As it turns out...

there was no ceasefire... there was never a ceasefire... And in the time I thought it was safe to look away, the last hospital in Gaza has been completely razed to the ground, bodies have been bulldozed, and more aid workers have been killed in deliberate, precisely targeted strikes. I remember the first time Al Shifa was bombed in November, and thinking it may have been accidental.

I think I will go mad with the children's voices. One says: Bury me with him... My dear brother... my dear brother... where will I get another brother like you? Another says:  I was beautiful before the war... so beautiful... but the war made us ugly... it's the corpses... the war ruined us all.

Gaza will need humanitarian help for a long time, and Big A and I are learning Arabic, hoping to do our part. His doctoring skills are more salient, but when Nu heads for college (fingers crossed) in a year, I'm sure there will be plenty I can do on the ground as well. A friend told me that when someone dies people will say "el bakia fi hayat hom" to their family, meaning "I hope you continue the life (of the person who died)." This is the only thing that makes sense to me now. 

Pic: Big A with his arm slung around Max and a Huckie blur. I kind of need to take Max's place for a while.