Trapped Between Hope and Displacement: Facing the Shadow of Death

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.