Phalapoem editor, 19/09/2025
(The night smells of smoke and dust. Handala, the eternal 10-year-old with his back turned to the world, stands among the ruins of Gaza. Across from him stands a suited figure: Prime Minister Netanyahu His tie is spotless, though his hands are not.)
Handala:
I’ve been standing here for decades, my back to you all, because none of you ever listen.
But tonight, I turn—just enough—to ask:
How many more children must you bury to save your career?
Netanyahu:
Career? I act for security, for my people’s safety.
The world is dangerous. My enemies are everywhere.
Handala:
Safety?
Is starving babies your definition of safety?
Is dropping bombs on hospitals your idea of morality?
You claim to defend life, yet you trade it for applause.
Netanyahu
These are tragic necessities.
Collateral damage.
The price of peace.
Handala:
Peace?
You kill mediators, bomb neighbours, starve and choke a population,
and call it peace?
Your words are porcelain—shiny on the outside,
full of filth beneath the lid.
Netanyahu
My army is the most moral in the world.
We warn before we strike.
We are forced to act.
Handala:
A moral army does not warn children before killing them—
it does not kill them at all.
You demolish homes, hospitals, schools, universities, UN shelters, dreams,then boast of virtue.
That is not morality.
That is war crime.
Netanyahu
The world understands my struggle.
They still shake my hand.
They still give me weapons.
Handala:
The world’s silence is not your innocence.
It is their complicity.
History does not forget—
it counts bones when leaders count votes.
Netanyahu
History is written by the strong.
Handala:
No.
History is carved by the dead.
Their names will stain your every page.
Children you starved will whisper through time
long after your podium crumbles.
(Handala steps closer, his small bare feet silent on the rubble. He keeps his back to the cameras, but his words pierce like shards of glass.)
Handala:
You bombed the mediators.
You shelled the shelters.
You fed hunger instead of hope.
And still you speak of morality.
Tell me, Prime Minister—
when the applause dies,
who will protect you from the ghosts of the children you buried?
(The leader opens his mouth but no words come. The silence of Gaza answers instead—
a silence heavier than any bomb.)