For 11 days in May 2021, Razan Madhoon had the same nightmare. As Israel pushed ahead a military offensive against Gaza, she dreamt of missiles darting across the sky like shooting stars. She imagined her two young daughters running alongside her, hoping the missiles would miss them. As they searched for shelter, the sound became deafening, a missile hit one of her children—then she awoke in a cold sweat.
Madhoon is a 33-year-old Palestinian refugee. She moved to the United Kingdom in 2015 and now lives in Scotland with her daughters. The escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict in May last year triggered memories of an Israeli military operation in 2014, when she was still in Gaza and attempting to keep her daughters safe. “You never recover from such trauma,” she told me. “People tell you when there is a ceasefire that it’s all over. Finished. But it’s never finished. You deal with these traumas for the rest of your life.”
While her daughters are physically far from the conflict now, Madhoon said it had left an indelible mark on their psyche. She recalled a recent drawing her 13-year-old daughter made that showed her running away from a bomb. There have been more visceral impacts of the war as well. “Back in 2014, when we were in Gaza, our neighbour’s house was flattened to the ground and our house got rattled,” Madhoon said. “We were checking out the damage. And there she was amongst us, watching with open eyes. It was the first time I saw shock on her face.”
Esta historia es de la edición April 2022 de The Caravan.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor ? Conectar
Esta historia es de la edición April 2022 de The Caravan.
Comience su prueba gratuita de Magzter GOLD de 7 días para acceder a miles de historias premium seleccionadas y a más de 9,000 revistas y periódicos.
Ya eres suscriptor? Conectar
Mob Mentality
How the Modi government fuels a dangerous vigilantism
RIP TIDES
Shahidul Alam’s exploration of Bangladeshi photography and activism
Trickle-down Effect
Nepal–India tensions have advanced from the diplomatic level to the public sphere
Editor's Pick
ON 23 SEPTEMBER 1950, the diplomat Ralph Bunche, seen here addressing the 1965 Selma to Montgomery March, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The first black Nobel laureate, Bunche was awarded the prize for his efforts in ending the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.
Shades of The Grey
A Pune bakery rejects the rigid binaries of everyday life / Gender
Scorched Hearths
A photographer-nurse recalls the Delhi violence
Licence to Kill
A photojournalist’s account of documenting the Delhi violence
CRIME AND PREJUDICE
The BJP and Delhi Police’s hand in the Delhi violence
Bled Dry
How India exploits health workers
The Bookshelf: The Man Who Learnt To Fly But Could Not Land
This 2013 novel, newly translated, follows the trajectory of its protagonist, KTN Kottoor.