13 Atom Bombs on Gaza!!

200,000 tons of explosives… how much? 5 million maunds, meaning 200 million kilograms. Yes! During 2 years, this gunpowder was rained down on a restricted and besieged strip only 10 kilometers wide and 41 kilometers long. As if half a kilo of gunpowder on every square meter. The planet has never seen such a rain of gunpowder since the Second World War. Military experts say that this quantity is equal to 13 atom bombs, the very bombs that turned life into ashes on the land of Hiroshima. But this gunpowder did not just fall on buildings in Gaza; it rained on hopes, dreams, books, and mothers' laps.

In these two years, the land of Gaza burned and turned black, but the courage of its people is still shining. The most powerful army in the world, despite raining fire from the sky daily, could not break those tiny hands that still give the call to prayer (Adhan) in the ruins, nor could it silence those lips that speak out: “We are alive and standing firm on our right.”

This is not a matter of a few days or weeks; this series has been going on for a full two years. In this very region, four major Arab-Israeli wars have taken place so far: 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973. The total duration of all of them combined is 335 days. But today is the 732nd day of this Gaza war. During this period, Israel's human loss has also been greater than all previous Arab wars. Although there is no regular army fighting it, nor a modern air force, there are only those hearts that are full of faith and pain. This is the first time that the people of Gaza are fighting their own war, for their land, their faith, and their survival.

Undoubtedly, the city of Gaza has become a heap of rubble. Roads buried in the dirt, hospitals dissolved into rubble, schools deserted. But if even after two years, the enemy, despite all its military power, could not subdue these people, then this is a defeat that cannot be seen on any map. The pride of power has drowned in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea. Now Israel is forced to sit at the negotiation table and talk to the very people it wanted to wipe out.

Gaza has proved that when faith is alive, a weapon more powerful than bullets and gunpowder comes into existence—the weapon of courage. The enemy has planes, they have tanks, but the people of Gaza have that conviction which cannot be shattered by any bomb. Their children, who opened their eyes in hunger, are the ones awakening the conscience of the world today.

If the statistics are looked at, these two hundred thousand tons of explosive material caused more destruction than the combined gunpowder of America's 28 years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the verdict of history is that destruction is never the final word. From beneath every piece of rubble, some hand emerges, which raises knowledge, a pen, or a stone and says: "We did not lose."

This is not merely a war; it is a line written on the face of time that no power can erase, and perhaps that is why despite the clouds of gunpowder hovering over the sky of Gaza, light still remains there. Because these lamps have caused great damage to the night, and now these lamps are not going to be extinguished. (Zia Chitrali)

Note: These statistics are derived from a post by Al Jazeera's famous journalist Khadija Benguenna.