Imagine the blood of your children on your clothes.

This is a photo taken by one of the doctors for a Palestinian mother crying over her 4 children killed in the bombing of Gaza.

Imagine the blood of your children on your clothes.

Imagine if the bombs started falling. Imagine if you couldn’t keep your children safe. Imagine holding their bloodstained bodies lifeless between your hands. The same hands that held them when they were first born. Imagine losing the children you have spent months or years raising, in a matter of minutes. In a matter of mere seconds.

Mothers in Palestine don’t need to imagine.

The reality is harsh; Palestinian mothers don’t know when it will be their children’s turn. At the time of writing this, the official United Nation’s figures on the number of dead children is 470 from the latest Israeli offensive on Gaza. That’s 470 times Palestinians mothers endured pregnancies, painful births, sleepless nights, tiresome days, all to have their children murdered. Whether they were sleeping in their beds, having their iftar, celebrating Eid, or playing on the shores of Gaza, they were killed. Taken from their families by brutal military forces.  And this number is only rising.

While we sit safely in our homes in Australia, we feel nothing but sadness for our brothers and sisters in Iraq, Syria, and particularly Gaza.

To all the Palestinian mothers we say:

Rest assured that you are always in our thoughts. No matter the distance between us, your tears are our tears. Your pain is our pain. Your loss is our loss.

We are making Du^aa’ (supplication) for you.

May The Almighty Allah give you the strength to protect your children, resist the occupiers and gain your freedom.

May The Almighty Allah grant all our sisters who are suffering from the evil of wars that is tearing their world apart in Syria, Iraq, and Gaza, patience and strength to cope with the tragic loss of their children and reward them paradise in the hereafter, aameen.