Stormclouds

When I was sleeping yesterday evening, thunder began to roll. I awoke, afraid the F16s had returned. A touch of the old PSTD, perhaps.

Thankfully, it was huge storm with thunder, lightning and torrential rain. It rained heavily again this morning, washing away the dust and fumes, but unfortunately also helping the toxic residue of more than 1,400 missiles to seep into the soil and water table. The damage is untold and it will be a long recovery.

The simplest things have a strange significance now. Being able to leave the house after dark, being out in a taxi not having to worry about airstrikes, eating food from your fridge that you thought might be your last supplies, taking a bottle of water and not worrying that you might run out, being able to use the internet and phone without worrying they might be cut at any minute, going to sleep with silence outside your window, no drones, no naval fire, no F16s, no shelling, no fear that you will awake to news of a ground invasion.

Israeli soldiers have already broken the ceasefire, killing a young Palestinian man, 20-year-old Anwar Qudaih, in the border area near Khan Younis. It remains to be seen what will happen next.