Angels of death

for help mixed with the loud calls of people searching for their loved ones. Everyone was covered in dust. Some had open wounds, others limped through what once could be recognized as a street. Still others clasped their hands over their heads and prayed to Allah for help. Here and there, metal parts burned, their black smoke rising in billows to the sky. The blue of the sky was no longer visible. It didn‘t just smell like fire. The smell of burnt flesh and the beastly scent of burnt hair mingled with it. Nael now looked behind him. He was startled because his eyes witnessed a lifeless human body lying amidst the debris. The body was pierced by an iron rod protruding from the concrete. Where the rod emerged from the body, bright blood mixed with the gray concrete dust and trickled down the stone surface. Next to the corpse, Nael could make out a toy. It was an old teddy bear. The following realization hit Nael like a blow to the head. He was in the ruins of the house where he once lived. The teddy bear belonged to Amaya, his neighbor‘s daughter. Only now did he truly grasp what had happened. The „angel of death,“ as he called them, and the people here, the modern F-16 fighter jets of the Israeli army, had once again dropped their bombs on Gaza. Since the night of October 7th to 8th, these angels of death had flown over the skies of Gaza daily, bringing hell on earth with their bombs. The memory returnedto his mind. He went down the staircase and, within seconds, heard the sharp sound of a fast and low-flying aircraft slicing through the air. In such cases, his father had always told him to take cover immediately in case there was an explosion following it. In his memory, all the walls around him dissolved shortly after the delayed sound of the aircraft. Then his consciousness was switched off. Now, back in the present, Nael became fully aware for the first time that his neighborhood was being bombed. Adrenaline surged through his head once again and a thought manifested itself there: What happened to my parents? Nael looked back at the lifeless body and anxiously analyzed its features. Was it someone close to him? With renewed panic, he tried to free himself from the debris that still trapped his leg. As he once again tried with all his strength to lift the stone slab just enough to free himself, three men climbed up the wreckage towards the lifeless body behind him. He watched as they freed the body from the steel rod and placed it on a stretcher. In the process, the heavy head turned in his direction. The face was covered in blood and dust, and he couldn‘t tell if he knew this person. His leg made a sudden jerk, and he screamed in pain. He managed to free it, but the rough edge of the slab cut his shin. A long, red streak of blood ran across his skin. He had to suppress the pain now to somehow get out of the rubble. Since adrenaline still surged through his body in high dosage, he was able to descend from the debris relatively painlessly. He sat down on a crumbling concrete block in an open space next to the pile of rubble, feeling a little sense of securi- ty. In the next moment, all his barriers broke, and he began to sob deeply. He started calling out for his mother and father, his head leaning back as he shouted their names towards the sky. Nael‘s body began to twitch and convulse. For what felt like an eternity, his body and mind surrendered to mourn- ing until he collapsed, tired, on the concrete block and fell asleep.