Sometimes it’s hard to believe we live in the same world as the one we watch on the news.
I brew coffee in a warm kitchen and blow raspberries on my giggling baby’s tummy. Another mother’s baby is taken from incubator, fragile as a vase, and laid on a bed with so many other tiny bodies.
WE MUST DO ALL WE CAN. I'M READY TO HELP.
I wait for my milk to heat, for my baby to wake from her first nap of the day. They wait for bombs to fall, for phone signal to return, for the sun to rise and let them know they have survived another night.
I wait for my toddler to finish nursery. We sing her favourite song over and over. Whole families are obliterated. The contrast is intolerable.
I read a diary entry written by Atef Abu Saif, Palestinian Authority’s minister of culture. He mentions a woman at Al-Shifa hospital. She was sat in a stairwell making chocolate sandwiches for her children. A kettle boiling behind her.
The mundane rests, side by side with horror. Even as you live through the bombs, the death all around you, the fear and terror, your children still need breakfast.
At times like these I feel like a child myself, with childish hopes. I want every single child to survive this atrocity. It is the bare minimum every child deserves.
Yet it is such a foolish wish. One child is dying every 10 minutes. And the ones that live will carry the trauma in their bodies for life.
We must take action. We must do all we can. Do not think you cannot help. We cannot afford to think like that. We cannot give up.
If you have not already, here are things that support these families - on both sides - in this time of desperate need:
- Donate to our Gaza Emergency appeal
- Sign this petition
- Share this post
- Write to your MP
- Read our blog about how to talk to children about war
One day the children that we hold close to us today and those that are far away living through this horror will ask - what did you do? How did you help?
I believe we have a collective responsibility to make sure we have answers for them.
