GAZA, (PIC)
“The girl with the braids” has long been a symbol of innocence in Palestinian and Arab culture, representing joy and weddings, adorned with joyous songs, smiles, and dances, decorated with henna to make her a cheerful blonde. However, this time she extends a narrative of pain, oppression, and helplessness in the Gaza Strip, a story inscribed by the “genocidal war” with the criminal rockets and treacherous shells of the Zionist-American aggression. The Palestinian martyr, “The girl with the braids,” has become a new icon of pain, cursing the global silence and helplessness in the face of the Israeli massacres in Palestine for over a year and a half.
The wounded and oppressed shared on social media about the murder of the “The girl with the braids” by a cowardly Israeli bombing, which spared no one in Gaza Strip, after the criminal enemy violated the ceasefire and returned to the genocidal war once more. The scene of the grieving father, tenderly playing with his daughter’s braid, evokes a flicker of hope that something of that braid might bring her back to open her eyes again and embrace him with her beautiful braids. Yet, the treachery of the occupation had already snatched a new soul and a little bird from the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli crime relentlessly extinguishes lives amid unprecedented global silence.
The ladder to heaven
The depth of the pain compelled writer Ahmad Hassan Al-Zoubi to describe that braid as a “ladder to heaven.” He was profoundly moved by the martyrdom of the girl with the braids, which consumed him, saying: “Since her ascent or our fall (there’s no difference), I have contemplated that ‘braid.'”
Al-Zoubi continued, “I would return to the image in the photo repository from time to time; it haunts me. It tells me, ‘Contemplate… I am your little daughter, the one with the braid. Have you noticed my clothes? Did the wounds below my lips make you cry?'”
He added, “It’s alright, my father… that ‘braid’ has become a ladder to heaven, after being a rope of dreams. My dreams used to rise from my braid to my head; I imagined the cloud as a piece of candy, a soft pillow, or a holiday dress… I used to plant spring flowers in it, running behind me when I hurried back from school, hiding my shyness with it…”
Al-Zoubi remarked: “On the last morning, my mother braided it while singing to me. My hair was wet and soft; I played, laughed, and did not know I would leave you all with my hair wet with blood… The rope of dreams will never end, nor will it ever break. We will build a homeland there above the clouds…”
He concluded, “Finally, I beg you, send me my doll via the ‘ladder to heaven’ because I miss her very much.”
A symbol of pain and lost innocence
Activists described “The girl with the braids” as a child from the Gaza Strip, snatched away by Israeli bombardment, yet her braid remains a symbol of pain and lost innocence. They circulated a video clip of her father, describing the moving scenes, and turned to Allah in prayer: “May Allah grant patience to your father and avenge your pure, innocent blood.”
Cartoonists and artists raced to depict the pain and suffering caused by the Israeli treachery, envisioning a day when justice would be served, and the perpetrators would be hung by their “braids of gallows,” no matter how long it takes.
“The girl with the braids” has died
One account stated: The girl with the braids has died, killed by Zionist hatred, like tens of thousands of others—children, women, men, and the elderly—in the Gaza Strip.” It continued: “With cold blood and global indifference, childhood is slaughtered daily in Palestine, and the crime is: ‘This is our land.'”
It added: “The girl with the braids curses our helplessness, and helplessness is lethal. In the name of her withered features and her father’s fingers bidding farewell to the braid, in the name of the afflicted childhood in the Gaza Strip, we curse every silent and complicit party, we curse death and war, and we will forever curse Zionism.”
Approximately 49,000 martyrs have been killed by Israel since the beginning of the October 2023 aggression, while Israeli crimes—like global silence—continue.
May you rest in peace, and may we bear the shame
Another account said: “O The girl with the braids, peace be upon you and mercy, while we bear all this suffering and shame. Have the wombs of mothers become barren of giving birth to men? Where is the nobility and brotherhood? Where are those who, when one part suffers, the rest of the body responds?”
It continued: “At the very least, there should be a declaration of condemnation, and at the very least, an alert. Are we truly from a nation of a billion?”
The account concluded: “Ah, the braids that used to dance with innocence; we have let you down, O bearer of innocence. We have turned our hands away from helping you.”
Just one night apart
In a post by an activist, alongside a picture of her in prayer attire, after her martyrdom, it said: “Just one night apart between the two pictures—one in prayer and the other in the care of the Most Merciful.”
