Chapter Two – The First Strike

The air was heavy that night, pressing down on Gaza like a blanket that carried no comfort. It was the kind of night when silence felt dangerous, when every sound was sharper than it should be. The electricity had gone again hours earlier, leaving whole streets in darkness. The only light came from the occasional candle flickering in windows, their glow too fragile to push back the shadows.

Yasmin lay on her mattress with her diary beside her. She had written earlier about Omar’s kite and the sea, but her pen had stopped mid-sentence, as if it knew that words were not enough. She turned her head and looked at her brother, who had finally fallen asleep after endless questions about football, kites, and whether tomorrow would be sunny. His chest rose and fell softly, his hand curled around the string of his kite as if even in sleep he refused to let it go.

Her parents spoke in hushed voices in the next room. Their tone was low, cautious — the kind of tone adults used when they didn’t want children to worry. But Yasmin wasn’t a child anymore, not fully. She knew the sound of distant drones that circled above Gaza like mechanical birds. She knew that silence never lasted long.

She had just begun to close her eyes when the night shattered.

The first explosion came like thunder, shaking the earth beneath their home. Glass rattled in the windows, a plate fell from a shelf and broke. Yasmin bolted upright, her heart hammering against her ribs. Omar woke with a scream, clutching his kite string so tightly that it cut into his palm.

“Yasmin!” Layla’s voice ripped through the air. “Get under the table, now!”

Another explosion followed, closer this time, rattling the walls. Dust fell from the ceiling, coating Yasmin’s hair. Mahmoud rushed into the room, his face pale. He scooped Omar into his arms and pushed Yasmin toward the small wooden table in the corner of the room. They crouched beneath it, Layla pulling them close, whispering prayers.

The sound was everywhere — the shriek of jets overhead, the deep thud of bombs striking, the wail of sirens rising like cries of grief. Children’s screams echoed from the street outside, mingling with the shouts of neighbors. Somewhere nearby, a building collapsed with a roar, and the air filled with the choking dust of rubble.

Omar buried his face in Yasmin’s shoulder. His small body trembled, his tears soaking her sleeve. “Why, Yasmin? Why are they doing this?”

She held him tighter, but she had no answer. Her throat burned with words she could not say.

For what felt like hours — though it was only minutes — the strikes continued, each one ripping into the night like claws. When at last the sounds began to fade, the silence that followed was worse. It was not relief. It was fear of what would come next.

Mahmoud was the first to move. He carefully pulled the table aside and stood, brushing dust from his clothes. His hands shook. “We have to check the neighbors,” he said. His voice was low but steady. “Stay here.”

“No,” Layla said firmly. “You can’t go alone.”

Yasmin wanted to speak, to protest, but her mother’s eyes silenced her. Layla pressed a kiss to Yasmin’s forehead. “Take care of Omar. Don’t leave the house until we return.”

Yasmin watched her parents disappear into the night, their figures swallowed by shadows and smoke. She hugged Omar tightly, her ears still ringing with the sound of bombs.

Minutes dragged into hours. Each tick of the clock was heavy, echoing in the silence. Omar dozed fitfully against her side, his hand still clutching the string of his kite. Yasmin opened her diary with trembling hands. The candlelight flickered across the page as she wrote:

“Tonight the sky fell on Gaza. The ground shook, and the air turned to fire. My brother cried in my arms, asking why, but I could not answer. Perhaps there is no answer. Perhaps the world has forgotten us. But if the world will not remember, then I will write. I will write so someone will know that we lived, that we feared, that we prayed.”

She stopped when the door burst open. Her parents returned, covered in dust. Layla’s face was streaked with tears. Mahmoud’s eyes were dark, shadowed.

“It was the Al-Hassan family,” he said hoarsely. “Their house…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to. Yasmin felt the words even if they were not spoken.

Omar stirred awake, blinking up at them. “Are they okay?” he asked innocently.

Mahmoud knelt down, resting a hand on his son’s head. He forced a small smile. “They are with Allah now.”

Omar didn’t fully understand. He only nodded sleepily and hugged his kite closer. But Yasmin understood. She thought of Mariam, her friend from the market, and a sharp fear stabbed through her. “Mariam?” she whispered.

“She’s safe,” Layla said quickly. “Her family is safe.”

Relief washed over Yasmin, but it was thin, fragile. She looked out the window at the rising smoke in the distance. Somewhere in that cloud of dust and fire, laughter and stories had ended forever.

The rest of the night passed in fragments. The drone of aircraft never stopped, circling like vultures. Every few minutes, another boom echoed from somewhere else in Gaza. Yasmin dozed against the wall, her diary open in her lap, her pen still in her hand.

When morning came, the city was not the same.

The sun rose weakly through a haze of smoke. Streets were filled with rubble, glass, and blood. Men carried the wounded on stretchers. Women wailed, beating their chests, their cries piercing the air. Children searched for parents who would never return.

Mahmoud led Yasmin and Omar through the neighborhood, helping where he could. They passed the Al-Hassan house — or what remained of it. Only rubble, dust, and a broken doll staring blankly from the ruins. Yasmin felt her chest tighten until she could hardly breathe.

At the mosque, bodies were laid out in rows, covered with sheets. Yasmin turned her face away, clutching Omar’s hand tightly. He looked, though, his young eyes wide with confusion. “Are they sleeping?” he asked softly.

“No,” Yasmin whispered, her voice breaking. “No, they’re not.”

When they returned home, Yasmin climbed to the roof alone. The kite string still hung from the railing where Omar had tied it before the night fell apart. The kite itself had been torn in the chaos, lying crumpled on the ground below.

She picked it up, smoothing the plastic gently. It was broken, but she knew Omar would try to fix it again. That was who he was. That was who they all had to be.

She opened her diary again and wrote:

“The world thinks bombs are only noise and fire. But they are more. They are the sound of mothers screaming for their children. They are the dust of homes that will never be rebuilt. They are the silence that follows when laughter disappears. Tonight, Gaza cried. But tomorrow, we will rise. We have no choice but to rise.”

The ink blurred as her tears fell onto the page. She closed the diary, holding it tightly to her chest as the city mourned below her.

And though she didn’t know it yet, those words would soon leave Gaza. They would travel further than her feet ever could.

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