After the Blast

In One Image After the Blast By Saher Alghorra

It was late afternoon, but this restaurant in Gaza City was still bustling when an Israeli airstrike tore through it.

Customers sat at the tables under its tarp, eating pizza or crepes and using the Wi-Fi. Young people liked it here.

In one moment of noise and blood and terror, everything changed. This was a prayer rug. Now it’s a makeshift bandage.

The shock and fear is written on the faces.

Stunned and grieving, people turned to helping the wounded around them.

The scars of past fighting are still visible in this neighborhood.

So are remnants of peace. The restaurant put up these lights during the cease-fire, a few weeks and a lifetime ago.

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After the Blast

Before the war, this restaurant in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City served Thai food — back when one could still find the ingredients for it in northern Gaza.

On Wednesday, a bloody day in the Gaza Strip, with multiple strikes, the restaurant was the site of the deadliest. Thirty-three people were killed there and 155 wounded, according to the local health ministry.