Gaza teaches us not to put off inspiration

HUSEIN MASHNI

I’m starting to understand that when you have an inspiration to do

something -- in my case to write songs, stories and sermons -- you

should do so. If you don’t, I’ve found, the tugging to do so stays

with you.

That’s how I feel about Mohammed, who I just met in Gaza City.

I’ve lived in the Holy Land for about six years. I’ve lived in the

Gaza Strip for three of those six years, and I’ve seen unbelievable

things in that time. But the story of 14-year-old Mohammed still

shook me to my core.

During a massive military incursion last May into the Gaza City

area of Zeitoun, Mohammed was hit by Apache helicopter fire as he was

on his way to school, around 6:30 a.m. A bullet entered the back of

his head went all the way through, hit the sidewalk he was collapsing

onto, bounced back and showered his head with shrapnel.

He was taken to the hospital in Gaza City and pronounced dead. He

was put into the “refrigerator,” one of several long metal drawers

for the deceased.

Another boy was also injured in the attack. The father of the

second boy was told that two boys were brought to the hospital and

that one died and one was in injured.

Expecting the worst, the father rushed to the morgue to see if the

deceased was his son. He opened the refrigerator door and saw young

Mohammed, not his son.

But he saw, as the boy’s brain was outside his head, that the

brain was still pulsing. The boy was not dead. The man shouted for

doctors to take the boy out of the refrigerator.

The doctors quickly took him out and had him sent to Israel for

emergency medical treatment that isn’t available in the Gaza Strip

(this is a very common arrangement between Israel and Palestinians).

Mohammed was in a coma for 100 days in an Israeli hospital. He

finally came out of the coma. As some sort of sign of providence, the

Israeli doctors said that the only thing that kept Mohammed alive

during those first hours after the wounding was the fact that he had

been kept in the refrigerator as it slowed the flow of blood.

While distributing food aid from the church here in Gaza a few

days ago, I met Mohammed and his mother and brother. His brother, one

year younger than him, has had emotional problems since his brother’s

injury. The mother is stalwart.

She told the Israeli doctors, “I don’t want anything. I just want

my son to open his mouth and say, ‘Mamma.’”

He hasn’t. He is quadriplegic. He doesn’t speak. But when I asked

if I could pray for him and touched his head, he smiled broadly. When

we said goodbye, he smiled too.

This was one of the hardest days I’ve had in the Gaza Strip. We

also distributed some food assistance to a family that lives in a

graveyard.

Another home we visited had only children living in it because the

father died in an electrical accident about two months before, and

the mother, who already had cancer, died a few days later.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that one

of the keys to success in the Middle East is the success of Gaza.

It’s not as if it can be ignored.

Please pray for Gaza.

* HUSEIN MASHNI is a former Daily Pilot reporter who became a

Christian missionary. His articles appear in Forum on occasion.