They Killed the Witnesses

This time it wasn’t the hospitals.

It wasn’t the aid trucks.

It was the tent.

The cameras.

The eyes that would not look away.

Anas. Mohammed. Ibrahim. Moamen. Mohammed.

Journalists—

shot from the sky by a state

that fears the truth more than defeat.

A drone strike at a hospital.

To kill the story.

To blind the world.

Call it what it is.

Not crossfire.

Not tragedy.

Assassination.

Genocide,

caught on tape—

so they killed the tape.

But their names are louder than your bombs.

And we will carry them—

in the streets,

in the boycotts,

in every act that strips you of power

until the armour cracks,

until the hands that feed you turn away,

until the head of the beast comes off

and the whole rotten body collapses.

You killed the witnesses.

We will finish the story.