How do you continue your day when you hear that a father in Gaza, trapped beneath the rubble, was begging the rescue workers not to save him?
Not because he had lost hope in life, but because he could hear the final breaths of his last daughter beneath the debris. Her tiny hands were holding his in the darkness, as if she were seeking comfort from him one last time. Yet the father, who had always believed he was their source of safety, was this time powerless to pull them out from beneath the dust and stones.
Nothing of his body was visible except his head. He stared into the faces of the rescuers with eyes exhausted by fear and helplessness, saying to them
“Leave me... my daughters are here. I do not want to come out alone.”
What heart can bear such a scene? What language can describe the feeling of a father who realizes he is losing his daughters one by one, while still holding their hands until they grow cold, unable to offer them rescue or even one final embrace?
How will your day continue after hearing this story? How will you sit at your table in peace, or laugh at something trivial, knowing that there was a father whose final wish was not to survive alone?
And the question that continues to haunt the human conscience remains:
How much pain does it take for the world to hear the cry of a single father there?
jacobvanloon
andulkaphoto
amandla
ellievsbear
germansingergirl
