Related Post
Al Jazeera Net correspondents
Gaza- Raja left her mobile phone after watching a number of video clips showing the bodies of unidentified Palestinian children. She took a thick pen and wrote their full names on her children’s bellies, “so that they would not be among the unknown,” as she says.
Raja Muhammad, a mother of 3 children, explains to Al Jazeera Net the motives behind her resorting to this method and says, “I found myself forced to write their names on their bodies in light of the occupation’s deliberate targeting of civilians, children, and women. No one is immune.”
The mother chose her children’s bellies as a place to write their names, because “the limbs are most likely the first thing a missile destroys,” according to her statement.
They wrote their names on their feet, so that when they were martyred, they would not be called “unidentified martyr.”
Imagine the feeling of a child in Gaza and his family, when his name is written on his body in preparation for this moment… pic.twitter.com/FxrViLDick
– Radwan Al-Akhras (@rdooan) October 22, 2023
Routine act
Telling the children about the importance of writing their identities on their bodies was not easy for Raja, but the pictures of the shrouds with “Anonymous” written on them were even more terrifying, so I taught them that this is a routine act that mothers in Gaza do to avoid separation in the event of raids, and so that people can recognize them and meet again. Especially after the occupation bombed their house located in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, west of Gaza City.
For his part, Saleh Al-Jaafrawi, a permanent activist at Al-Shifa Central Hospital, told Al Jazeera Net that he saw a number of children arriving at the hospital, with their names, ID numbers, or contact phone numbers written on their hands and bodies, which made it really easy to identify them.
He added, “Within one minute, dozens of martyrs could flow into the hospital, the bodies would be mixed up and nothing would be known, and some children would not be able to pronounce their names due to extreme fear or their young age.”
No body is protected
While many see the usefulness of writing names on bodies, some mothers believe that they do not have the ability to do so despite their belief in its importance. Ruba Al-Ajrami says – to Al-Jazeera Net – that mothers’ fear of losing their children sometimes drives them to think irrationally without regard to the psychological dimension of this issue.
Although the idea came to her repeatedly, she did not have the strength to confront her children with it, and Ruba continues, “There is no place in the body that is protected from the missiles that melt the flesh and turn it into pieces, as appears in the video clips.”
Ruba is surprised by the global silence over the massacres committed by the Israeli occupation against children and women and asserts, “We are not waiting for support from anyone, but I ask the mothers of the world to teach their children how the Palestinians pay their lives to defend the dignity of Muslims and their sanctities.”
Mass graves of the unknown
136 bodies of unidentified people were buried in mass graves after they were martyred as a result of the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Ministry of Health spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra explained – to Al Jazeera Net – that this step comes in light of the accumulation of dozens of martyrs who could not be identified during the past days, pointing out the presence of 83 unidentified bodies filled with the martyrs’ morgue in Al-Shifa Hospital, while dozens of martyrs are still arriving. Daily from infants, women, men, and the elderly.
The competent authorities are responsible for photographing the victims and documenting their distinctive signs, so that families who lost some of their members can check on them later.
While the mothers of the world prepare their children for a peaceful sleep at nightfall, the mother in Gaza prepares her children to gather with them in one grave and prepare them to receive martyrdom and eternal sleep where there is no fear, injustice, or Israel.
