Saturday 2/3/2024
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.
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.
