Israel Has a Right to Defend Itself
By Genevieve Cora Fraser
Dressed in his best
The little boy sat
Upright and proud
Hands folded on his lap
On the cracked
Front step of his home
His mother
Screamed
To come back in
Curfew, curfew
She cried
Drowned out
By the rumble
And roar of the IDF
Tank thundering
Down the narrow
Balata refugee camp
Rubble strewn street
Certain of death
For defying Mighty Israel
He stared
Straight ahead
Unflinching
Alfawwar camp
Was visited
In the evening
IDF troops in search
Of a wanted man
Instead found
Twenty year-old
Mujahed with an invalid mother
Cancer-ridden
Frighten by sounds
Her son checked
To allay her fears
An Israeli sniper
Shot him in the leg
Bleeding profusely
An ambulance
Called was stopped
Neighbors screamed
Save him
Instead
They killed him
With a shot
To the chest
As he attempted to escape
To return to
His dying mother
A major incursion
By Israeli soldiers
Netted a child
Clinically dead
Nine killed
Forty wounded
Like fish in the sea
Troops cast the net
Once caught
Shot bullets
To the head and heart
From Erez crossing
To "Nissanit" settlement
Into Beit Lahia.
The raid spread
To al-Nada Housing project
A serious escalation
The media droned
Naming names
An agonized chant
Of the dead
The main battle
They reported
Now is focused
On ambulances
Allowing time
For the injured
To bleed to death