Scene One
On the other side of the mountain, Abu Musab and Abu Khaled were hiding inside the rocky fortress, trapped between its sturdy walls and the roar of Israeli warplanes shaking the sky above them.
Abu Musab knelt, leaning slightly forward, while Abu Khaled sat beside him, as if sharing a heavy silence before daring to speak.
The sound of the planes—their thunder and vibration—invaded the fortress, bringing back to Abu Musab the memory of a dark night in Gaza, when Israeli airstrikes rained mercilessly on civilian homes. His family’s house was among the first to collapse under the barrage, leveling what remained of his life. No one survived except him.
He remembered emerging from beneath the rubble in the hands of the Red Cross, being taken to a hospital, and feeling as if his li
