This is the second letter that I write to you. Now you are in Heaven with your brother Tamer, who was 7 years old, and your 2-year-old cousin Nada, and three other relatives.
Some people could ask, why bother writing to him if he is not on Earth anymore? My answer, I had promised him that he would go to school and learn about Palestine and Gaza. How ancient they were and how beautiful! Palestine’s oranges look like gold, shining under the Sun! The beaches, the sea with its blue and green color, the fishermen in their boats. Khaled, you, and Tamar could have had ice cream from a parlor. Delicious under a warm weather!
The genocide in Gaza had just begun when 9-year-old Khaled Joudeh lost his mother, father, older brother, and baby sister, together with many other relatives. All were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their home. I remember when you cried over your baby-sister little body, and you said, how much your mom was happy when she arrived after three sons. She used to comb her little hair and make it curly.
In the following months, Khaled tried to be courageous and attentive, comforting his younger brother Tamer, who had survived the Oct. 22 strike that killed their family. But Tamer, was left seriously incapacitated with a broken back and a broken leg and was in constant pain. He tried to calm down his brother when he cried. He usually says to him: “Mama and Baba are in heaven. Mama and Baba would be sad if they knew we were crying because of them” – according to his uncle Mohammad Faris in a telephone interview with The New York Times.
During the night, when the implacable Israeli airstrikes on Gaza started again, Khaled usually woke up shaking and screaming, sometimes running to his uncle to seek safety. Reading your uncle’s words in The New York Times made me feel very sad, almost crying, you are only a child. You don’t have anything to do with Israel and the Empire’s ambition of ruling the whole world. O God, where are you?
In the beginning of the genocide, Khaled’s father spoke to his relatives that if any of them were killed, the survivors must shelter and educate the children – as Mr. Faris said. Like I wrote in my first letter to you, Khaled, the Palestinian extensive-family links are very strong, very different from the Western world.
Khaled and Tamer were the sole ones in their direct family to survive. The same as Nada, their 2-year-old cousin, was the only survivor from her own immediate family. As children, they regularly played outside when it was calm. But then airstrikes often sent them back screaming. Khaled used to come fast and hide near his uncle.
Then, on Jan. 9, around 2 a.m., while the family slept, an Israeli airstrike stroke the home where they were shielding, according to Mr. Faris and another relative, Yasmeen Joudeh. Khaled, Tamer and Nada were killed, together with two uncles and their grandfather. The body of the grandfather, who had just come to live with them, was found in the street. He had survived long enough to unsteadily walked out of the bombed building, embracing Nada’s body in his arms.
Similar to other members of their family – and so many other Gazans subsequently – the three children, their grandfather and the two uncles were buried together in an anonymous grave. Dehumanized in life, dehumanized in death.
My letter to Khaled Joudah, an affecting and intelligent boy, whom I like very much is my last one. Now you are far away in Heaven reunited with your mother and father and your siblings. And your beloved extensive family.
Ethel Kosminsky
New York, August 29, 2024
References
Abdulrahim, Raja. There is no Childhood in Gaza. The New York Times, Aug. 17, 2024.
