My introduction to violence was intimate and domestic. My father’s fist met my mother’s face at night. Maybe that’s why I never want to see it again.

Violence was familial, which made it familiar. Like the back of my father’s hand, I knew it when I saw it.

Far from romantic, my father waited until all of us children were in bed. My mother kept quiet so as not to disturb our childhood, I suppose. But one of them was always in a bad mood so we all received at the very least a tongue-lashing.

I don’t remember her screaming but I do remember things falling, first loose change and then her. I didn’t need a news report or an expert analysis. The effects were immediate: swollen eyes, busted lip and torn clothing.

But the adults said, “No hitting! No fighting! Keep your hands to yourself.”

I guess the rules for the playground don’t apply when it’s your parents. Forget what we said when the sandbox-land is important, right? Because your body belongs to me or this land belongs to me and I’ll take it violently if I have to.

Still, like the ten-year-old me who pressed her ear to my parents’ bedroom door to ensure that my mother was still breathing, I pay close attention to the stories about the Israel-Hamas war coming across my social media feed: