Pat Taub
GUEST POST by SALLY BOWDEN-SCHAIBLE
(adapted from correspondence with Dr. Jehad Hasanain*)
Her name is Layan, meaning “sweetness and ease” in the Arabic language. A 10-year-old girl, the youngest of her siblings, she has long dark brown hair held back from her smiling face with a headband and barrettes. Her smile reaches her even darker brown eyes. She is full of love and hope, and her way of being in the world reflects her name. People who know her say so. She jumps in everyone’s arms like a beautiful butterfly and spreads beauty everywhere.
A portrait of Layan taken shortly before she was killed
Her father, who because of the lack of available jobs in Gaza, does not work. Even so, he was committed to registering her in a center that teaches Palestinian children folklore dance, drawing, photography and writing poetry, and because of his determination (wrapped up in love for his youngest child), he negotiated with the director of the center, saved what money he could, and was able to enroll her.
Layan especially loves dancing and quickly became recognized at the center for how easily she learned and how skillfully she danced. When she dances, her face lights up, and her body moves with an ease and grace that foretell the quality of dancer she will become over the years.
Layan, pictured in the middle in a recent dance performance
The new school year starts in a few weeks. Layan kept urging her mother to buy her clothes for school, but due to the family’s difficult financial situation, of which Layan knew little, her mother evaded her requests many times. Finally, her father made an agreement with her.
He told Layan he would take her on a beach trip the next day, and then afterwards he would take her to buy what she wanted for school. Layan was very happy and excited! Bedtime thoughts were of the beautiful clothes she would wear when the school year began and the special time she would have with her beloved father on the beach by the sea.
However, this story ends in tragedy.
On the way to the sea, on August 9, an apartment building in Khanyounis refugee camp, next to the road Layan and her father were walking, was bombed by the Israeli military. As the building exploded, shrapnel went flying in all directions, pieces hitting Layan, penetrating her skull.
Layan was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, another innocent victim of the multitude of wrong assaults on Gaza by Israel, for wrong—deeply wrong—purposes. Layan’s head injury was fatal. She died on August 11 in the arms of her father, her beloved father whose gift to his daughter became his horror.
Children visiting the graves of their friends who were killed in the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza
Layan was one of 17 Palestinian children* killed during Israel’s recent unprovoked attack on Gaza. The death toll since the start of the year is now 37. Another 360 Palestinians, including 151 children, were wounded, and some remain at risk of losing their lives.
The children killed in Gaza during “Operation Breaking Dawn”
