Salt in Their Hands – Mo Abualruz
In Gaza’s dusk where silence swells,
The children wait by broken wells.
No bread to break, no songs to sing,
Just buzzing drones and circling wing.They gather near the aid-line fence,
Starved eyes behind a wire’s defense.
A bag of rice, a shattered tin…
But boots and bullets thunder in.
No warning call, no shelter near,
Just screaming metal, dust, and fear.
They came for food. They found a gun.
Their bodies crumble, one by one.
The mothers wrap them cloth by cloth,
Their mouths too dry to speak or sob.
While leaders meet with ink and scorn,
Another child goes unborn.
Fields are ash. The sea runs dry.
The stars look down, but don’t reply.
The world debates what law allows
While famine grips with iron vows.
And still they stand with salt in hands,
Dreams buried deep beneath the sands.
Not beasts, not threats… just flesh and bone
Left starving, broken, and alone.
But shame runs deepest not abroad,
Not in the stranger's cold applaud…
But in the hearts that know the tongue,
The ancient songs their mothers sung.
The ones who kneel and fast and pray,
Yet let their kin be burned away.
Not out of chains, nor lack of might…
But fear to speak, or loss of right.
They watched the skies rain steel and flame,
And whispered not a single name.
Their silence louder than the blast,
Their comfort bought while Gaza passed.
What is a bond if not this thread…
To raise the dying, shield the dead?
What is a neighbor, if not near,
When cries of mercy fill the air?
Not all are guilty…
but the stain Will mark the silent just the same.
For complicity wears no badge,
But it is carved on every page.
So carve it clear in every tongue:
They died for food beneath the sun.
Not in war, nor with a sword…
But for the crime of being ignored
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