Slaughterfield

Slaughterfield

Not killed.

Not lost.

Not “casualties.”

Slaughtered.

Slaughtered by Israel.

Say it properly. Let it sit in your mouth. Let it stain it – ”Slaughtered.”

I wake at six and read the updates from Haaretz. Crisp summaries from the night shift. Because that’s what this is now — a shift.

Someone pulls the trigger.

Someone counts the bodies.

Someone edits the headline so it fits on a screen.

12 dead when I woke up.

17 dead at ten a clock.

40 seriously injured.

The numbers climb the way temperatures do. Mild uptick. Significant rise. Severe conditions expected.

We have normalized horror.

I try to measure horror: Is it better to be one of the 17 sealed into black plastic, or one of the 40 left breathing with shattered hips, opened abdomens, faces torn apart? Is instant death kinder than surviving without anesthesia, without antibiotics, without a hospital that still stands?

There are no new hips there.

No new lenses.

No prosthetics.

No reconstruction.

Bodies break. They stay broken.

This year I replaced the lenses in my eyes. Routine. Efficient. Almost boring. Two weeks ago I received a new hip. Swedish healthcare scheduled me, cut me open, fixed me, managed my pain, trained me to walk again.

Morphine on demand.

Physiotherapy on schedule.

Follow-ups neatly entered in a calendar.

I healed because I live in a system that could decide the level of my pain.

Five hours away by plane,children  bleed in destroyed hospitals. A painful death has been the norm.

Outside my window, it is quiet. The radiators are warm. I am not running. I am not listening for drones. I am not calculating which room has the strongest walls.

Today the Olympic Games open. The world applauds peak human performance while human bodies are stacked in rows.

Two million people there lack everything.

Not almost everything.

Not most things.

Everything.

Water.

Food.

Electricity.

Medicine.

Safety.

A future.

We call it a “complex situation.” That is what comfort calls catastrophe. “Complex” is the word you use when you want to sound informed and remain untouched.

The images from Gaza are not unclear. They are precise. A mother who has not slept presses her children to her chest to steal warmth back from the dirt. A father grips torn plastic and try to repair the roof. Children who already knows that crying wastes calories. The father says it was a calm night. No bombs.

Imagine needing the absence of explosives to define peace.

Their youngest daughter is dying. Not dramatically. Not in flames. She is dying the slow way — from hunger, from infection, from the arithmetic of blockade and indifference.

She will not receive a new hip.

She will not receive a new lens.

She will not receive a fever reducer.

She will not receive a meal.

And we proceed with our morning.

We read.

We sip coffee.

We debate strategy.

We admire choreography.

We say it’s complicated.

It is not complicated to a parent holding a child whose organs are shutting down.

It is not complicated to a body that has been shot.

It is not complicated to a stomach that has not eaten.

“I don’t know if I can keep hoping,” the mother says.

“Yes,” the father answers. “We can, We have five children who need us.”

And we answer with commentary.

With nuance.

With statements about both sides.

With silence.

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