There are sounds every mother in Gaza knows by heart.
The soft whimper of a baby asking for milk.
The cry of a child too hungry to sleep.
The sob of a mother who has nothing left to give.
But now, there is another sound.
Silence.
A silence that means the child is too weak to cry.
A silence that means starvation has done what war could not.
A silence that has stolen more than 380,000 children in less than two years.
Two years.
Two years of tiny coffins lowered into the earth.
Two years of mothers burying children before they ever learn to write their names.
Two years where bedtime stories have been replaced with final goodbyes.
I saw a photo this week.
A child’s hand, no bigger than a twig with an IV taped clumsily to fragile skin.
Her mother held it as if it might break and the truth is, it already had.
Because in Gaza, hunger doesn’t creep in quietly.
It rips through homes like fire.
It steals voices. It stills bodies.
It leaves mothers whispering lullabies to children who no longer stir.
And all the while, the world marks the days.
Day after day, until two whole years have passed.
Two years of children starving.
Two years of children dying.
Two years of the world looking away.
I cannot shake that photo.
That tiny hand in a trembling grasp, as though a mother’s love alone could keep it alive.
But hunger is stronger than a mother’s will.
And when silence finally comes, it is not peace.
It is the most deafening sound in Gaza.
The sound of a future buried.
Two years too many.
Two years of lost birthdays, empty plates, silenced laughter.
Two years of children who will never grow, never laugh, never live.
Two years have passed, but it cannot be allowed to become three.
The world is not listening.
But you can.
Because once you’ve heard that silence, once you’ve seen that hand,
you cannot un-hear it. You cannot un-see it.
You carry it.
For the children left behind,
Hafsa
