

Red of the bleeding.

White of the coffin,

and gray of the clouds that do not rain.

Palestinians do not die only from bombardment or explosions, nor from a sinful march, nor from the bullets of a plane or the tracks of a tank; they also die from hunger.

They die from a lack of medicine.

They die in silence, with patience, in a long wait that resembles graves.

They die by Israeli hands, extending from the siege to the loaf of bread.

From the siege to a dose of medicine.

The child there dies before his dream grows.

The mother dies while holding a baby she doesn’t know how to feed. The elderly die between the walls of a postponed hospital. Between a vein waiting for an IV drip that does not arrive, and a mouth thirsty for a breath that the sky crowded with planes does not grant.

The Palestinian dies while remembering his olive trees that were cut down, and he dies while hiding the keys to his home in exile.

He dies while explaining to his son the meaning of "return,"

then the father dies, leaving the meaning hanging in the mouth of a child who does not know how to plant the homeland in his heart.

The Palestinian dies every day,

and never dies,

because every death there gives birth to a story, and every story there gives birth to anger, and every anger gives birth to resistance,

and every resistance there... gives birth to Palestine.

So what kinds of death have Palestinians not tasted?

From the siege to cancer.

From the bullet to starvation,

and from destruction to betrayal.

But despite that.

A Palestinian child is still born every minute,

and in his eyes is a question that wars do not erase:

When will the homeland return?