Knitting hope

The picture inspires. And rightly so. The lady — undeniably loving, deeply patriotic and heartwarmingly generous — is knitting hope. Her action more than underlines the unquestionable belief that no matter how many skies fall one mustn’t lose hope. And because hope never dies she is making a sincere effort to keep Palestinians warm as humanity is turning murderously cold.

Its wave is freezing ethical values and any kind of feeling for fellow human beings. It is witnessing the deaths of children, women and men on a scale never seen before. 

…The lady doesn’t want her countrymen to give up.

But the lady doesn’t want her countrymen to give up. Agreed, her contribution to her nation’s fight against injustice is like a drop in the ocean, but “the ocean is never the same after the drop,” said Mother Teresa. 

The woman, Shehnaz Baker, spends most of her day with yarn and a needle, making hats, gloves and socks for Palestinian children sheltering in a makeshift camp for the displaced in Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

Baker, 65, who fled her home in Gaza City, said she couldn’t bear to see young people in the camp without enough warm clothes so she sent her son to buy second-hand clothes from the market, which she unravelled and transformed into new winter items.

“When I see the smile of a child wearing a hat and smiling at me, (saying) ‘Thank you auntie, God bless you auntie,’... this is worth all the money in the world to me,” she said.

Well, the lady and millions across the world continue to hope that one day calm will return to their land and they will return home. One day the torment will end and harmony shall take over.

And, of course, they won’t have to deal with the odious task of funerals. Perhaps their land is the only place in the world where funerals are a daily ritual.