1. Saf (صف)
Literal: Classroom.
Lived: A stage for fear, laughter, rumors, and miracles—all within the same forty minutes. A place where windows were watched more carefully than teachers, in case the sound arrived.

2. Jibāt (جبّات)
Literal: Israeli military jeeps.
Lived: Their engines carried a mood, a speed, a weather pattern. From that sound, we could tell which raids were routine and which would leave someone bleeding in the courtyard.

3. Courtyard (الساحة)
Literal: The open concrete space between classrooms.
Lived: Our first geography lesson. We learned where stones dipped, where blood pooled.

4. Ishtibāk (اشتباك)
Literal: Clash, confrontation.
Lived: The word adults used when they didn’t want to say “shooting.” It floated in conversations like a safety blanket, and yet every child knew it meant someone’s mother would arrive at school wailing, twisting her fingers, and pulling at her hijab.

5. Istishhād (استشهاد)
Literal: Martyrdom.
Lived: A word that made death sound ceremonial, almost chosen.

6. Tawjīhi (توجيهي)
Literal: Secondary school exit exam.
Lived: The thing we studied for even when gas filled the classroom. A chance at a better life, we were told.

7. Shahādeh Posters (بوسترات الشهداء)
Literal: Martyr posters.
Lived: The faces that grew up with us. We learned to recognize classmates better in grainy photos than in person.

8. Al-Āthin (الآذِن)
Literal: The school caretaker/attendant.
Lived: The man who cleaned the blood in the courtyard. He taught us how to look, and how to look away, and why both mattered. The bucket was his sermon.

9. El-Dalw (الدلو)
Literal: The bucket.
Lived: The closest thing our school had to a ritual. Water first, so the blood wouldn’t stick. Then sand. Then we wait for the poster.

___

L.F. Khouri is a Palestinian writer whose work explores war, memory, and the inheritance of silence. His writing appears or is forthcoming in New England Review, The Missouri Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, River Teeth, Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, The Rumpus, Massachusetts Review, Wigleaf, and elsewhere. Two of his pieces were selected for Best Microfiction 2026.

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