The Day It Rained Lead Over the Olive Tree

I was dead... for five minutes. I opened my charred eyes to the strong stench of blood and vomit,
right cheek plastered against the dusty floor – a bed of slugs and bones, azanes and brains, guts and gunpowder.

I pressed my arms hard against the platform to prop myself up: head throbbing, chest pounding, knees buckled,
my face a crimson mask. The world was a haze, slowly sliding into focus as I crawled forward through heaps of
bullet-ridden skin and flesh. Gingerly, I clawed my hand out to grab onto something, anything, for support.
My fingers gripped what felt like an organic mass: it dissolved at my touch into a viscid pool of black and red –
the bodies had begun to decay.

Nameless, faceless bodies lay strewn and scattered across the hellscape... bodies of my parents, my siblings,
my aunts and nephews, neighbors and their children, draped in rags soaked scarlet as stars of
white phosphorous blistered the night sky.

Assalam Walaikum. My name is Salman Abbas al-Ali. I'm sixteen years old. My family is dead. Welcome to Gaza.

— Promi