An entire family in the grip of absence... when the sky bombards memory

At a dawn unlike any other, and under a sky slumbering with the dreams of the simpletons, the occupation's missiles pierced the ceiling of life in the Al-Karama area north of Gaza City, erasing in a single moment an entire family from the civil registry and from the memory of geography, but etching their names in the conscience of the nation forever. Dr. Rafiq Musa Ayesh, the scholar and physician, ascended with his wife, Iman Mutair, the lady of the house and heart, and their sons, memorizers of the Holy Quran: Engineer Muhammad, Yassin, and Omar, and their two daughters: Dr. Wafaa and Engineer Duaa, each with a story in their own right and a promising future that was not destined to be realized. The house in Al-Karama was not just a building of stone; it was a small temple of knowledge, faith, and perseverance. Every corner of it pulsated with memorized verses, study notebooks, and conversations of the humble, educated family, who saw in knowledge a message, in faith a beacon, and in Palestine a land not to be traded. The planes arrived, carrying indiscriminate death, and carried out their mission in cold blood, as if they were erasing numbers, not people, evaporating a biography, not a clan, and burning memories, not faces, that neighbors and loved ones knew by heart. The Ayesh family was not in danger because they carried a weapon, planned an operation, or embraced resistance fighters, but because they remained in Gaza, persevered, and raised their children to love their homeland, memorize the Book of God, and believe that tomorrow—no matter how delayed—will inevitably come. This crime, like thousands before it, passes on screens as a passing news item, but those who lived the details know that the occupation didn't just bomb a house; it bombed a symbol. It bombed a model of an educated, conservative Palestinian family that contributed to quietly building its society, endured the siege, excelled in education, and remained among the first of the patient. The blood of the Ayesh family will not dry, because they are not merely victims, but martyrs for the values we miss: sacrifice, knowledge, purity, and silent work. The occupation's aircraft targeted everything beautiful in this family at once, as if declaring war on knowledge, religion, family, and hope. But what these aircraft don't know is that blood is indelible, and that the names written in ink on graduation certificates will today be written in blood on the walls of history. The family may be erased from the civil registry, but its name will be repeated in mosques, in poems, and on the tongue of a child who will hear about them twenty years later and decide to follow the path of knowledge and resistance together. Rafiq, Iman, Muhammad, Yassin, Omar, Wafaa, Duaa... these are not just names. These are icons of a single family that represented an entire nation, a single moment that represented a seven-decade-long tragedy, and a single shell that represented the reality of the occupation that some are trying to beautify. As for Gaza, it will go on, carrying their pictures in its streets, remembering them in Friday sermons, and immortalizing them in a memory that does not know forgetfulness, because Palestine does not die, and its people are not defeated, even if they fall as martyrs.