Barely a day had passed since Naoum's departure and Khalid's execution when the sound of explosions shook the walls of the tunnel once more.
The ground shook, dust fell from the ceiling, and the air was choked with smoke.
The resistance fighter who brought the news ran in, his face pale, shouting:
"The occupation has refused to complete the deal! They want to apply pressure... The raids will not stop!"
Stunned silence fell.
Uri's body trembled. He clutched his wounded shoulder and muttered weakly:
"They don't care about us... They never did."
Yusuf bowed his head, then said bitterly:
"That's always been their policy: starvation... bombing... until they think we'll kneel. But we won't kneel."
Daniel sat there in shock.
Everything he had heard before about the "moral army" evaporated in the face of the shocking truth:
"Even their prisoners... they don't care about them. They sacrifice them just to break the will to resist."Meanwhile, Uri exploded with anger mixed with fear:
"I fought for them! I bled for them! And now they're leaving me here to die?!"
Yusuf approached him and put his hand on his shoulder despite their enmity:
"An army that abandons its own sons... will show no mercy to anyone. And an army that builds its glory on the blood of innocents... will soon meet its end."
Everyone sat in a silent circle, the roar above them unrelenting.
The raids intensified, the tunnels shook as if they were about to collapse, and hunger began to gnaw at them more than ever before.
In the midst of this hell, for the first time... there was no longer much difference between
prisoner and captor.
Everyone became victims of a war decided by others sitting in distant offices.