"At 14, I Bury My Family While the World Watches"
A harrowing account By Bshar Abu Kreem, a 14 year old boy who is now the man of his family.
The first time I held a shovel, it wasn't for play. It was to dig through concrete with my bare hands, searching for my cousins' bodies.
I'm 14.
I should be worrying about exams and football tryouts. Instead, I lie awake counting the number of breaths between my grandfather's asthma attacks, terrified each wheeze might be his last. My little sister's ribs press against her skin like prison bars - her tiny body starving while the world debates whether we deserve to eat.
A Childhood Measured in Losses
20 empty spaces where my family used to be
186 days since I last tasted clean water
3 centimetres- how much my brother has shrunk from malnutrition before he fell into a coma
0- the number of childhoods left in Gaza
The tent reeks of infected wounds and despair. At night, scorpions crawl over us because there's no flooring. My grandmother's diabetic ulcers weep onto the blanket we all share. My mother's cysts burst blood into her headscarf, but she still wakes before dawn to queue for flour that never comes.
The Arithmetic of Survival
One tomato = 3 hours of begging at checkpoints
One painkiller = my entire week's earnings from collecting scrap metal
One can of formula = my sister might live another week
One bomb = everything gone in an instant
I've become an expert in these calculations.
A Message to the World From a Child Who Shouldn't Have to Write This
Look at my hands - they're an old man's hands now, cracked and bleeding from digging through rubble. Look at my eyes - they've seen more death than soldiers twice my age.
I don't need your pity. I need you to see us as human:
That my brother's coma isn't a statistic, but a boy who dreamed of being an engineer
That my grandfather's asthma isn't a footnot,e but a man who used to tell me stories under olive trees
That my hunger isn't a political talking point but an endless, gnawing pain
We are still here.
But tomorrow? I don't know.
The bombs don't warn us before they fall. The hunger doesn't ask permission before it takes another child. The world doesn't listen until we stop breathing.
So I write this through tears, through power cuts, through the sound of my sister crying for food:
Don’t forget us.
From the darkness of Gaza,
Bshar.
A child who still hopes, against all evidence, that humanity exists.
Donation link: https://chuffed.org/project/bsharkreem
Bshar’s Twitter: https://x.com/bkreem763
Every second you wait, another Bshar loses their childhood. Act now.
I recently travelled to Palestine and heard and saw this suffering myself. Bshar is in regular contact with us, and his suffering is unimaginable. If you can chip in anything worth even a coffee, it will help a 14-year-old help his genocide battered family survive for as long as they can.
I hardly even know what to say anymore, reading and watching the testimonies of tearful Gazan human pain. *Almost* makes one wonder if David Icke's (in)famously wild "reptilian" theory was onto something after all, observing the sheer lack of humanity in our Zionist-occupied planet of Cultural Nazi depravity. If the reprobate masses around us cannot act like real human beings and show authentic heartfelt compassion for their fellow human beings suffering in Palestine, why assume these enablers of (Na)tional (zi)on(ism) are even part and parcel of "humanity"? (FYI I'm not saying this as if I actually believe in reptilian tales, just to point out how much irreparable damage against human decency the Zionist enablers are responsible for)
Human beings who sell out humanity for thirty pieces of silver are in for a rude awakening one day when it's their turn at long last to face accountability in front of the entire universe.
Very well said. I find myself crying my eyes out most days. Watching so many videos and seeing image after image of slaughtered people every day has taken a heavy toll. But I never want to be in a position where I've become desensitised to seeing them. Genocide isn't normal, nor will it ever be. The fact this horror could have been stopped long ago, saving countless lives, is so angering and unforgivable.
I don't want to hear another lying word from these cowardly and gluttonous leaders calling for a ceasefire. How many people have died due to their inaction?! They supplied the funds and the weapons, and now they're suddenly shocked and saddened. Enough with this nonsense! This fake sadness isn't fooling anyone. It's a pathetic attempt by a bunch of cowards who are only interested in saving their political careers. No amount of soap will wash the blood of the innocent men, women and children from their murderous hands. The blood stains are permanent.