Chana Joffe-Walt

Okay, hang on. Let's see.

There you are.

Hi.

I do.

Would you like to watch with me? Would you like to watch? I paused, looked at my watch, saw my coworkers heading to the meeting room, and decided to go ahead with her agenda.

She's under the covers with her phone and her laptop in purple pajamas. She's sitting on her mattress on the floor, and she's pointing the phone at her screen so we can watch together.

Of course, Panias is a vocal movie watcher. She has a running commentary on the characters, repeats English words that are new to her, explains the movie.

Would you be happy if that happened?

Really silly.

Macaulay Culkin, who I'd forgotten is also eight years old in this movie, is walking home, crosses a driveway, just as the two burglars, Joe Pesci and the other guy, pull out in their van, screech to a halt, and Macaulay Culkin does his blonde surprise face.

Ah!

I do.

The Statue of Liberty?

I want to see it. Yeah. I don't see it right now, but I see it pretty often.

When I go to work, sometimes I can see it.

Banyas, the houses there in that part of the movie, does it look anything like Gaza? No. How is it different? Gaza is more beautiful. Even now?

Two days earlier, Israeli airstrikes hit Al-Aqsa Hospital in Derbella, right near Banyas' apartment. The hospital was surrounded by tents filled with displaced people sleeping. The airstrikes caused a fire that ripped through those tents. I'd seen Maram sharing images and videos of people sleeping in the tents burned alive. I wondered if Banias had seen those images, but I didn't ask.

Instead, we watched this Christmas movie. We watched Kevin trick the burglars into thinking his family is home by staging a fake party in his house.

Any War is a series of plot points. Even in an ongoing war, a never-ending and no longer new war, we track its progress by the worst moments. I kept calling Banyas with this expectation, weeding for the story of the war as I was understanding it, to somehow intersect with her life as she was experiencing it.

I kept imagining, dreading, that one of those moments will break through, that something bad will happen to Banyas. One of those horrible plot points will become her plot point. But something bad is happening to Banias. This is the plot point for her. She's sitting under the covers, with no electricity, no heat, winter approaching. Banias has not been in school for over a year. She has no home.