A note from our Editor-in-Chief: We’re sharing Zeteo contributor Mosab Abu Toha’s powerful, original poem without a paywall so all can watch and read. But to get access to all of Zeteo’s special coverage marking three years since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and Israel’s genocide in Gaza that followed, consider becoming a paid subscriber today. And if you’re already a paid subscriber but want to support our work further, you can always send a donation. -Mehdi
A Letter of Sympathy to the President of the United States
The other day, I watched a few posts online
mocking you as you winced at the deafening sound
of a military jet flying over your head.
I didn’t like the tone of many of those posts.
I don’t blame you for such a reaction.
I have reacted like this, and worse, hundreds of times.
My parents, wife, kids, and siblings have too.
So all of us now
know how
that sound feels.
In 2008, I was 16
on the roof of our house in Beit Lahia,
standing with my father, watching his pigeons in their coop,
when an Israeli, U.S.-made F-16
flew low, like a shaving machine,
before razing a neighborhood.
I panicked at its piercing shriek,
but also at the sight of the missiles
mounted beneath its wings.
But Mr. President, all of us, except you, know
the screech of a missile
or the blast of an explosion.
Do you know what’s louder than the screech and the blast?
The voice of a mother in Jabalia Camp,
begging me on October 31, 2023,
to search for the bodies of her husband and children
under the rubble
not just of her house,
but of the entire neighborhood.
The desperate pleas of 5-year-old Hind Rajab
from her uncle’s car in January 2024,
and the 335 bullets fired at her
before, during, and after the call.
The trickle of tears on the cheek of a father
who returned with no bread for his kids in a tent
in Khan Younis, and the screams of an infant
whose mother’s breast had dried up.
The heartbeat of 18-year-old Ahed
as her uncle, Dr. Hani Bseiso,
amputated her leg on a kitchen table,
without anesthesia.
It was dark!
The grinding footsteps of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyya
as he walked toward the tank in his white coat.
I can hear the sound of his disappearance.
And I can still hear and hear more!
But do you know what will be much louder than all?
The sound of the gavel
in the court of justice.
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet and writer from Gaza. He won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for commentary and the 2024 OPC’s Flora Lewis Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2023.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of Zeteo.
Check out an original poem Mosab wrote for Zeteo in 2024, and read more from Zeteo’s recent coverage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza:
