Category: Messages from Gaza Now October 2023

2 June 2024

Missing Hope 

“No, we don’t believe in it, in fact we don’t want to believe in it. Holding no hope is easier than holding fake hope.” This is what a friend from Gaza told me about his reaction to the announcement of the possible ceasefire deal.

He continues, “Look what happened last time! When Hamas agreed on the deal, we all went out celebrating, dancing in the streets. And what happened? The Israelis invaded Rafah, forced a million people to be displaced again, and bombed everywhere. People were burned alive in their tents. It is better to have no hope, my friend. No hope, no thinking of tomorrow, just try to survive the now, the moment, and what will come will come. We are helpless, we are objects, in fact we are nothing!”

Another friend said to me, “My dear Hossam, don’t worry so much, we are in Gaza, and Gaza is the highway to heaven. This should not be a bad thing.”

My dearest friend, Basel, the artist, keeps saying: “They will not prevent us from living. Don’t get used to the image. Keep fighting! They will not de-humanise us! I must keep myself a sensitive and an awake human being. The war will not steal my humanity!”

Another friend said: “We don’t have the luxury of being defeated. There is no choice between slavery, occupation, and freedom. This is human instinct.”

My sister, my beloved sister, who is caring for her 82-year-old mother-in-law, and her kidney-failure patient husband, and 4 children, and my bedridden mother, told me that she has no more space in her heart for more pain. 

A colleague told me, “It is not easy to work with children here, when every day you realise that one or more of them are not there anymore, when you realise that the smiling child from yesterday is dead, and he will not smile any more.

Why is the world so quiet? Why is the world silent? We should keep quiet and silent when children sleep, not when children are killed! Every child is an entire universe for someone.”

 

28 May 2024

When is it enough?

It is amazing that the last massacre in Rafah finally moved some politicians; even Netanyahu was calling it a catastrophic mistake. Killing 35 people in tents in western Rafah, setting them on fire, decapitating children. Where were they during the last 8 months? Did they not see 36,000 people killed in the same way and even worse? 

They did not see that among these fatalities 15,239 were children and 10,093, women. They did not see that 31 children have died of starvation. They did not see that 493 medical staff have been killed. They did not see the 80,200 injured; thousands of them lost legs, hands, eyes, ears! They did not see that 71 % of these injured are children and women, they did not see that 17,000 children lost one or both of their parents. They did not see the 11,000 patients in need of health treatment which no longer exists in Gaza. They did not see the 10,000 cancer patients facing death without any kind of treatment. They did not see that 1,095,000 people have been infected with water-borne diseases due to unsafe water and lack of hygiene. They did not see… 

They did not see the hundreds killed and buried in hidden collective graves in hospitals. They did not see the 200,000 homes destroyed. They did not see the more than 130 journalists targeted and killed. They did not see 172 humanitarian workers targeted and killed. They did not see the 20,000 people infected with hepatitis. They did not see the 60,000 pregnant women facing danger due to lack of health services. They did not see the 5000 people arrested and facing the most horrifying torture.

They did not see the 2 million people exposed to forced displacement many times in extremely inhuman conditions. They did not see the 421 schools and universities completely or severely damaged. They did not see the 8004 mosques completely or severely damaged. They did not see the 87,000 homes completely destroyed. They did not see the 297,000 housing units severely damaged. They did not see the 3 churches destroyed. 

They did not see the 35 hospitals the Israeli army destroyed and took out of service. They did not see the 55 primary health care units the Israeli army destroyed and took out of service. They did not see the 160 health institutions targeted. They did not see 130 ambulances targeted and destroyed. They did not see 206 architecturally historic sites destroyed. 

They did not see the 77,000 tons of explosions which have and continue to hit Gaza, the 8 months of fear and horror, 8 months of death and blood, 8 months of famine and starvation, 8 months of pain and crying. 8 months! 8 months! 230 days, 5520 hours, 331,200 minutes, 19,872,000 seconds, and believe me every second is counted by the people of Gaza!

When is it enough? 

 

Gaza in and out. 

Almost two weeks since the last time I wrote about Gaza. But what to write and how to write while I am out of Gaza? It would be a kind of hypocrisy. 

While I was in Gaza, I was not following the news; first there was no TV, and second, I was part of the news! Today, I lay on a sofa watching TV, something that did not happen for 6 months in Gaza. I try to avoid the news, but how can I? 

I did not change that much, but too much has changed me. I forgot how to live. My smile is missing, and I seek feelings of joy but can’t find them. And how can I find them when my mother is somewhere in a tent in Deir Al Balah, and I know what it is to be in a tent installed on the sandy ground away from any means of life, surrounded by thousands of tents, with no toilets, no water, only heat, insects, reptiles and other visitors?

 How can I live while my brothers and sisters with their families are stuck in Gaza City and have no access to food but have access to all types of fear, panic and agony?

 A friend of mine wrote from Gaza: ‘Time in Gaza passes very slowly, like an annoying nightmare, with hopes of waking up so this nightmare will end, hearing shouts of appeals, but no one is answering. Women complain with tears, children cry from fear, and men swallow their helplessness with sadness and despair. Night in Gaza is like a dark cave full of horror and torture, expecting the worst with no horizon of any hope.’ 

I am afraid to call my family in Gaza. I am afraid of the news, but mostly I feel embarrassed. I feel that I deceived them by leaving Gaza and leaving them alone to face the daily terror of bombardment and displacement, and the daily suffering from the search for food and water. And I feel embarrassed to call anyone from outside as well, and when friends from outside call, I avoid answering them. I feel it would be another betrayal of my people in Gaza. What logic! It is nonsense, but this is what I feel here in Cairo!

Do I have the right to write about the people in Gaza anymore? I feel I don’t have this right anymore and this is killing me.

 

13 May 2024

Divine intervention

There are no earthly solutions for the Palestinian people in Gaza, only divine intervention might help. 

Like many thousands of families, that of my friend, Basel Al Marquosi had to leave Rafah to go back to the middle area. He built a tent of plastic sheets and some wood in Rafah last January when he had to leave Khan Younis. It was not movable; it would have had to be cut into pieces and ruined. So, Basel left it and took his poor belongings on a donkey cart to Deir El Balah, arriving at sunset to nowhere. he did not have an address or a place to go to. He and his family spent 3 days and nights in the street near garbage containers. He did not choose to be there; he had no other place. On the third day, he managed to find some plastic sheets and to build, again, a poor tent. 

I look for words to explain how they feel, what they went through, how humiliated they must be. Why should anyone pay such price? And for what?  

Conversation with Basel and friends on WhatsApp:

• We are tired of everything! This is not weakness, it is from being let down by everyone, by all the world.
• Where are you now Basel? 
• At Deir El Balah, the ones who have no tents sleep in the street. 
• Where in Deir El Balah? In the Al Bassa area?
• No, near Al Aqsa hospital.
• Don’t stay near hospitals! It is not safe, hospitals are targeted, go West.
• There are no places there, it is completely full, also movement is almost impossible. Transportation would cost 3000 Shekels (850 $). Anyway, I am near, but not too close, to the hospital.
• If you need anything just ask, I have friends there.
• Thanks, Rami was with me step by step.
• Do you have your daughter and her children with you?
• No, she is with her husband, still in Rafah, planning to come tomorrow. Her husband Taha became responsible for all the family after his father passed away a few days ago.
• What? Rafat died, he was young, he was not 60 yet!
• Yes, he died. You know he was a fisherman, and the last thing he asked for was to eat fish, but he died before he could. 
• May he rest in peace.
• Well, he is resting now… There are hundreds of thousands who are living death. Believe me, this is so very painful!
• May God help, keep up your strength my friend!
• Don’t worry, I am good as long as I have friends like you. 
• It is so horrible to be unable to help, while we are here outside in Europe and you are left alone there.
• There is no space for more pain in our hearts 

Waiting for God to intervene…

11 May 2024

What does Gaza feel? What does Gaza not feel?

What the people of Gaza have not felt during the last 7 months: happiness, smiling, laughing, joy, fun, pleasure, delight, enjoyment, comfort, relaxation, sleepy, not worried, laid back, loose, gladness, rejoicing, delighted, cheerful, delectation, festive, secure, safe, unconcerned, full of energy, lazy, careless, hilarious, alive!

Can anyone imagine that 2.3 million people have not felt or experienced any of these feelings for more than 7 months and still do not!?

What the people of Gaza have been feeling during the last 7 months: torment, agony, aches, pain, suffering, soreness, tribulation, suffering, wrenching, misery, anguish, lesion, harm, torture, stricken, distress, trauma, hardship, injury, sadness, sorrow, grief, melancholy, wistful, unhappy, sorry, constriction, worried, anxiety, disappointment, frustration, letdown, anticlimax, crying, weeping, wailing, maudlin, weakness, impairment, disabled, failure, shortcoming, deficiency, anxious, feebleness, fragility, frailty, rustiness, atonality, littleness, despair, despondency, droop, dismay, heartless, giving up, giving up the ghost, bereavement, dispossession, careworn, concerned, spoiled, pillaged, robbed, looted, lack, deprivation, forfeit, damage, loss, wastage, absence, forfeiture, seepage, fear, trepidation, panic, scared, frightened, browbeaten, dread, dismay, terrorised, struck, punished, crushed, ruined, destroyed, broken, death.

Can anyone imagine that 2.3 million people are going through all these feelings, and only those feelings for seven continuous months and still do… 

9 April 2024

A city on the run 

Rafah

This city, a city that was barely able to host its 300,000 residents and is now hosting a million people, a city that no-one ever heard about, and now a city all world knows about; this poor city, surrounded by fences, observation towers and guns ready to shoot, lying with the coast of the Mediterranean to its west.

A poor city with sad streets, dark buildings, only the breeze of the sea makes it tolerable.  Accidentally, this city has a border crossing to the outside world. Yet this crossing is very limited, very expensive, unreachable for the majority of the residents of Rafah and all of Gaza.

This city is chased now by guns and tanks and airstrikes, by bombing and shelling and killing and the displacement of its people. Invaded by fully armed soldiers, but who are mainly full of hate. 

For three days the city got shaken up, turned upside down, one million people running everywhere, nowhere, looking for nonexistent safety. And suddenly half the city became a ghost city, receiving bombs silently, losing its buildings with grief, forcibly abandoned, and left alone. 

One million people again displaced, on the run again, for the third time, for the fourth time, for the fifth time, and while running they lose parts of themselves, they lose properties, they lose one or more of their beloved ones, they lose their resilience and their ability to continue, they lose their dignity and humanity, they become broken, weak, sad, despairing. 

During the last three days, I have received many appeals asking for tents, for mattresses, for food, for a place to stay or to take refuge, for assistance materiel, for reassurance, for words of encouragement, for hugs. And who am I? What can I offer? What do I have? What can I offer!? 

I am helpless… 

Left Gaza, but Gaza did not leave me (2) 

Children: 

• A group of children standing in a line at a charity cooking point to get some free food, each one is carrying a cooking pan; a photographer arrives to take some photos, all children raise the pans to cover their faces. ‘Dears, it is not you who should be ashamed. It the unjust world who should be ashamed.’ 
• ‘Why can’t I see? I used to see. Why did they bomb us? Why did they take my eyesight? I want to see’. 
• A teenager girl carrying a big bag on her back, walking, crying; her younger brother behind her pushing an older, injured brother in a wheel chair on a devastated, damaged road. 
• Asking a child from Gaza, what would you like to be when you grow up. He answers: ‘I want to grow up’. 
• ‘I want my leg back. Why did they cut my leg off? How can I walk without my leg?’
• A child in the street nearby a shelter/school, 3 years old maximum, without trousers, without underwear, without shoes, crying: ‘Mum! Mum! Where is Mum?’ 

I called my dear friend Basel who is still in Rafah, how are you, my friend? 

• ‘Yes’. 

This is what he answered, ‘yes’, with sad voice, a broken voice. For some moments I did not know what to say. I surely do not expect him to say I am good, or I am ok, but he said the word ‘yes’ and nothing else. 

I tried to find something to talk about, anything, so I turned the talk to another friend, Rami, who is also in Rafah and who suddenly decided to cut off from everyone, not to answer anyone, to leave all online groups of friends.  It worked. Basel, this great friend, immediately started talking about Rami, and how he went to visit him and spent a few hours with him. Rami was very depressed, (normal) as well as Basel, as well as 2.3 million people in Gaza, including my mother, brothers, sisters, friends. 

Sometimes I feel guilty for leaving, but I know I couldn’t do much anyway if I was there. I was able to secure some food parcels for some friends and family members. I still do this remotely, but I know for them being around is very different. Also for me. 

3 May 2024

Out of reach 

Do you know how is it to live in a home which is not yours? In Gaza, I was lucky to be hosted in homes and not obliged to be in a tent. Living in a tent is another story.

I left our home on October 13^th when the Israeli army began bombing Gaza City heavily and randomly, and when they warned all Gazans to leave to the south or to face death. 

We went to Sawarha / Nuseirat in the middle area of the Gaza Strip to my parents-in-law’s home. We were warmly welcomed, never made to feel strangers or intruders. It was the same at Abu Khaled Abelal’s home in Rafah a month and a half later. 

Yet, it was not home. Do you understand me? At home I can move from room to room, to the kitchen, to the toilet without thinking that I need to have permission or to consider that there might be someone not properly dressed. At home I can sing loudly, and no one will see that I am odd. At home I don’t need to wash my underwear in the sink and hang it to dry in an unseen place. At home I choose what TV channel I want to watch. At home I can kiss my wife and give her a hug any moment, anywhere without feeling watched. At home I can open the radio and listen to music without being judged even in a time of war. At home I can choose what to eat and what not to eat. At home I can lie down wherever I want, and at home I can go to my kitchen and make coffee or tea at any time. 

What can’t one do at home?! I can do all of that and much more without thinking if it is right or wrong or if it is welcomed by others or judged. 

Home, in other words, is freedom. 

Yes, I was welcomed in Nuseirat and Rafah, but I was not free. I was not at home!

Stress in the back of my neck, strange feelings in my stomach; not pain, but something is wrong. My hands are checking my body, my eyes itch, and a hot tear drops out on my cheeks and burns.  My legs are light, my feet itch, looking for a place to sit or lay down. My heartbeat speeds, my head is almost exploding with pain. This is what I feel physically when I realize that I can’t go home, that my home is out of reach. 

I found the words to explain how it feels physically, but no words can explain how it feels in me.  

 

 

30 April 2024

Lost 

Here we are in Egypt, in Cairo, this beautiful city, with no war, no bombing, no destruction, no killing, no drones disturbing our sleeping, no images of starving people, no garbage in the streets, no sewage leakage, no sad faces, no miserable children or crying women, no broken men. Yet, we still can’t sleep, we are still afraid, we still panic.

We left Gaza, and we left everything; the home which is damaged, our belongings, and our memories. We left our brothers and sisters, we left our friends and jobs. 

What do we have here? We are alive, that’s all. How long we can stay here? We are not even considered refugees, we have no identity, we are just bodies moving with no purpose, with no future. Only darkness and uncertainty. 

Our past was stolen, and our present is frozen like a repeating moment that will stop with the end of our money, and this won’t last much longer. 

I am afraid, I am worried. I don’t know what to do! I start to question myself, was it right to get out?  I know it was right, I owe this to my wife, to my daughter, to myself to do what can to stay alive. But what’s next?????

23 April 2024

Left Gaza but Gaza Did Not Leave Me 

Since the war against Gaza started, many WhatsApp groups have been created and I was added to several; the group of the 28 neighbours in our building, the neighbourhood  group with hundreds of members, the Rafah crossing group with thousands of members, the Gaza people in Egypt group with thousands of members, and the Egyptians for Gaza group with thousands of members.

These groups are good for communicating common information, but they are also channels for very bad, very stressful information, as well. 

In the building group there were neighbours who decided to stay in Gaza City and not leave on the 13^th of October, staying until they were forced to leave in late March. The only good information was that they were still alive; the rest of the information was something like, “the nearby buildings have been destroyed,” “a flat on the sixth flour is on fire due to a shelling from the Israeli army,” “the Israeli army is shooting at the building from all sides, we are in the basement for safety, all windows of the building blasted due to the explosion of the nearby home,” “we can’t find any food anymore,” and, “the Israeli army forced men to go out naked and then forced all the neighbours to leave to go south via the sea road. Before they did that, they entered the building and blasted all the closed doors. The building with 28 flats is now open with no one to protect it from thieves and looters.” 

At the neighbourhood group, all the news is bad. It is a record of who was killed and which home, or building was destroyed. I could not stay in this group for long, and I left it. 

Several Rafah crossing groups have information about the lists of passengers leaving Gaza to Egypt, updated daily. There is the list of the Hala Company (300 – 500 people) each one of whom paid $5000 to leave Gaza, a list of people coordinated by the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Ministry (100 – 150 persons) each of whom paid $8000, and a list of patients and injured (70 – 100 persons) who paid nothing.  

In addition, there is information or questions from the members of the groups like: 

• My name and my children’s names are on the Hala list but not my husband’s, what can we do?
• I entered the Egyptian border, but they sent me back with no reason, what shall I do?
• Is there any way cheaper than Hala to cross to Egypt?
• My father is very sick, his name is on the patients list, but they won’t allow me to accompany him, what shall I do? 
• How do you register at Hala Company?
• How much will they charge for my mother, father and 3 children under the age of 18?

Then the groups of Gaza people in Egypt and Egyptians welcoming Gaza people:

• How do I register my children in schools?
• We left Gaza but we have no income to live, help us please!
• Can one get a visa from an embassy if one doesn’t have an Egyptian residency? 
• I am a teacher of English and looking for a job.
• Where do we get a stamp for our passports to make our stay in Egypt legal? 
• List of Egyptian doctors providing free services to Gazans.
• Why are you here in our country, you are a coward, go back to Gaza!
• I am looking for a chef from Gaza to work at my new restaurant, it will be a restaurant with Palestinian recipes.
• News from Gaza, bombing in Rafah, bombing in Nuseirat, bombing in Bureij camp…

Bombing in Bureij camp! Abeer received a message from her sister asking to call back urgently. Abeer called: 

“What’s up? How is mom, how is dad, how is everyone?”

“Rami was killed yesterday; we learned of it from his family today!”

Rami was the fiancé of Reham, the youngest sister of Abeer. In late September 2023, he and his family asked for him to be married with Reham. My parents-in-law asked them for some time to think. But before they could give a final answer, the war started. In January, Rami and his family asked again, saying that the war is not going to end soon unfortunately, and we really would like to have them married, what do you think?

My father-in-law said, “OK, we agree, Reham agrees to be engaged, and the marriage will be after the war.”

It was good enough for Rami, he is able at least to come and visit and sit with his fiancée. The boy is in love, he comes two or three times a week, and each time he brings with him a nice gift for Reham or the family. 

Rami was visiting his home in Bureij camp, it was partially destroyed during the Bureij invasion in late November ‘23. He was trying to fix things in order to prepare the home for his future wife, his future life. 

Death did not give him a chance to continue, in fact the Israeli army did not give him the chance to dream, he was bombed inside his house.