Shalom to you, anonymous Palestinian girl.

I don't know your name. I'm almost certain that as I was writing this letter to you on July 15, you were no longer alive. The night of July 12, I received a photo of you. In fact, it was a long series of photos, which, sadly, arrived to my cell phone via WhatsApp. As someone who's lived in the Middle East for half a century and has been through several wars, I'm used to seeing gruesome photos. That's part of our life here. But yours was different. One photo that is worth 1,000 missiles. I looked at it, mesmerized by the human suffering unfolding before my eyes. Eventually I ended up deleting it from my mobile phone. I tried to forget and delete your photo from my own memory. I couldn't. That night, I barely slept a wink. The image of you lying on the operating table in a hospital in Gaza gave me no respite.

I saw the white-gloved hand of a physician over your body. Another hand was putting a resuscitation mask over your mouth. You were 5, maybe 6 — the same age of another girl, my daughter, who, at the exact same time, was sleeping soundly and peacefully in her room. One meter and a wall separated her from her dad, who was staring at you in horror. During those moments my daughter was probably having sweet dreams. What were you dreaming about? What can you possibly dream about in this situation?

One of your arms was gone. It was probably severed when the bomb, which was dropped on the house of Hamas police commissioner in Gaza Tayisr al-Batash, exploded. Your body was covered in blood. Your intestines, almost all of them, were dangling by your side. Your body sustained other injuries and I have no idea if you were still alive when that photo was taken. But if you were, how many hours or minutes did you have before your heart stopped beating? I am not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that it's impossible to overcome such serious wounds. And if you did survive, what kind of life awaits you the day after?