A day in the life of Badr, 4 years old

They were playing soccer inside. But now they are not playing soccer inside. Mother didn’t stop them from playing soccer. She usually stops them. She didn’t now. She was busy. On the phone. Talking to aunt Jasmine. She sounded sad. Badr kept kicking the ball to Harun (3) and Luna (6). He knew he could break something, but he felt confident he wouldn’t. Then everything broke all at once. Badr felt very guilty. How did his kicking the ball destroy the entire apartment? Mum and dad will be very angry. But he really didn’t want to destroy the entire apartment. He’s very sorry. He will never do it again.

Badr feels very cold. He can move only his right arm and he can wiggle his feet a bit. Something heavy is on his back, preventing him from moving. He can see Harun, but Harun has no head now. He can see Luna, but her belly is open. Some reddish gelly has poured out of her. He knows he is at home, but home no longer looks like home. Where is mum? Why is everything so quiet? He calls for mum, he calls for help, but he can’t hear his own voice even. The sounds have left. Where did the sounds go?

He’s so cold. He’s thirsty. A glass of water would be the absolute best thing in the world right now. Or orange juice. He would be so happy with some orange juice. He yells louder for mum. Mum can fix this, she only needs to hear him and everything will be alright. He keeps calling mum, but mum, and this is so unusual, does not embrace him and make everything better. He doesn’t hear her silky voice whisper ‘habibi’, there are no gentle strokes over his raven black hair. There is just this silence. Silence everywhere.

Badr is very afraid. He starts crying. He promises again and again that he will never kick the ball inside the apartment again. His pleas have no effect.

There’s something wet on the side of his head. It’s warm and sticky.

He can’t think of anything else than how guilty he is for destroying the apartment by kicking the ball inside. He really didn’t mean to kick it that hard. He didn’t want to destroy anything.

He feels like he is stuck for the same length of time as the entire year of kindergarten. Maybe longer.

Then a man grabs him and pulls him free. The man’s lips move very fast, but Badr hears no words. Why does the man make no sound?

The man carries him away. Why is this man rushing so much? Who is this man? Badr says he wants to stay home with his mum, but the man keeps carrying him.

He is put in an ambulance. The man’s lips keep moving. He splashes Badr with water out of a plastic bottle with a little tube sticking out. The water goes on his head and on his arm. Badr looks at his arm now and sees that his hand is not there. Where did the hand go? He feels like he can move the hand, but can’t see the hand. The hand is there, but is not there. Badr tells himself that everything will be alright, as long as his mum turns up. Why doesn’t his mum turn up?

Badr feels how he is being carried out of the ambulance. There are still no sounds. Everything is so quiet. He asks the man carrying him where the sound went, but he doesn’t hear any answer.

Badr is carried inside a building and is strapped to a table by men and women in white clothes. He feels the worst pain he’s ever felt now. They are doing something to his arm. It hurts so much that he forgets to cry. The pain freezes him. They are taking a bigger piece of his arm, the arm that is already missing a hand. Badr thinks they are taking his arm, because they assume he threw the ball that destroyed the apartment with this arm. He wants to say he did it with his leg, but he is afraid they will then take his leg.

Then suddenly Badr feels no more pain whatsoever. He feels like he is falling. He feels relieved. He is sure that when the falling stop he will be in the arms of his mother. He can’t wait to be back in his mother’s arms and to see her smile and hear her soothing voice.

The last thing Badr sees is a man pushing both his hands rhythmically on Badr’s chest and then there are no more thoughts for Badr, no more questions, no more longing for mother and no more pain and no more playfullness.

About 100 miles away a female IDF soldier estimates that at least two Hamas fighters were killed after blowing up such a big residential block. She reports this and goes back to checking how much likes her latest selfie taken on the beaches of Haifa got on Instagram.