Breaking News
The sentences were obtained from the following news sources: The New York Times, BBC, Aljazeera, Reuters, NBC News, Center for Preventive Action, National Public Radio, and Relief Web.
This war did not start a month ago. Within this hell:
Bombing & airstrikes rocket fire civilian casualties
diseases especially among infants refugee camps
destroyed. That leaves 2.3 million Gazans with nowhere
safe to go. Wars are deadly when they
begin. Four-year old Omar had to have his left hand
amputated. An open wound. He asks, Where is mum?
Where is Grandma? Where did they go? Understand,
these are dark hours. Look: They have pummeled
the city. The mosque leveled. In the line of fire:
Smashed toys & candy store raises questions raises
fear [regarding] what is happening. The UN run out
of words to describe the unspeakable level of suffering &
horrors. The Western powers try to avoid the question
by changing the subject. Palestinians? There are no
painkillers so [they] have to joke & try to survive.
No other option. Winter rainfall in Gaza has increased.
People go around collecting candle bread notebooks
hope whatever wood that they can find.
Chiwenite Onyekwelu’s debut poetry chapbook, Exiled, is forthcoming from Red Bird Chapbooks (2024). His poems appear in Cincinnati Review, Adroit Journal, Hudson Review, ONLY POEMS, Chestnut Review, and elsewhere. He won the Hudson Review Inaugural Frederick Morgan Poetry Prize, and was recently shortlisted for the 2024 Isele Magazine Poetry Prize.
Header photo by Anas-Mohammed, courtesy Shutterstock.
