It’s the crying I can’t get out of my head.

Of Hind weeping as she sat next to the bodies of her dead family. As her 5 year old body bled from gunshot wounds inflicted by an Israeli soldier just a few metres away. Begging for help and dying slowly, as the ambulance coming to help her is bombed and the paramedics incinerated from an Israeli tank.

Of Becca wailing uncontrollably as she sat next to her dog on the cold pavement. Sitting while her wife Renee sat dying just a few metres away from her. Bleeding out, as ambulances were prevented from reaching her by ICE.

Of the unnamed woman I just saw sobbing uncontrollably as she hid in the basement of her DoorDash customer in the Midwest. Being a citizen with documents, yet still terrified of the ICE mob gathered outside the house with guns at the ready. Threatening an Indigenous woman and her children with colonial violence for “harbouring” her.

That is what I can’t get out of my head.

*Painting is by Heba Zagout, a Palestinian artist murdered by the Israel Defense Force early in the Gaza genocide.

Kenn Maurice Orfanos, January 2026