Author: admin

2 March 2025

People Speak (part 2)

My son and his father’s arm

I remember when the tank ran over my husband and my children, and my little son Ibrahim was sleeping among them. He woke up covered in blood, and since then, I’ve known that the blood was his family’s blood, but he refused to talk about what he saw and acted as if he’s forgotten. A few days ago, for the first time, he spoke up and told the doctor that the blood was from his father’s severed hand, which was on top of him, trying to protect him. His hand was cut off and remained on top of Ibrahim, while my husband was thrown off to the side. 

What should I do? How can my son forget all the tragedy he’s witnessed?

The Path of Suffering 

Sunday, February 9, 2025, Morning. I listened to the news broadcasts confirming the withdrawal of the occupation army from the Netzarim checkpoint after completely dismantling its fortifications. I was convinced that moving from the south to the north had now become an easy task, but it slipped my mind that our ship is always met with headwinds!

I prayed Dhuhr, the noon time prayer, and left my home in Al-Bureij refugee camp to visit my family in the north. Had I known I was among those about to embark on a long journey, I would have prayed Asr, the afternoon prayer, in advance!

I reached the entrance of the camp and met three travellers who, like me, were heading north. We agreed with a taxi driver to take us to Al-Saraya roundabout in Gaza City, from where we would continue to Beit Lahia in the north.

At 1:00 PM, the car drove northward towards the Netzarim checkpoint via Salah Al-Din Street. We were still under the impression that we would continue without obstacles and reach Al-Saraya in less than fifteen minutes…. As soon as we had travelled about two hundred meters, the hope for an easy journey vanished. Hundreds of vehicles carrying displaced people and their belongings were lined up along the street, awaiting their turn to pass through the checkpoint.  

We began to wonder:  What is the reason for this massive line of vehicles in front of the checkpoint?  Didn’t the media report that the occupation had dismantled its fortifications and withdrawn from the checkpoint?  Aren’t we supposed to be moving without obstacle now?  

Many questions arose, leaving us astonished. We had heard about the truce agreement, but we were unaware of many of its details, to the point where we felt like deaf attendees at a wedding procession.  

We became convinced that night would fall before we could cross the checkpoint, and perhaps we would end up sleeping on the road, given the enormous number of vehicles lined up in front of us on Salah Al-Din Road. The driver suggested taking a detour to avoid the long wait in the open air, under the unpredictable cold of February.  He was willing to make the effort, and everyone agreed.  

The driver turned left towards the west. We passed by the electricity company, the outskirts of the new camp, and the bridge, then continued on the road leading to the village of Al-Mughraqa. Scenes of destruction covered the land as far as the eye could see. You would need a guide just to recognise the landmarks of an area you once knew by heart….

The military machinery had bulldozed the road in a frenzy of destruction, leaving behind massive potholes that made the car move sluggishly, rising and falling, occasionally slamming into the ground, throwing us off our seats, then jolting us back into place.

One of the passengers exclaimed, “We need a tank to get through.”  Another added, “Our story is so tragic.”  

The road was desolate, with no other means of transportation in sight. Our driver was inexperienced, and neither he nor we could make sense of anything amidst this devastation.  

We traveled about three kilometres, and the driver asked in astonishment, “Does this road have no end?” Another passenger remarked, “Much has been lost, and little remains.” None of us knew how much of the road remained to reach the meeting point at the cursed Netzarim checkpoint!

Anger

There is no language in the world—no matter how vast its vocabulary or how eloquent—that can describe Gaza. Not even all the storytellers, painters, or photographers of the earth can convey to those who do not live in Gaza the true image of what Gaza has become after the inglorious catastrophe of October.  

Two days ago, I returned from the outskirts of Khan Younis to where my home once stood, to where our lives once were—lives that had already been disrupted since the rule of Hamas over Gaza began eight years ago. But at least back then, it resembled something close to life. There were houses that Hamas did not build for us, but we built with the sweat of our brows. There were what resembled streets, and which at least bore names similar to those people talk about outside of Gaza. Most importantly, there was something we felt was ours, and we held onto hopes we never abandoned, even in the presence of the dream-crusher and the mistress of death, Hamas. At least we lived on the remnants of hope. But now, what remains?  

I wandered through the streets of Jabalia and its camp. Rubble covers all signs of life. No houses, no streets, and raw sewage flows through the small alleys that were once called streets, opened during the truce.

There are no places to set up tents, and those are lucky who still have a part of their house left, even if it’s just a fragment of a room amidst the debris. They sneak into it like a rat, covering themselves under the remnants of its roof. There is no water, of course, and no electricity. In short, in one word: no life. Life has completely died… and it seems that this is the image of the Palestinian that our Arab brothers love—even our fellow Palestinians outside of Gaza. Dead, or half-dead amongst the rubble. This is how the Palestinians of Gaza must be, so they can remain heroes. But seeking life? That is the ultimate betrayal. The Palestinian has no right to seek it, or more specifically, the afflicted Gazan Palestinian. Even from their Palestinian brothers who fled for their lives to Belgium or Britain, the creators of Israel, wrapped in its civilisation, enjoying the beauty of its comforts. Even they watch our deaths on TV screens while sipping a glass of wine, before retreating to their comfort, after the news broadcast. Even they do not accept us unless we are dead, or rats building nests under the rubble. And woe to any of us who dares to seek life!

Then what?

Hamas speaks of its victory, and its pitiful satellite channel, Al Jazeera, fabricates false propaganda, portraying the slaughtered as victorious and the arrogant—who terrified the entire nation, if there was even a nation to begin with—as defeated.  

Oh God, Lord of the Heavens, grant all those who dance on our blood a victory like ours, and grant us a defeat like Israel’s.  

Curse be upon the enemies of life.

 The war did not end 

The war on Gaza has not stopped; only the intensity of the heavy aerial bombardment has paused.  Displacement continues. Some have returned to tents or the rubble of their homes.  Families cannot return to their homes, even if they are intact.  The siege persists, and aid trucks enter at a trickle. No water except in drops.  No schools.  No electricity. Generators and solar panels are prohibited from entering.  No fuel except in drops.  No roads.  No treatment; the wounded and sick die in silence.  Crossings are closed.  The barrier separating the north from the south remains.  The spectre of forced displacement continues.  Everything comes in drops. The killing continues. Yesterday, 1st March, 4 martyrs. 7 newborn babies died from the cold, they froze to death. No construction materials for repairs. No factories or work. No life.  

Freed prisoner

The freed prisoner, Alaa Abu Zaid, was shocked after his release to find no one from his family there to welcome or embrace him. They told him that all the members of his family had been martyred and their names erased from the civil registry.

Barbershop 24

Inside a tent or between two tents, on the rubble of a bombed house or on the sidewalk, on a worn-out chair or a wooden crate. Children and men sit waiting for the barber’s hands. With tools less than what’s needed but more than what’s required. Scissors and a comb. Or battery-operated clippers. For a fee that’s almost nothing, but for those who have nothing, it’s a lot, the barber cuts the hair that has been piling up on people’s heads for many months. The barber searches for a simple livelihood, and the customers search for a small feeling that they are still alive, that they can still do something related to life, hoping to stay alive long enough to return to the barber once their hair grows back.

Home

As soon as I returned from the central Gaza Strip to the north, I realised that all the images I had received of our destroyed home did not convey the truth. The difference between the pictures and what your eyes see is vast. After asking many passersby how to reach our neighbourhood, I arrived at a pile of stones, and a feeling of humiliation and weakness overwhelmed me, as if someone had exposed our vulnerabilities. I couldn’t hold back two defiant tears that slipped from my eyes… the destruction of your home means the destruction of your social and psychological identity, the scattering of your family, the violation of your privacy, the crushing of your personal history, and the destruction of your small homeland.  

Our home was not just walls; it was a warm homeland, a place of privacy and memories. It was our shelter, our sanctuary, and our private space. I grew up in it, my voice grew firm within it, and it held the details of our daily lives, both harsh and beautiful, over the past decades. In it, we cried, laughed, and chuckled. It held hopes and pains, successes and failures. It witnessed my many disappointments and small victories, my innocent and not-so-innocent battles, where I struck and was struck.  

In it, I married Soha, and in it, she walked during her ninth month of pregnancy…

And in it, she kept her most precious possessions: the umbilical cord clamps that accompany the newborn at birth and the plastic bracelets bearing the baby’s name on their wrist so they wouldn’t get lost.  

In our home, our children’s teeth grew, and we spent long nights monitoring their temperatures while they slept. We would feel their necks, bellies, and feet. In it echoed the screams, cries, laughter, smiles, coughs, and sneezes of our children… In our home was the familiar scent of a newborn, the smell of milk they spat up after feeding. And in it were the aromas of maqluba, fish, za’atar, Gazan salad, and coffee.  

Our home was a school. In it, my mother told me about the history of the 1948 Nakba, about her life in the village of Al- Barriya and how she went from being honoured and respected to becoming a refugee. She told us about the farmers who resisted with a single-shot rifle, facing Israeli planes and tanks. And my father told us about his Egyptian supervisor, the martyr Mustafa Hafez.  

In our home, my children learned to read, write, and take care of themselves and their personal hygiene, and how to cook quick meals. In it, my daughter Anat corrected her brothers’ Quran recitations, despite their grumbling. In it,  my children copied their multiplication tables repeatedly, and I explained English tenses to them. In it, they competed to write the best essay about the “Mona Lisa” or “The Last Supper,” extracting information from the web. In it, they competed at chess, and at being the first to point to a specific country on the world map hanging on the wall next to a map of Palestine. In it, Karim began playing the oud, which now lies buried under the rubble.  

Our home was a stage where my son Muhammad imitated his teachers and schoolmates. In it, we organised small celebrations for my children’s birthdays. In it, Leila danced in a pink dress given to her by my friend Cecilia. In it, we listened to Umm Kulthum’s song “Ya leilet El-Eid” on the eve of every Eid. In it, the girls danced to oriental music during henna nights and graduation celebrations, and the boys clumsily learned Dabke to the sound of the yarghoul and Shafiq Kabha. 

In our home, my children trembled in fear at the sound of Israeli rocket explosions during previous wars on Gaza. And from it, my father’s funeral procession departed. 

In our home were our clothes, notebooks, my children’s school bags and toys, and the travel suitcases I loved to look at. In it were souvenir gifts from every country I visited, and my small library with its collection of old magazines, most notably Al-Arabi, Palestine Al-Thawra, Al-Karmel, and Al-Bayader Al-Siyasi, amongst others.  

In our home were pictures of my children—Karim, Anat, Muhammad, and Leila—on their birthdays, in their kindergartens and schools, and with their certificates of excellence. Every time I looked at a photo, I could hear their voices in it.  

In our home, I felt serenity at dawn when my mother prayed Fajr, the dawn prayer, and I heard the whistling sounds of her recitation echoing in the living room. We had saved money to install tiles years after building the house, stone by stone, until it recently became four floors. In it were tiles over 35 years old, still strong and shiny, and newer tiles that cracked and became scarred and pitted after just three years.  

In it, I fought with my brother Adel over socks without holes or new underwear. We slept together on its roof and got drenched by the rain together. In it, we slept on one bed and ate from the same plate. In it, we plotted secret plans to go to the sea. In it, we listened together to the voice of Palestine, “The Voice of the Palestine Liberation Organisation,” and “Monte Carlo Radio” during the December Intifada.  

Our home is not just walls….

Problem

Our problem is that we write, while the people in the tents have no internet or time to read. Right now, they are busy tightening the tent poles because of the fierce winds and heavy rain….

Sleep

Tonight, I slept with my family in a tent in Al-Mawasi, near the seashore. The tents around us flew away and collapsed, and we waited inside for the same thing to happen.  We looked at the tent ceiling swaying left and right. I was afraid the pole would fall on my mother and sister, so I stayed next to it, holding it tight. My father moved from one side to another, trying to seal the gaps to reduce the cold wind entering.  My other brother had to leave his family’s tent to help our neighbour secure their tent, but it was futile. My younger brother stood holding a piece of tarp surrounding our tent to block the wind, but it also tore apart.  We wished for rain to calm the wind, but then remembered the nylon sheets above our tent had flown away, and we would be drenched if it rained.

At that moment, I thought of my mother and father, their health deteriorating with age. I felt heartbroken and helpless, wishing the whole world would collapse with us if the tent fell, so I wouldn’t see them like this. In the morning, reporters asked us: “How are people coping in these conditions?”

Once again, I couldn’t tell them how those hours passed because no one would truly understand what we went through.

Survived 

And you think you’ve survived only to discover the truth is the complete opposite.  None of us returned as we were before. We’ve all changed and something inside us broke,

something that can’t be fixed or replaced.

Announcement: 

Water Desalination Points for domestic use only, in the Southern Al-Rimal Neighbourhood:

1. Jawal Company – Abu Mazen Roundabout  

2. Abu Al-Waleed Al-Shawa’s House – Tunisia Street, near Izbat Al-Hamamiya  

3. Arahim Family – Near Al-Mustafa Mosque  

4. Sakr and Burj Hadeel Families – Abu Dhabi Street  

Thank you for your cooperation.”

      

Free: 

I left prison only to find that my wife, my 3-year-old daughter, my brother’s wife, my brother, and my sister’s husband had all been killed. I longed to hug my wife. I had forgotten what my daughter looked like because of the intense torture. The house was bombed, collapsing on all of them.

Urgent Appeal 

To the Gaza Municipality, civil society organisations, and international and UN organisations:  

We urgently appeal for your immediate intervention to save the southern Al-Rimal neighbourhood, which has become a completely devastated area. There are no sources of energy, communications, or water. The streets are filled with rubble, and the neighbourhood is suffering from a catastrophic spread of pests and health hazards.  

The humanitarian situation in the area is worsening day by day, necessitating swift action from the relevant authorities to aid the displaced and provide the minimum essentials for life. We urge you to take on your humanitarian responsibilities and act immediately to improve living conditions in the neighbourhood.

Signed: The residents of the southern Al-Rimal neighbourhood  

Please actively share this post so that every free voice can be heard.

North Gaza

People in the streets are finding no means of survival—no water, nothing!  #North_Gaza

Appeal to the Concerned Authorities

 

I am the journalist, Hazem bin Saeed, a resident of the Al-Mahatta area east of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. I am directing this appeal to the authorities concerned and anyone who can intervene to assist us in these difficult circumstances we are enduring. 

 

Our area has been subjected to destruction and ruin due to the recent war, and we are still living in a tragic situation. No one has provided us with any form of assistance so far, at a time when we are in desperate need of support and relief. It is important to note that the eastern areas, considered a food basket, were bulldozed by the occupation forces during their incursion into the region.  

On October 19, 2023, I lost several members of my family when our home was targeted by warplanes, completely levelling it to the ground.  

The area is entirely devoid of the basic necessities for life—no water, no services. We urge the municipalities and relevant authorities to quickly restore life to the area.

  

We also issue an urgent call to provide drinking water, which our area completely lacks. We desperately need these immediate interventions to alleviate our suffering and restore hope to the citizens enduring the horrors of this crisis.  

We hope our appeal finds attentive ears and that the necessary measures are taken as soon as possible.

No comment

Tens of thousands who returned from the south to the north, as well as to Rafah in the south a few days ago, were forced to return once again to Al-Mawasi and the central area with their families after finding that life in northern Gaza and Rafah has become impossible.  

There are no basic necessities or requirements for life there, and people are asking, “Should I return to my tent in the south, or stay on the street?” Therefore, I urge everyone to come together and work to provide the essentials for life in these cities and areas.

People Speak

30 January 2025

• For two hours I have been inspecting Kamal Al-Adwan Hospital, the courtyard in which patients, doctors and their children were buried, and in which the wounded and those captured were lying naked in the darkness of the night, the Emergency Departments, the reception that is reduced to ashes, the Oxygen and Maintenance rooms, the Intensive Care Unit where the nurse, Hassan Al-Dabous, was killed while caring for his patients, the Children’s Department, the oxygen generation unit where people were burnt alive.In the vicinity of the hospital on the four sides, there is the path that Dr. Hossam Abu Safiya took like a Christ-like redeemer and there are the houses, none of which were spared from bombing and more bombing. How much the besieged people who had been steadfast for 80 days have suffered! What terror and fear did they experience!
• Is it possible that death will spare our city tomorrow. I mean, even normal death? Is it possible that our city can take a break from daily losses? Our city has no more space for sadness. Our city needs to be left alone in order to weep and cry.
• The question that keeps being asked of the people returning to their homes in Gaza: how do you feel? I don’t know who can link the value of an event with the feelings people have about it, but if there can be an answer, the answer would be: I am the one who prepared his suitcase without knowing where to go. It is the feeling of the first time you enter your home when your mother is not there anymore.  The feeling of the one who has no home. The feeling of being left by all those who cherished you for your resilience, left alone at your front door, the door of Gaza. In some minutes I will meet Karam’s mother, who doesn’t know where her son, Karam, is in Gaza.
• People died unwilling to leave their homes; they died having been displaced from their homes; they died waiting to return to their homes; they died returning to their homes, and they died when they saw the rubble of their homes.
• I have been obsessed since this morning with the scene of the mother who grabbed her son’s bones and his skull and held them to her chest while screaming: ‘Oh God, my love, my son is my only one. I came to you, and no-one looked for you except me, and oh God, I am not afraid of you.’
• Whoever thought that the war on Gaza had stopped was mistaken. In fact, it is starting now, but it is a different kind of war, more deadly than the war of bombs and missiles!! People in Gaza have now returned to an erased city, empty neighbourhoods, and destroyed homes. There are no mosques, no schools, no universities, no hospitals, no roads. Not even bakeries nor markets, and even water and electricity, which are the simplest necessities of life, do not exist!
• People go to see the rubble of their homes and return to the tents again. The scale of destruction is unimaginable.
• There are people in Gaza who died of cardiac attack after their children took out skeletons from under the rubble. Some of them died in shock after seeing their destroyed homes completely wiped out, not even any rubble left.
• All I see in this whole scene is a child who suffocated to death under the rubble and a woman who lost her mind after all her children died of hunger.
• I see in the picture nothing but this rubble spreading as far as the eye can see and the skeletons by the thousands forming a new layer on the earth that geologists have not yet classified!
• A homeland whose limbs were gnawed away, a lost generation, souls that lost their compass, and large areas of their minds and their humanity.
• Because I am pessimistic, bad, lacking patriotism and politeness, defeatist, and do not have the vision to see the aim behind everything that has happened.  I do not see what you see, gentlemen. Lend me your eyes, please!  I don’t see my house. I don’t see the life that was inside us all. Was I killed in an air raid without knowing it? And do I now see you from eternity surrounded by all the nakedness of the earthly reality around you? Am I blind?  Or am I the only one who sees? Or am I the last of the crazy people in a village where everyone has been cured of their humanity?
• From the Bloomberg Global Network report on the destruction of Gaza and reconstruction, the economist at Rand International, Daniel Rigel, says:’A building can be rebuilt, but how can the lives of a million children be rebuilt?’
• We called it a catastrophe, then we found this name too narrow. We called it a disaster; then we found this name too timid. We called it a holocaust and we found this name too strange. We called it murder and we found this name too diplomatic.  Please give it it’s real name: genocide
• A family, including four children, was recovered from under the rubble. They had been suddenly surrounded by the occupation army’s tanks in North Gaza. They found their skeletons. They were all wearing backpacks in order to flee with their lives. They were unable to survive. Israel killed them. Then their bodies decomposed, and the backpacks remained on their bodies. Their bones bear witness to the ugliness of this occupation and the vileness of the hypocritical world.
• Today’s event at a tent encampment: after they prayed for him in absentia months ago, he returned today, alive and well, but he returned and found no one waiting for him!
• For how many years will we have to live in a tent? People thought that, with the end of the war, the suffering would end but the fact is that the suffering has become more shameless and sustainable than before.
• They found the remains of one of their martyred sons. They did not find the remains of his brother. They split into two halves, one half saying he was Mahmoud, the other half saying that he was Ibrahim. The mother said with strange calmness: ‘Ibrahim.’ When they asked her about the evidence, she answered: ‘My heart.’ In her silence, the truth was deeper than any question.
• We are a very lucky family in the genocidal war on Gaza. When the Israeli occupation army destroyed our house, we were not at home. We fled before it was levelled to the ground. But for others, the occupation army bombed their house, and they were all killed. The occupation army destroyed our house, which consisted of only 4 floors, but we are we lucky. There were buildings with 10 floors that were levelled to the ground. We are lucky because the occupation army only killed one of my brothers. It is true that it killed my uncles, my cousins, my aunt’s children, and my cousin’s children, and it executed our brother-in-law, his parents, etc., but only one of my brothers was killed. Many people envy us because we found my brother’s body, and when did we find it? Just one month later. Many people in Gaza are still searching for the bodies of their brothers. We were lucky that the stray dogs did not maul him because they could not reach him, as he was buried under huge pieces of concrete. We were lucky because we found my brother’s complete body. No head, leg, or arm was missing, and it had not even decomposed. Our good luck was that the weather was cold. We are very lucky because we found a place to bury our brother. It is true that the four mourners did not find room in the cemetery, but they opened the grave of my brother, Adel. He was martyred in the January 1987 uprising. They placed it next to him. Thank you, my brother Adel. We are lucky because we were displaced to the south. It is true that we were hungry, but we have not eaten animal feed yet, nor wild grass. We are fortunate that, when we were displaced, we were able to eliminate the lice that invaded my child’s hair due to the lack of water. We were lucky because we were able to kill a snake that tried to sneak into our shelter, killing it before it bit one of us. We are lucky because no-one has stopped us at night – yet – and taken away everything we carry, including phones and money.

 

Genocide recipe

8 October 2024

If you want someone not to care, keep showing him the same events, let him listen to the same news, expose him to the same images, and he will get tired and stop watching; he will stop listening.

Recipe contents: 

1. Play on time 

This is what Israel has depended on during its genocide against Gaza, that all the world news would cover the massacres they committed against the Gazan people, day by day, hour by hour, showing and talking about the children killed, the homes destroyed, the famine created, the attacks and invasions of hospitals and schools. The whole world watched and the whole world rejects what is happening, the whole world protests against what is happening. But Israel knew that they would be supported by the superpowers of the world, so they continued the killing, the destruction, and the starvation. They prevented the food, the medicine, the medical supplies from entering Gaza. They pushed 2 million people to live in less than 30 Km². They attacked ambulances, and aid vehicles. And they kept increasing the daily toll of murdering and injuring, destruction and bombing. They knew that time will make people care less and less, that people will become bored with the same news, people will escape from watching horrible images of shredded bodies, heads of children, destruction and the smoke of explosions. People will get busy with other things in their lives, people can’t keep being exposed to this terror for long, so Israel continues.  

2. Shift attention to something else 

Claim that the UNRWA is a terrorist organisation. The news will give more space to cover the argument about the UNRWA, with less talk and images about the genocide. Claim that hospitals contain militants and military items. The news will give time for arguments about whether it is right or wrong. Talk about a deal for the release of hostages. It will take up more space in the news. Procrastinate during negotiations, make them last forever without end. This will take up time on the news. Create new false accusations and keep the world talking about anything and everything except what is happening inside Gaza. 

3. Create a new enemy, open a new front 

Provoke Iran, Hezbollah, open a new battle front. The news will give more coverage of the new war, and Gaza will be out of the news. Continue the killing, the destruction, the famine, the genocide, with no worries. The world is busy with many other things

4. Take a strong ally 

Before committing the genocide make sure that you have a strong ally who will back you up whatever you do, and who could be better than the USA and the double-standard hypocritical Western countries, as allies and partners in genocide?   

  

Basel Almaquosi, one of my closest friends, is an artist, a painter and a photographer. He spent most of his life working with and for children with hearing and speaking difficulties, using his art to provide them space for self-expression and relaxation through painting. Since the war started on Gaza, Basel has continued doing what he knows most, what he likes to do most, doing painting workshops with children and mothers in the displacement camps. He receives no pay for this, he does not wait to receive anything for what he does, he does it because he loves it, he is doing it because he believes that this is the least he can do to support children and mothers under bombing and displacement.

Basel, my friend, wrote this:  

Oppression

Do you know what oppression is??? 

After leaving Rafah under the bombing, the shelling, the air strikes and heavy shooting from drones and tanks, with the bodies of killed people and injured along our route, we survived and arrived at a new place to stay at Zawaida in the middle area, myself and my family, next to 3 garbage containers, the only empty spot I found in Zaweida. I set up my belongings, which were some mattresses, some wooden sticks and plastic sheets, trying to make a sleeping place for my wife and my children. They slept and I kept awake guarding them all the night from street dogs and cats and passing cars. How I felt was beyond words: oppressed, defeated, conquered, humiliated, no words can express what I felt. I cried, nothing could prevent me from crying. My tears fall slowly on my cheeks, hot, burning. Crying for my manhood that I don’t feel anymore, crying for the promise to my family to protect them and my failure to keep the promise. 

The second day, a friend of mine helped me to find a better place in Deir Al Balah. We moved. It was dark when we arrived. I slept, could not do anything but lie down and sleep. In the morning, we realized that the place was a barn for sheep and cows. It had been cleaned by some NGO and several families use it as a residence. We felt some familiarity with other people around us, but we could not forget that this place is a barn for animals and cattle, not a residence for human beings. Every single minute I felt that we are those cattle that the Israelis decided to slaughter, and that the world is watching silently. And the reason for that is nothing except that we are Palestinians… from Gaza.

I am there and don’t know how the time passes, how days pass, day after day, days of horror, fear, panic, bombing, shooting, death and destruction every single minute. The place is not far from the Salahaldeen road, where Israeli tanks are positioned, not far from Al Aqsa hospital. You can’t avoid seeing injured people and dead bodies arriving at the hospital by ambulances, cars, donkey carts, or even carried by people. People like me: women, elderly people, children, boys and girls bombed while sleeping, while walking, while sitting somewhere. Expecting death any time like all the people of Gaza, who do not know that it is the moment to die in the most brutal way.

   

I don’t know what they felt at the last moments of their lives, what they felt when the rocket hit them, and I live with this oppression, I feel the oppression, I breathe the oppression all the time, sleeping with one eye shut and the other eye on my wife and children. 

We remained at that place for 3 months, until a new invasion occurred in Deir Al Balah. We had become practically the front line, bombing, and shooting everywhere, with people running everywhere, no one knowing where to go.

We left our place carrying whatever we could, leaving what we could not carry, knowing that we will be in another search for another place, leaving behind other essential things we need. The Israeli army is calling for evacuation, naming areas which are supposed to be safe, while they know, we know, everybody knows that there is no safe place at all in the whole of the Gaza Strip.

We arrived to Zaweida village, in the middle area of Gaza near the sea. We were in the street for 2 days until we found a spot to install our tent. During these 2 days, I moved from Zaweida to west of Deir Al Balah to Khan Younis. No place, no empty 4 square meters for my tent, only a big place for my disappointment, weakness, and helplessness. 

Two days homeless with my wife and my children moving from place to place, from town to city to camp, until finally one of Zaweida’s residents allowed us to install our tent on his land. It did not take me long to realise that the place was a garbage dump station with a sewage pipeline underneath. Two days cleaning and cleaning, and the smell does not leave the place, and my tears do not leave my eyes. The tears that I do my best to hide from my wife and my children.  

How can we continue living in this place with this disgusting smell, a smell that invades our noses and soles.

I felt that everyone and everything is agreeing about torturing us without cease, the Israelis, the Americans, the West, the Arabs, the UN, nature, and even ourselves.   

After days of continuous searching, I and some families found an empty place to rent, a place between olives trees and in the shade of orange trees.  

We paid the rent to the landowner, a monthly rate that would be enough to rent a nice furnished flat for 6 months in normal times, but this is not normal times, it is a time of war and death, where war merchants take advantage of everything. 

On the second day at this new residence, we realised that the landowner has a place for his donkey just near our tent. Now we are neighbours with donkeys.

I could not tolerate the situation, I kept looking for a better place, no matter how much the rent will be, I will see later how to secure the money, but I can’t stay here. 

Eventually we found a room for rent, only one room, one old dirty toilet, with a little space that we can use for cooking. The cost is 300 Shekels, not worth more than 30 in normal times, in fact it would be worth nothing as no one would ever think to rent it if it were not for the war, the destruction and the continuous displacement. We settled in this place. 

I can’t stop thinking about my son, who is stuck in Egypt since he went for few days of vacation before the war. I miss him so much. Here, I look after his wife and newborn daughter and I wonder, “How does he feel when he hears the news, how does he cope with being away from us, what fear and terror does he live in?” And at the same time, I feel relieved that he is there, safe.   

My daughter with her husband and my grandchildren are in Mawasi near Khan Younis. I must visit them twice a week, at least. Those grandchildren, the joys of their grandfathers, are filling a space in the heart that we did not know existed. I can’t stop thinking about them, and don’t have the ability to bring them here with me.

I rented this place, and I don’t know how I will secure the next month’s rent. By the way, I have not received any salary from my job as an art teacher at a rehabilitation association since March 2023. We will see what is going to happen  this month, maybe we will have to evacuate again, who knows?   

Despite everything, we are still alive, until further notice. And I still have this feeling of oppression, helplessness and panic for my family, and this feeling is only growing and growing.   

Basel Almaquosi 

20^th September 2024 

12 September 2024

Israel Allowed Polio Vaccine to Enter Gaza.

I am 56 years old, and I have always struggled and found it so difficult to explain to non-Palestinians what it means to be under an occupation. The title above, “Israel allowed Polio vaccine to enter Gaza” explains it all. The USA and Europe cherish and are grateful to Israel for allowing the vaccine to get to the children of Gaza.

This statement shows the reality – that Israel ‘allows’. Yes, they do ALLOW. Because they have the power to allow, as well as the power to not allow.

Since 1967, Israel has occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip, and since then they have controlled our lives, the life of another people, another nation; the Palestinians. And since then, Israel allows or doesn’t allow. They control not only our lives, but our resources and our borders. They decide what enters our territories and what goes out. They decide what quantity of water we can use from our water resources. They decide who can travel and who can’t. They decide what type of food and goods we can import or export, and they decide from whom we can export or to whom to export. They decide what type of factories we can build and what we can’t. They decide how much electricity we can generate and can’t. They decide that we are obliged to import and purchase their goods, their products, their electricity with the prices they decide. They decide if a student can travel overseas for education or not. They allow or don’t allow one to go to Jerusalem, or to pass through the more than 400 military checkpoints in the West Bank. They decide who can have access to work and who cannot, they decide who can be employed by the civil administration they force on us and who can’t. They decide who can build a home and who can’t. They decide that whoever raises a Palestinians flag in Palestine will go to prison for 6 months. They allow us to have a nationality or not have; my travel document is issued by the Israeli authority and has my name, my ID number, my mother’s name, my religion, and my personal photo, but in front of the title ‘nationality’, it is written ‘unidentified’. They decide, they allow or don’t allow whatever they want for us, for our present life and for our children’s future, and any act of objection is called terrorism. This is how it is even after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, and the arrival of a so called ‘peace’. Still, the Israelis have the same power over our land, over our natural resources, over our export and import, over the funds which reach us from the world, who can donate to us and who can’t, and how much is allowed and how much is not.

10 September 2024

Parents and children

‘Where are they? Where are they?’ She was screaming, trying to get into the morgue.

Some men managed to bring her out. She kept calling, asking, screaming, ‘Where are they?’ The men start to mumble, ‘May God give her patience!’ She said, ‘Don’t ask God to give me patience, ask him to take me with my 4 children! Why were they killed? Why!?’

‘My son did not stop crying for 2 hours as he could not use the spoon to eat like his brothers. His arms were amputated after a nearby bombing.’

‘There is no one to play with. All my friends, brothers and sisters were killed.’

‘I was at Shifa hospital after the first invasion on November 2023 with a UN delegation visiting the place, part of my job with UNOCHA. Thousands and thousands of people around us, all of them wanting to reach us, to talk, to tell us about the agony they went through during the invasion. Suddenly a man reached me carrying a small coffin, he brought the coffin near me shouting, look what they did to my son, look, he moved the cover from the coffin, andpushed the body of the dead child towards my face. I can never forget what I saw. A dead body of a 4 – 5 year old without arms and without legs; he was killed during one of the Israeli bombardments. I turned my face away, I could not tolerate the scene, I felt dizzy. I thought I will fall unconscious. I am a father of 3 children, the youngest is 6 years old. Since that day I wake up at night panicked, almost every night I wake up and I count the legs and the arms of my child, making sure there are still four.’

Again separated

In Cairo with my wife Abeer, away from home, away from my mother who is now completely disabled, can’t move, can’t talk, can’t eat or drink, (she is fed via a tube through her nose). This is exactly the time that I want to be beside my mother, to hold her hand and let her know that she is not left alone.

Alone, my daughter Salma left 2 days ago for Lebanon to finish the last three months of her Masters degree. She arrived at a hostel that she rented online. it is apparently a very bad, dirty place. This happens. The last 2 days Salma went through panic attacks several times, not because of the place she lives in, but because of being in Lebanon with all this talk in the news about a possible war on Lebanon, the threat against the airport and the nightmare scenario of being stuck there alone and not being able to leave and get back to Cairo. I am here in Cairo and again this feeling of helplessness. What can I do? Away from home, away from my mother, brothers and sisters, away from my daughter, unable to assure her safety and unable to give her a hug that could calm her and release her panic. What can I do? What can anyone do? Why are we so weak? Why can’t we fly? Maybe then I can go and hold my mother’s hand,  maybe then I can be with my daughter to give her the hug she needs, the hug I need?

Why is this happening to us?