Examination – att döda ett barn

Det är svårt att hålla tankarna i styr, tårarna i schack. En kvinna som fött en liten dotter, matat, älskat och skyddat henne i sjutton år. En krypskytt som inte kan se en människa genom kikarsiktet. Inte heller något militärt mål, här finns inte ens med den mest paranoida krigsfantasi i världen något självförsvarsmoment. Det är bara en arab. Underlägsen. Disponibel. Sådant är statsrasismens väsen. Vad blir det av dem som är kvar? Vad gör den yttersta orättvisan med människor? Läs och fundera. Känn efter.

Blood on the hands: Two crimson handprints stain the white wall. The tile floor shines in shades of brown, the walls are painted in white and soft pastels, their new house, after the two previous ones were destroyed by the Israel Defense Forces. The bloody handprints stand as silent testimony on the wall of the staircase that goes up to the second floor. This is where Ruqiya stood, the blood of her dead daughter all over her hands, as she pounded them on the wall in a panic, desperately calling to the neighbors for help. She pounded and pounded, her palms staining the wall, when outside stood a line of terrifying jeeps, on the roof of the building down the street stood the snipers and in the other room Bushra lay dead in a spreading pool of blood, a bullet hole in the center of her forehead.

[...]

Bushra, 17, was killed by a sniper's bullet aimed at the middle of her forehead as she paced her room, grammar book in hand, memorizing the material for the exam the next day. A direct hit. The lights were on in the room, the shooter must have seen the person at whom he was firing, whose life he was taking with such dreadful ease.

A sniper's amusement? One bullet in a teenager's forehead and two bullets in the door of the refrigerator, which is in the new kitchen off of Bushra's room, a place where the females of the house hid: Ruqiya, her daughter Suqeina, 23, and Suqeina's three-year-old daughter, Dareen.