“What did we sow to reap this devastation?”

For days now I’ve been thinking about the ruin that has befallen us over the years, about Allah’s will in all that happens. Yet I believe in one thing my friend Mohammad used to repeat to me: “Allah of goodness brings nothing but goodness; evil comes from human beings.”

I am certain that this evil is of our own making, and that we also failed to do what was necessary to rid ourselves of the rot in our minds. We are hypocrites. We should feel compassion for ourselves and be ashamed of ourselves as well. We never leave a conversation without devouring one another in it; we speak about each other in ways we hate, deepening the wound even more. We steal from one another with a fleeting smile that does not represent humanity in the slightest.

I know that some things never return, just as a part of us goes away and never comes back.

We still have time to do something.The time we possess is the greatest thing in our hands, and we must not allow it to slip away as we always do with everything else.

For our friends who died while trying to grasp life; for Bilal, Sami, Dhirgham, Musa, and many neighbors and relatives; for our homes we will never return to, and the memories buried there.

When I left Gaza, it felt as though my soul was leaving my body. I felt something struggling inside me, then bursting out as tears. That day I said goodbye to those of my family who remained there, then went to my friend Mohammad’s house so we could head to the bus that would take us to the Krm Abu Salam crossing.

On the bus, I said goodbye to Mohammad, his brother Ahmad, and their cousin “the family’s businessman,” as they call him. Mohammad and I played our roles perfectly, because we don’t like farewells, as if we would meet again in two days on the rooftop, smoking shisha, talking about history and the homeland, about our postponed dreams. He would tell me about his feelings toward his daughter, Elin, and every time he described one feeling, he gave me a new reason never to have a child in my life.

But what Mohammad doesn’t know is that every time we passed by Bilal’s company on the Nuseirat market street, I would see how he looked at the company door, as if waiting for Bilal to come out yet he never would. Because Bilal’s turn had come, as he told you before ascending to the sky. I miss him too, and still do. I miss the cold juice he used to offer us, and I remember the béchamel pasta he made especially for me after I was displaced from my home from north to south. I know your longing for him is greater than mine, because you have known him since birth and witnessed every detail of his life more than I did. But for all of this,for all those who still live in our chests, and for the memories that were burned,we must do something that leads us to the truth.