A letter to President Joe Biden from Poet Mosab Abu Toha Mr. President of the United States, Merry Christmas to you and your family and loved ones. Unlike previous years, this is the first time I’m not sending of receiving Christmas greetings and wishes. I’m writing to you from Cairo, where I’m staying with my wife and three kids, the youngest of which, three years old, helped us get out of Gaza. Whereas everyone in the world is visiting their families and friends and exchanging kisses and hugs, I’m unable to contact my parents and siblings and their children, the youngest of whom is four months old. I cannot be sure whether my mother and father have food to eat and water to drink, whether they are breathing. I was born 31 years ago in a refugee camp, just a few kilometers from where Jesus was born. People in the world are commemorating the birth of Jesus, while we are mourning the death of our families. Every day Israeli tanks retreat from certain areas, Gazans discover corpses, mostly of children decaying, in the streets and under the rubble of houses. We have been asked repeatedly to evacuate our houses in the north and head to the south. Yesterday Israel bombed a neighborhood in Maghazi, in south Gaza, killing at least 88 people, mostly children. My colleague Ismael and his parents, children and siblings evacuated their house in north Gaza and stayed in Nuseirat camp. Three weeks ago, only his wife and two of his sisters survived. Children constitute around half of Gaza’s population. After each air strike and artillery shelling, children, along with their parents and siblings, lose their lives. They are buried under the rubble of their bedroom, which used to be their playrooms. I’m trying to imagine the future of these children, who have witnessed at least four wars in the past nine years. Those children who were pulled amputated from under the rubble or lost members of their families. What will become of them? I’m sure that not even the smartest psychologist or psychiatrist can fathom a right answer. I’m not asking you in this letter to impose a two-state solution, nor am I asking for the bringing back of the lives of children and their families. I’m asking you as a power to impose a ceasefire as soon as you read my letter. After the ceasefire, drones can stay in the sky. We don’t mind anyone watching us retrieve the bodies of our loved ones. We don’t mind the whole world watching us rebuild our houses and schools and plant our gardens. May next Christmas come while Palestinians have their own airport and seaport, because it has been my dream, not only to see Gaza from a plane window and from a distant ship, but to also take my family and friends to Times Square on Christmas Day, to have lunch in Washington DC, and later to show them the elegant campus of Syracuse University, where we both studied. I also would love to welcome my international friends to Gaza, to take them to the strawberry farms in Beit Lahia, and to watch the sunset on the beach. For peace and for children and for humanity, let there be a ceasefire. Yours Faithfully, Mosab Abu Toha