Before the aggression, I used to challenge myself to control my desires and resist cravings for things in front of me. I don’t know why I did that, but I always felt that something bad was coming I just didn’t know what.
These experiences helped me survive the psychological exhaustion we’re facing during this famine. It’s been almost 90 days without food, and aid has been completely restricted. What little does get in is nowhere near enough for the people’s needs.
Only two weeks ago, I started losing control over myself. I’ve been craving so many types of food that are no longer available in the market. I won’t name them because I have crazy friends who might stop eating them in solidarity.
I am still capable of enduring more, but I can no longer bear to see scenes of death.
This is a cup of tea without sugar as a kind of dietary routine.
I know I haven’t written in a long time because of what I’ve been feeling, but I always try to stay strong.

I’m afraid I’ll become tomorrow’s news, that my name will pass casually, and all my dreams will be buried with me while everyone watches. But I ask myself, what will they do, really? If they can’t help themselves, how can they help us stop dying! Then, what’s the motivation that would make them stop our deaths? Who are we?!

Then, I remember Sayed Imam, humming Masekeen Benadhak ( We Laugh Pitiably ) with joy, and nostalgia takes me back to the image of our old house, which no longer looks the same - shattered now. A cold breeze used to come into my room through the window, but now the whole storm enters through the broken wall. The storm destroyed all the nylon I had put up instead of the shattered walls. The shelling that killed my friend Dirgham tore apart the nylon on the windows because his house was close to mine. I saw the house burning, and I heard the explosion, but I didn’t know it was his house. Everything flutters and makes annoying sounds in the dark of the night.

Life is strange; it doesn’t give itself to anyone who wishes for it. It struts like a girl who never ages, sitting without hiding her body because she knows you’ll always see her the same way no matter the years. And you, poor soul, fall into her treacherous trap, and your heart breaks every time you look at her because you know she’s elusive, and you know you’re too weak to have her.

The streets of Gaza are very narrow compared to the streets of other cities I’ve visited in my imagination. Tunis, with its soft streets, and the feeling you get when you wander through it, as if it’s laying its hair on the ground for you. Then there’s Syria, with its ancient Jasmine streets. I don’t know why my mind associates Damascus with Jasmine and the wide, open square. In my imagination, that wide square links to the houses we see on TV, the ones with large courtyards, and some of these old houses I’ve visited in Gaza. I always felt that when my right foot crossed the threshold of such a house, I had entered Damascus, and my imagination would drift to the Syrian dishes, of which i have only tried kibbeh 

Then I get lost again in my thoughts about the rough, cold streets of Berlin. Every time I visit Berlin, I feel the need for a heavy coat, which is not a good sign because the streets that don’t give you warmth, of course, don’t love you, but there’s something that makes me want to visit it despite its coldness. 

Then Egypt takes me out for a night in its endless streets, with all its misery. This misery is similar to Gaza’s. And Amman, I feel that the streets of Amman are very narrow and noisy, and I only feel at ease in its alleys because they try to be true to themselves. 

Then, my friends and I gather in a café that’s less than ordinary on a destroyed road, complaining and cursing the distances and the checkpoints, cursing Gaza with all the love we have for it. And then what? Then we return with nothing, except that we carry our disappointments and love that defeats us repeatedly because we know that even if we leave these lands, we’ll remain strangers wherever we go.

I want all those small things that used to make my heart happy: falafel from Sousi in downtown, hummus from Al-Khazandar, the old café by the Saraya and the sea. The whole sea. I don’t want another place, but all of this is gone!

Then the sound of the bombs returns, making you hate everything, even yourself. I don’t want anyone to feel sad about everything I’ve said because, at this time, emotions have become so cheap. Everything has changed and become fake. I feel like I want to escape from everything, not because I can’t face it, but because everything happening now is simply ridiculous.

I started packing my bag on Thursday night to return home Friday morning. I didn’t carry much with me because I would be heading back to the South the day after. My mother, father, and brother Ahmed went home last Monday at 7 a.m. when the return route opened. My father, who limps due to an injury to his leg, walked 14 kilometers to return home alongside my mother. My father walked from Al-Rashid Street, which the occupation allowed us to pass through on the first day of the truce. We couldn’t return via Salah Al-Din Road in our car because it was destroyed in the war and needs repairs. Anyone who has a means of transportation won’t be able to go back to the south again, as Salah Al-Din Road is a one-way route for those returning north.

This is happening just as it did when we were first displaced from our homes. The return journey took place in the morning without us knowing. We were asleep when people started returning to their remaining homes in the city center. As for the homes located near the border, people are not allowed to return to them until the second phase begins.

I took my bag and started walking along Al-Rashid Street, which is only open to pedestrians, from Al-Nuseirat to Al-Nabulsi Roundabout in Gaza—a distance of about 7 kilometers. Despite my poor health, I walked. Two days ago, I had some tests done, and the doctor diagnosed me with a colon ulcer due to unhealthy eating throughout the aggression. Now, I’m waiting to schedule a procedure to assess my condition, with fears that nothing can be done at the moment due to the collapse of the healthcare sector.

Dust is everywhere. I felt nauseous multiple times, my head was pounding, and the ash from the destroyed houses mixed with the fresh sea air makes us sick and poisons our cells.

The city is lifeless. They have changed all the landmarks of the city. We don’t know where we are anymore. We often get lost and drift further into scenes of destruction, with one question lingering in my mind: When will everything return to how it was?

I couldn’t feel at ease despite returning because the grief was greater than any other feelings. I sighed twice—the first time when I reached Shuja'iyya, and I think that sigh was due to the exhaustion I felt throughout the journey. The second time was when I hugged my aunt Nadiya, whom I hadn’t seen in a year and a half. All this time, we’ve been talking on the phone, not knowing if we’d ever see each other again. But fate is capable of anything.

I went from my aunt’s house to our home, carrying a 2-kilogram gas cylinder for my mother. Cooking gas is unavailable in northern Gaza; they use firewood for cooking. My mother told me to bring her the small cylinder to help her a little.

I entered the house, searching for my belongings, my clothes, my books, and my room. My room is destroyed. Part of the wall is missing, there are no windows, and all the furniture is ruined. I had left a collection of books that had arrived from Jordan before the aggression. My heart was attached to those books. I found some of them, but not the rest. My feelings were strange; I had never felt this way before. How could I feel like a stranger in my own home, in my own neighborhood? How could I feel safe when the occupation has destroyed all our memories? The entire neighborhood is in ruins, and everyone there has changed. There’s no water, no electricity, and the wait is killing us.

The occupation has destroyed our lives. This aggression has affected everything. They knew well that what hurts us the most is the loss of our memories, more than death itself. They destroyed homes despite having the ability not to and without needing to, but they want to erase life from our imagination.

The streets are stranger than the last time I left the area and fled to the south for my life. On the way back home, I saw phrases written on walls by people as they moved from one place to another. What struck me the most were their words about resistance—they consider their presence in the north as resistance and their refusal to give up the land. This is what I read in them. After passing through the city center, I got into a car and heard a man say that it would take years for Gaza to return to how it was. Another man replied, “Do you see all this destruction in the city center? It’s nothing compared to the destruction in Jabalia and Beit Lahia. Here, you feel a little life; there, there is no life.”

All these conflicting emotions made me lose touch with everything around me, and I don’t truly know what I’m feeling—grief, fear, a bit of joy, and a little safety. I didn’t feel like I had been away from home for too long. At times, I felt deeply saddened by it, and at other times, I felt nothing at all. But now, I feel like crying. I want to cry over everything that has passed and start a new life without thinking about death from a bomb or a missile. The war has taken a huge part of my soul.

Thoughts are boiling in my head. My head is a boiling pot of water. The pot has nearly melted but returns to its original state every time. Everything here is as strange as the strangeness of not knowing your own feelings. I wake up every day to the sounds of Utopia. I put on my shoes and head to work. I see two little girls doing the same thing every day to each other. Things they would not know how to do if they had not seen adults do them. I go to work, then to charge my phone, then I go back to the tent. I sleep, and I wake up, and I see the girls, and I hear people speak about their beliefs and doctrines and all that is related to them. I listen to their analysis of when the ceasefire will happen. 

The tent is very cold, but tears take the edge off. I hear people breathing heavily due to a virus that is spreading. A virus that makes it hard to breathe. They suffer as if they really know what is happening to them. The coughing is constant, and noses drip continuously. As a type of resistance, small tissue packets are sold in the market for $5. 

I woke up a little while ago to the sounds of bombs falling nearby. The smell of gunpowder choking us. The fear is gone, and when I aak myself where it is, why all this is happening, these words come to me over and over: "Death only begets death. God is just. Blood is not forgotten, and the executioner does not escape. God is just. Venegence is just. And fire lies between us."

Utopia is the tent next to mine in which lives a school teacher who says she is a mother to generations. I hear her teaching her kids and the kids of the camp 'morals' in a way that makes a mockery of the children. She has a 15 year old son who does anything she wants. Carries the water, cleans the tent, and buys her whatever she needs. If he makes a silly mistake, she screams: "May God burn you alive!". 

She has a daughter who is 13. She cares for the newborn, cooks, and does the laundry. And when she makes a mistake, she is beaten with a whip. Att night, I hear her cries, and so does everyone else in the camp. The teacher has a sister. Also in the same camp. She was beaten so often in childhood that she lost part of her mind. We hear her mother beat her at night. Last night, the teacher was beating her daughter, and her mother was beating the teacher's sister at the same time.

They have inherited beating until someone loses part of their mind and starts blithering to themselves. The father watches on in silence. His  main concern is not hearing loud noises. The next day, I hear the father say to his son: "I didn't like the way you spoke to your mother." These words wake me up, and I say loudly: "I have found Utopia!". My mother lets out a loud laugh. 

The educational system has left an inheritance of "spare the rod, spoil the child." Values are taught by rote, enforced, but not lived or embodied. Learning requires mercy, and mercy makes learning fertile soil for regeneration.

People say that in life, the closer you get to something the more you understand it. Whereas modernity has created a gap between that which helps people to mature well and with wisdom. It has dragged them into a quagmire of illusion. It has broken relations and called them by new individualistic names to make you forget the meaning and power of ahel (people in community). 

What’s happening now in the Gaza Strip is nothing more than the seeding of corruption to destroy the people, to kill them using all and any available means in front of the entire world, and to break them so that they never rise again, because rising will cost them more hate and murder. 

After we moved from the home to the tent, after we were displaced under threat of arms and bombardment from the north to the south, we spent a period at the hospital, and then a period in the camps, where we still are at present. During my time in the tent, I got to know the earth better. She introduced herself to me and gave me knowledge everytime my plans failed while doing something. When I was in Asdaa’ city, it was our first experience building a toilet well.  We didn’t dig the hole in the suitable manner for the sandy area. Its sands are called “Safia”, which needs other tools that help prevent the sand from falling in on itself, resulting in the loss of the hole and the toilet. This experience with the earth and working with it taught me that, and that it isn’t suitable soil for farming, but it is quite easy to dig holes in. Whereas, after we were displaced yet again to a new place, the soil changed, and the experience changed as well, teaching us new lessons that the earth provides. Clay earth is much more difficult to dig in, and is easier for plants to grow, meaning that the soil is full of tree roots, making it harder to dig, but the well doesn’t fall in on itself at all. It stays held together. However, the earth doesn’t drink the water easily nor quickly, so you need to make another well the longer you remain displaced there. 

Changing my place of sleep from a wooden bed raised off the ground to a mattress close to the ground made me get closer to the earth. It has also significantly lessened my fear of beings that crawl on the earth. Previously, I used to deal with insects, worms, roaches, and beetles through the medium of a shoe in order to hit them. Today I find them wading across my body, and there is no time to get rid of them except with my hand. My hands have become accustomed to its mud and its insects more than I could have imagined. I have lost the fear that was grown in me, that distance from the earth and modernization are progress. Whereas I have learned better that the nature of the earth is strength and wellbeing. She gifted me her knowledge each time she would present me with a new lesson. I always used to think about the people who lived in the Arabian Peninsula, and how they lived their lives with the earth and its hardships. But they were born only knowing the earth, whereas we are adapting and reacquainting ourselves better again after having become so distanced from her. Because the occupation has been pumping us full of myths about her, while he steals from her the most precious fruits. My reveries of the Arabian Peninsula eases the intensity of what I’m living, allowing me to learn from what I am in. And that we can transfer knowledge without the need for curriculums that kill the spirit of learning within us. We are now entering closer to a year without schooling, and what has happened to us without it? Nothing. We have not died, but our minds have returned to us. The main meaning that I have been able to make throughout this time is, “The closer you get to the earth, the more value of what you possess; the further you get from her, you lose it.”

The battle of consciousness expands as the human experience grows. Whenever one has more of an inclination towards seclusion, socializing only when necessary, one must remember that this does not imply living in complete isolation from the community; we must strive for the cohesiveness of the people, and by extension the society. 

Displacement for the fifth time, at least, was different. For nine months, my family and I have been taking refuge in Gaza European Hospital, using whatever we could from the hospital supplies to make our lives more manageable after our home was bombed over our heads and my father was severely injured. We all eluded death at the time, yet it still haunts us. 

Five days ago and after a hard day's work, I took an afternoon nap, and when I woke up I found everyone at the hospital talking about an evacuation. The IOF is calling many people informing them to evacuate the hospital immediately and head towards the safe humanitarian zones. Everyone started packing whatever they could from their belongings and headed to Mawasi Khan Younis. Many of them went to different  places, like Deir El- Balah and Nuseirat, despite the danger in these places, people are left with no choices; the entire Gaza strip has turned into confined and cramped spaces, and you cannot easily find a place to seek shelter. 

Fearful of the IOF storming the hospital at any moment without giving people time to evacuate, like they did in Rafah, my family and I had decided to stay at a friend’s in Nuseirat and then look for a place to pitch our tent the following day. 

We tried starting my brother’s car for many hours, as it was damaged when our house was bombed. By the time we were able to start the car, night had come and with it fear of its darkness. People were haphazardly moving around the hospital. Our attempts to get a hired car were in vain, all the cars were already taken earlier by people. There was a line of cars on the street leading to the entrance of the hospital, which also happens to be a lively market for the displaced and patients. The sellers’ situation also took a turn, as they started selling fruits at a very low price compared to an hour earlier.. 

The street width was average sized, and it was overly crowded with lines of cars and displaced people desperately searching for ways to survive. Sellers were crying out the low prices of their goods and a big selling frenzy was underway, since this was a rare opportunity. All of this added to the congestion. More so, the taxi drivers are demanding very high prices, but the people have no choice but to comply, after all, their survival is everything to them. 

It was 9pm when we finally packed some of our belongings in our dilapidated car. I decided to take my family to my friend Muhammad’s house in Nuseirat, until we could find a place the next day. The car moved through a very crowded road; cars were everywhere. Whoever failed to find a vehicle rode on a donkey cart, and whoever didn’t find anything went on foot, with their packs on their backs, driven only by their fear. By midnight, all the cars stopped moving because of the gas vans entering through Karam Abu Salim crossing. It felt as if the occupation was clamping down on us, even as we were running for our lives. 

The car moved slowly as the congestion started to lessen. People were fleeing into Muwasi as we went on our way to Nuseirat. No lights illuminated the path, our car was the only one in a road of darkness, and the sounds of drones louder above us. We managed to arrive at my friend’s house.  We unpacked our belongings and moved them to the rooftop. We stayed in a room made of asbestos, near Netzarim Checkpoint. The sounds of the aircrafts were very loud, and the bombardament flared up. There was a grave situation happening near the checkpoint and the artillery was going on for many hours. My mom and siblings were consumed by their fear and no one could go to sleep until early morning. 

The next morning we started planning where to go. Muwasi is too crowded, there isn’t a vacant place there, nonetheless we tried hoping we could find one. The next day someone called and said he could provide a tent in Sumod camp in Muwasi Khan Younis, if not today, then at least in a couple of days. So we went to the refugee camp carrying all our belongings. Despite my father’s compromised health being overexposed to the sun and in need of three eye surgeries, the camp still would not provide us with a tent. So we stayed at our relatives’ tent in the same camp. My father and brother went to Asdaa city to stay with our aunt in her tent. We remained there a couple of days in hopes to find a tent, or in the very least a vacant spot to pitch our tent. Even though there were available tents, yet the hospital’s camp administration did not supply us with any tents and claimed that neither tents nor spaces were available. 

We stayed at Om Muhammad’s tent for two days. Fifteen people were staying in a 4 meter square tent covered with leather and in front of the tent, 2 meter square yard. The tent’s color inside-out is white like a coffin, as though it’s shrouding a mass grave. Women sleep in the tent while the men sleep in the outside yard. During daytime, the tent feels hot as hell due to the heat of the sun. We’re fully covered in sweat. In order to avoid any heatstroke, we wait until the sun’s heat starts to lessen so we can perform any task outside of the tent. 

After two days we lost all hopes to secure a tent in the camp. What distinguishes this camp from all the other places is water availability and other necessities of life, like toilets and sewage drainage near the camp, thanks to the volunteers who helped build them. Elsewhere you’ll have difficulty accessing water and hauling it back where you are staying, or you’ll go through the hassle of buying water if there isn’t any free water nearby.

After two days, my father called and informed us that he found a place in Asdaa. My brother was with him, so he went to the market and bought a tent. Then, he and my relatives started pitching it. On the third night, a car came to load up our belongings once more to go to Asdaa. On the morning of the fourth day, I started to build a space in front of our tent so we could store our belongings, covering it from above then building a squat toilet inside, and we were finished by nighttime. 

Then we were back to the same suffering and hardship, in the morning the tent is burning hot and at night it’s freezing cold. The tent is 5x5 meters and the front yard is 3X3 meters. The hexagonal-shaped tent’s color is blue from the outside and white from the inside. I look at the sky through the roof of the tent and I ponder to myself when will all this end so we could return to our home?

I woke up today and, as usual, headed from my sleeping spot at the school to the bathroom in the European Hospital where my injured father stays. It took me about five minutes, and as I passed through the hospital market street, I remembered a vendor who plays music there daily, so I went to talk to him.

"Salam, are you the one who plays music daily in the hospital courtyard?" He looked at me with a fearful expression and said, "If the music bothers you, this will be the last time." I laughed and told him, "Not at all, I was just curious and will come back to talk to you at night because the temperature is scorching now, but I want to know one thing: what makes you the only one who plays music loudly in the market?" He chuckled and said, "To make people happy!" And I left. I understood the reason for the young man's confusion because my stern demeanor as I walked down the street never left me. Why do I laugh when there's nothing amusing me? The young man thought I was a security officer with strong features who wanted to stop the music out of respect for the martyrs and their families, considering their feelings of loss.

My conversation with this vendor was prompted by thoughts of my friends. I remembered my friends from Al-Nusairat. I used to sit with my friend, the writer, and oud player Mohammed Ghanem on the rooftop singing together. We had a group of friends whom we met at Mohammed's house weekly. Most of them had beautiful voices, and the rest wrote poetry and played musical instruments. These times were like a respite from life's struggles. There was a famous saying by Mohammed that I remember vividly: "We must lower the world's voice and let the music rise."

I miss those sessions and evenings we organized with the writing team affiliated with the institution where I worked as a creative writing trainer. The team organized a musical event every three months or so. Each person in the team prepared their poetry, and Mohammed and another friend of ours coordinated the music with the texts. It took us about a week to prepare, from editing texts and choosing suitable music to preparing oneself to perform for the audience. These times were tough but enjoyable and quick because they were beautiful. And they also ended with great admiration from the team's audience. Our lives were filled with music, beauty, and poetry. Now, everyone in Gaza hears the sound of rockets raining down on them.

At night, I went to the vendor as agreed, but I didn't find him; instead, I found his brother. I introduced myself and asked him the same question, but his answer was completely different. He said he plays music because he feels bored at work and wants time to pass quickly. I asked him about his name, and he said, "Khaled!"

Khaled opens his shop from nine in the morning until one in the midnight. I asked him if there were martyrs in his family, and he said yes! Then he became strangely silent. I don't know why Khaled and his brother are afraid of their music's sound, and why music is even a suspicion that someone would stop you for. Perhaps the state of aggression has created in us some fear towards what we love to do and what used to be normal!

The text was published in German in Taz newspaper

At seven o'clock in the morning, I lie on my back, caught between sleep and wakefulness, enduring a day after which I cannot sleep at night. The noises disturb me: the constant sound of airplanes, the sound of people shouting at each other because they have nothing else to do—they shout, and when you ask them why, they say a mosquito bite has made their nerves boil, and they can't stand to hear anyone else's voice. At three in the morning, a man in the tents was shouting at another man and his young son because their voices hadn't quieted from morning to night, and they couldn't sleep. He told them if you and your son don't quiet down, I'll come up and hit you. The child couldn't sleep because of the mosquito bites.

Next to me, in the same school room where I sleep, separated from my uncle's wife by a curtain, she and her daughter sleep. All night, she wakes up saying, "Go away, go away," referring to the mosquito. When sleep finally takes her, she is startled awake by the sound of bombing and cannot sleep. Nor can I sleep until I clearly see daylight.

Each time I go to handle my father's medical needs, passing through the hospital staircase that leads to the surgery room, I see displaced families sleeping there, having found no other place neither in the tents nor inside the hospital. All hospital staircases are like this. I always see a man with his wife and children and ask myself, how can they endure the sound of footsteps day and night? How do they sleep? When do they sleep? Overwhelmed by curiosity, and because his silence puzzled me more than the failed negotiations for the past six months, I approached him with soft steps to talk. I found his wife sitting there, I apologized for intruding but explained I am a writer and wanted to talk to her husband. She told me he was here just five minutes ago. I told her I would return to him but also wanted to speak with her. I asked her about her life and sleep here on the staircase, why particularly the staircase? She said we found no other place but the staircase; the hospital was full of displaced people. When I sleep, I must cover my face so I do not see the feet of those passing by me. We had a two-room and one-bathroom house made of asbestos, I used to see it as small and insufficient, but now I want to return to it instead of the staircase, but I can't go back to the border town of Abasan because the occupation destroyed everything there. I left Naveen with her daughter and told her I would return for her husband.

Her husband, Mohammed Abu Ouda, a Palestinian Algerian, with an Algerian mother and a Palestinian father, I returned to him after ten o'clock at night. I introduced myself and he mentioned his wife had told him about me. We walked a bit, and he told me about his respiratory illness, which requires that he avoid dust and stay in a place without moisture like where he sleeps. I asked him if there was a chance for him to move to another place, would he take it? He said he couldn't because he suffers from bouts of suffocation and the staircase is close to the hospital's emergency room; it takes only one minute to reach them and get treatment, but if he went to another place, he couldn't do that with the disruption of his medication. Mohammed is trying to travel with his wife but has not been able to so far. He fears walking long distances in case he has an attack and no one is able to help him due to the shortage of hospitals and medicine. He tries to walk in the hospital corridors, maybe to hear news of the cessation of the aggression on the Gaza Strip, and walk to his house even if it costs him suffocation.

The text was published in German in Taz newspaper

I thought the nightmare of displacement had ended after staying 7 months away from our home. Everything changed for us—water, food, sleep, even our customs and traditions. Our emotions also became heavier and more profound.

I am stuck here.

My chest pulls me towards staying.

My soul resists imprisonment.

All the city's lights must hide themselves, mourning what was lost.

Today, we might return to our home.

Tomorrow could be stormy.

Whoever protects themselves from their own injustices is first.

Whoever defends against others' injustices becomes a hero.

Not as we know,

But as we did not know.

I am stuck, on the wall of my room, in my broken wooden bed, in my clothes that hold my scent in the closet, in all my friends who left the country.

Stuck in the jasmine of the house and the sound of our neighbor, which we barely hear.

But I hate all this because my chest hurts.

It was a few days waiting for me and my father to leave through the Rafah land crossing to continue his treatment, just five days, after my family thought they had escaped from the north by moving south. But the beast of Israeli occupation chases us wherever we go and took over Rafah crossing. Everyone woke up yesterday to the news of Rafah's invasion, thinking there would be preparations before the actual military offensive. But people's fear was greater, and families began to prepare their belongings to flee for the second or third time to unknown places.

My family and I feel lost because we do not know where to go. We are 300 meters away from the Rafah entry area because the European Hospital is very close to the Rafah governorate. We thought we were safe here after our house was bombed over our heads on 10/27/2023. I remember that day well; dust was coming out of my mouth, and I thought my life was over, or maybe I was underground and everything had ended. It was one of the hardest days that passed over my heart. My sister and I stood next to each other with rubble above us, waiting for an exit to appear from the debris. After minutes where we saw nothing, my brother called from the lower floor that the way was clear. We went down then began looking for the rest of the family. We found everyone except for our father. We began to search for him and dig under the rubble until we found him. The ambulance refused to wait until we extracted him from the debris, but we insisted on it at our own responsibility because the occupation hits the house twice, and this was the first strike. I took my father and the injured from my family, and I was also injured in my head and shoulder, and we went to Al Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza. The next day, we were transferred to the Gaza European Hospital to receive treatment because Al Shifa Hospital was unable to open its operating rooms due to the human pressure of the wounded and the dead. When my father was transferred to the European Hospital the evening after the bombing, I was at my grandfather's house. I went to sleep because my body was no longer able to do anything due to the injury. I heard the news of my father's transfer and rushed to prepare my things and followed him. The European Hospital was very quiet, and we barely heard the sound of an explosion or bombing. Today, the tanks are 300 meters away. I imagined we had escaped here, but the scenario of death chases us.

I ask myself what sin I committed for all this death to chase us so gruesomely. My friends in Rafah also do not know where to go; many of them are on the streets without shelter. Everyone here has their dreams crushed like bones under the impact of rockets. My father's dream of escaping and completing his treatment is starting to fade. I heard him say behind the curtain of the room just a while ago, "I had five days, maybe three, to regain sight in my right eye." The occupation robbed him of his sight, and now it robs his right to treatment.

The room next to my father's room has a patient who was supposed to travel yesterday but returned to the hospital due to the bombing near the crossing and was supposed to leave today as well, but the occupation left no humanitarian corridor for the sick. Our neighbor suffers from a fracture in the second vertebra of the spinal column and might suffer quadriplegia if he does not undergo surgery.

The control over the Rafah crossing means another death for us, my family, my friends, 2.5 million citizens in Gaza have all exits closed on them, and there are those who strike them with a loud voice that reaches the ends of the earth, and no one can do anything for them.

The health sector will collapse more than before, food will be very scarce, we here anticipate with frightened eyes and wait for an unknown death. Do we stay where we are or flee again?

Every decision comes with a cost that no one else pays but you, but the only clear thing is that we have been undergoing genocide for 7 months and we are now facing famine in the south.

This text was published in German in Taz newspaper.

A phone call that didn’t take more than five minutes, upon receiving a message that the subscriber I’m attempting to contact is currently available. 

My aunt Nadia, who continues to be in the north of Gaza Strip, who I have been trying to call for three days unsuccessfully. I received the text and called her immediately. 

“Hello? It’s Esam.”

“Why haven’t you come by to visit me, boy?” She said to me in a voice full of joy that filled me with a strange sense of comfort. I laughed and told her, “I’m coming now.” My aunt Nadia is a soft woman, her features resemble butterflies, as beautiful as gardens. Whoever goes near her blossoms. It is usual for me to go visit her every Eid in her house, but this Eid has put distance between us. She is in the north and I am in the south, and the occupation separates us with a barrier in the center, and planes overhead, and hundreds of soldiers around us. 

My visits to her were among the dearest to my heart. I would sit before an intellectual mother, raising her children intelligently, beautiful, and so calm. She cared about everything that I was working on and would always ask after my latest writing. 

I would always cry after such a phone call, but her voice today is stronger than before. Perhaps that has to do with her returning to her home in Al Shuja'iyya after months of displacement in multiple locations. Her powerful voice made me feel powerful. Because of her I am writing now. 

It would burn my heart to see people normalizing to the sight of death here in the south of Gaza and decorating to give a sense of Eid, as if nothing is happening to us. I don’t know how people feel when they put on new clothes, and walk through the streets, while at the same time our blood leaks on the floor and yet nobody moves a muscle. 

Eid is swathed in black, and there are those who want to paint it in colors to return to normal, but how do you return with a dagger thrust through your side? How do you go home when there isn’t a trace of home on the first day of Eid. 

On the first day of Eid, I went with a friend of mine from Rafah to Khan Younis then to Nuseirat and to Deir Al-Balah. We went from Salah Al Deen street, after occupation forces withdrew from there several days earlier. I sat in the backseat of the car and turned on the phone camera, and began filming from the beginning of Rafah until we reached Nuseirat. Everything along our way was destroyed, and it’s impossible to recognize it unless you stare. The fire is still burning in some homes. The ambulances carry the injured and the martyred, and people are trying to gather what is left of their houses. 

Whoever can look beyond all this death and try to enjoy Eid has certainly lost their sense of others. As for the world outside, celebrate to your heart's desire, because I don’t see a better description for it than the words of Tamim al-Barghouti in his poem, In Jerusalem, “Death is among us and fear is in you.”

Ramadan Kareem from around a table of blood and human flesh, from the displacement of families and their murder in front of the world, and from the Muslims and all religions that believe that a human is human regardless of nationality. 

I wish that the sound of cannons that we hear alongside the evening call to prayer was the sound of the cannon announcing iftar, instead of occupation cannons intended to bombard Gaza during the time of breaking fast. Today, trading blood for the now restricted drinks that we used to drink every Ramadan. The occupation regards the people’s needs to this degree; juices of blood, only available in Gaza. 

This is a call to the Arab nations, Gaza is capable of exporting a one of a kind juice. But it tastes bitter, like the bitterness of the days we are living. A juice to remind them of what it means to be Arab.  

The days resemble each other, and time doesn’t pass for us. Because we left our people in the north as tinderwood for the war, while we here in the south are the fuel ignited by them, together burning. 

Ramadan Kareem, because God blessed us with it, and not the followers of injustice. But dear God, they have exchanged our meal for body parts and blood. And despite that, we couldn’t feed our friends who are going hungry for five months.

If I were to say that I miss the calm of the house after iftar, while nobody from my family was killed in the bombing, I would be betraying the families of those killed by the cannons. If I were to miss my room and my friends, I would be betraying those who don’t have any friends left. But I miss being human, and in this, I betray myself. And this and I are set free.

People here have disconnected from reality completely, as though their feelings exist in a graveyard of oblivion. Death is everywhere. Some people decorate the tents and houses with lights, spread communal tables, and sing religious songs. The markets were prepared before Ramadan, like every year, and the spirit is close, but the destruction is alien to the calm that lives inside of us every Ramadan: the worship and taraweeh prayers at the ancient Al-Omari Mosque in central Gaza, which was destroyed by the occupation. 

The death, the blood, the body parts, the screams, the destruction, the burned bodies, the wailing, the sound of mothers bleeding with children martyred. Has all this made us lose our sense of horror at what is happening, and are we now covering our wounds with false bandages? Have we lost ourselves or our humanity?!!     

Esam - Day 148 of the Massacre

Gaza’s Curse on the World

What is happening now in Gaza, the genocide of civilians, the deprivation, and the siege from the world, is nothing but a test for everyone on earth. When this nightmare ends, events in the world will begin to accelerate, nations will fall, and Gaza will be the safest place in the world, because it spoke truth in the face of injustice, while many remained incredibly silent.  

People in displacement areas nearby the Egyptian border are beginning to lose ways of communicating with each other. The journey from Khan Younis to the Egyptian border to visit Nour––Dalia’s friend, who was displaced near the sea next to the Egyptian border and now in a tent for fear of bombing––was long and very tiring. Reaching the border in this kind of crowdedness takes from one to two hours, between walking and trying to get transportation. After the trouble to reach the border for Dalia to see her friend Nour, we had to search for Nour’s tent among 15,000 tents. Every time we would ask a passerby about the Muhanna family tent, they would respond with “By God, I don’t know.” Then they would repeat the word “Muhanna”, and say that the easiest way was to call their name from the mosque, using the loudspeaker, and then the family will come to you. This was the way to communicate with people when you want to visit someone there. People there don’t speak to each other. Each person keeps to themselves to the point that they have lost words. When a person comes from the outside, they speak to them eagerly, repeating the same words, because of the desire to open conversation and speak, simply because they miss talking. 

Several days before us, Ghadeer had gone to visit Nour. She had told Dalia that Nour’s tent was behind a wall, near a single palm. But we discovered upon arriving there that the place was full of palms. There was no “single” palm.  Afterwards, Dalia informed me that this was Ghadeer, never able to describe a single place correctly. Ghadeer is a map without a way to arrive. 

We couldn’t find Nour the first time around, but we were able to find the sea, which we had been deprived of for four months due to the aggression. We felt like the siege inside of us had been lifted for a few hours. The second time around we were able to reach Nour, and we had Dalia’s sister, Mariam, along with us. We sat around together talking about the calm that the sea brings to the place, although it is a place far from life. During the day, the sun burns everyone on the ground, and during the night, the cold eats at sleeping bodies. The bathroom is basically a small tent in between the tents. Each group of tents has a bathroom nearby. Supplies are far from the people, and they must walk to secure their needs if they have money. Those that do not have access to money live on aid that is not enough to live off. 

What I want to tell the world is that everyone is participating in the starvation and genocide that is happening. Whoever does not speak truth to justice now will lose themselves later. And there will be no turning back this time to rebuild trust anew. Because the world will run and take everyone who was unjust in their hearts. 

Esam - Day 125 of the Massacre

Life is full of many blessings that humans lean towards. This abundance of blessings holds wisdom for people in choosing what they seek instinctively. What you accept may not suit me and the opposite is true, in all cases and searches. You may try to enforce a form of life on a person, but inevitably they will return to their primary form and original shape. However, when that person decides for themselves to change their core structure, the path is difficult, but not impossible.

The market before the aggression was completely different from during the aggression. Words have changed. Even the sellers include more women now than before, and they sell more of their goods. When the occupation army entered the market in Khan Younis and it became difficult for us to reach it, a part of the market relocated to the periphery of the European Hospital, but the Khan Younis market remains bigger and with more goods. The market in the vicinity of the hospital extends along the street that we cross to the Emergency entrance, and it is the same street that ambulances use. This is where the problem erupts, between people’s need to purchase essential goods and patients’ need to enter the hospital. However, every time an ambulance arrives, the market stops its activity for the matter of minutes needed for the ambulance to pass.    

The price of goods is definitely different than before, becoming more expensive multiple times over. Whereas to begin with, these goods mostly consist of the aid that has entered Gaza, and some of the remaining stock from warehouses.      

There is another entrance that is considered a parking garage for cars, which is roughly 10 meters long or more. Crowding is normal in markets, and due to displacement, the markets are even more crowded, because people spread into any available space. 

There are many young girls in the market who have become sellers, children and women as well. Every person in the market tries to be unique in what they sell. Some of them make food in tents then go to the market to sell, while some of them buy aid supplies to resell. 

There are many phrases that are repeated in the market that we hear while passing throughout the day. The most famous, “your back your back”, which means that the person behind you wants to pass, or a car, or a cart and donkey, for fear that they will crash into your back. Many people scrape their shoes on the ground while walking, making a dragging sound.  

There are many special offers on items made by sellers in order to move their goods, and these offers are available for fifteen minutes to half an hour, whereas offers used to last for days. 

Rafah market is also like this, but larger in size. If a car wants to cross to the end of the road, it must cross in the middle of people. Everyone tries to live their life differently, attempting to adapt, and people continue spinning circles around themselves.

Esam - Day 115 of the Massacre

How Does a Child Fall? 

During our childhood, we’d fall down on the floor running after our toys. We’ve learnt nothing from our falls other than that running after what we want will remain merely running, even if we shed tears. We run despite our mothers’ precautions and fear that something bad might happen to us. Childhood knows no bounds or limits; all that is on earth belongs to children. 

This aggression has made a child’s role quite different from any other child in the world, who lives a calm life. Those children go to school in the morning and fall asleep cuddled between their parents at night. Whereas the former goes to their favorite places, only to find them gone, bombed, simply because the occupation has decided to annihilate everything.

It’s 12 midnight, and after a period of water outage in the hospital, everyone cried out when the water came back. One of the children jerked awake and ran to get water. On his way there, he stopped running, fell down, his head hit something sharp, and his blood was spilled on the floor. After an hour, the child found himself lying in a hospital bed with a head-wound. He did not know how he grew up or how he was injured. He could have been snuggling with his mom had the aggressors decided to not disrupt the balance of childhood; yesterday, you could have fallen pursuing your toys, today, you fell pursuing water.

Leen is a girl who just turned six a few days ago. In spite of our presence in the hospital, her parents wanted to make her happy by throwing a small birthday party. She is a displaced child celebrating her birthday within a hospital’s wall, all because the occupation had destroyed her home, stolen her land, and killed her people. Leen is an incredibly imaginative child; she can come up with inimaginable stories. Leen says that Gaza, North of the Strip, is prettier than the South. For her, Gaza is wide and boundless, but the South is tight and narrow, since her tent is narrow and small. In the North, she used to play with her cousins where she had a massive yard, but now, she no longer sees her cousins and only a quite narrow passage surrounds her tent. 

Leen loves noodles, Awwameh and Asabe Zainab - Levantine desserts. She declares her love for raisins by saying that they are so sweet like honey. Leen expresses her anger and upset for not having raisins in the vicinity of the hospital. Leen is only six years old. Yet, she is wiser than her age. She says that her home is bigger than the entire universe, but the South imprisons her, it is as confined and limited as her tent.

Essam - Day 112 of the Massacre

When war deprives you from all the warmth that makes you feel human, comes Nassar holding love within his hands, telling you that your heart, is in fact, still beating, and that cupid’s bow would never miss you, if he ever intended to strike you.

My friend Dalia once told me about Nassar, his expat wife, and the poem that he wrote for her. After fleeing from Al-Karama area, north of the strip, to Az-Zawayda, in Southern Gaza, Nassar, his wife, and a group of family and friends were gathered in a wedding hall, when they were bombed by the occupation air forces. Nassar’s wife's face was so badly injured that it became disfigured. She has completely lost one eye and the vision in the other, due to shrapnel fragments in her eye; she couldn’t even open her own eye unless a nurse force-opens it, so he could treat it. Nonetheless, these injuries were not a hindrance to Nassar’s withstanding love.

Nassar is an Arabic teacher who writes poetry and who loves his wife. He never shies away from openly showcasing his love. Every time he feeds her with his own hands is his own act of resistance against the occupation; as if he is stating that maybe they’ve changed her physical features, yet her beauty remains unchanged, maybe they’ve taken a part of her, but I still own all of her heart. He unabashedly displays his love for her as he constantly runs after the doctors awaiting any updates concerning her state. His heart shamelessly states for all that it can’t stand the sight of a single tear being shed from her eyes.

One time, Dalia walked in on Nassar while he was writing on a piece of paper. When she asked about it, he replied by saying that he is composing a poem for his wife. After being done with his poem, Nassar kept on reciting it, throughout the day, to whoever visits their room in the hospital. That day, his wife’s eyes bloomed like a flower, and she kept on wringing her fingers shyly when she heard the poem.

Dalia insisted that I must hear the poem so we went to Nassar. Nassar then led us to the hospital’s main hall, took out his cell phone, then he started reciting the poem. Every word he uttered resonated with me. In his intense, warm, and affectionate voice, Nassar announced to all that even if his wife is an expat, he is her home and her everything:

The language of eyes are both curricula and schools

and I am the captive of their charm, and the guard

I’ve always been her beauty’s warrior 

but today, this warrior was stabbed in the heart

Your eyes were extinguished, my wife, my love,

My heart was lit up by their harmonious warmth

My love for them has deepened, like a cloud

With their warmth cajoling

a blood chilling cold, melting me

Damn this cold, for it pierces.

Your Kohl is alive in my imagination 

As your eyelashes excite me and practice 

feminine wiles in youth ripening 

Confusion and worries arise within me

Repelled by my unwavering faith because

This warrior has found such favor in your femininity!

For I still worship her eyes yet,

I have no inclination for desires and straying thoughts.

Your eyes are a minaret that extend its beauty

A ceremony for which churches will ring.

Your eyes are like a garden with its havens,

Or like an orchard in the sky and paradises.

Your eyes are an enigma in the sky departing,

They are the space and the twirling brides within it.