A Haven No Foe May Breach

It was our first sanctuary, which we turned to whenever we were overwhelmed with distress and despair. The time we spent there was measured by the brevity of our sorrows, or now we consider its smallness compared to our present grief. Its calm waves reassured us, as if they were listening to our moans. Its fresh air washed away our sadness, so we left it, but our souls remain captive to its mysterious depths.

It’s the sea of this city, but it has changed, just as all things have changed. Where we once went whenever we felt blue, now we make it our home, as if sorrow itself has taken our residence. The people here have encamped on the seashore to live, whereas they once pitched tents on sunny days to relax. They don’t know how long they will live in tents or when their tribulation will end. But they trust in the sea and seek refuge in it because they believe that the one who occupies them cannot occupy the sea!

Like them, I too turned to the sea during this war. But I haven’t returned since that day; I thought I would feel better, as with every visit to the sea, but the opposite happened. All the people there were wandering, their eyes filled with bewilderment. They were searching for a flicker of hope, a stolen peace, and a lost homeland. This is not just the feeling of those people there; all the Gazan people are like them so. They are searching for a lost compass to guide themselves toward a clear or straightforward path to walk in it.

Fear is everywhere, like a beast chasing us in the dark. It consumes our souls piece by piece, for we are the only food, making it strong enough to consume us entirely.

When we were kids, we played with the sands of the sea, building sandcastles with colored flags and soldiers to protect our castles. But we didn’t imagine that these castles would turn into real tents to live in. The soldiers of the castles would be killed before our eyes, and the flags fell! There are no lights from the seaside resorts at the sea like in the past. The only lights now are the stars in the sky. The kids are counting the stars in the sky, but every time they start, they fail to reach beyond the third star because the sound of a rocket frightens them, so they start over from the first star again, forgetting the numbers they had already counted. They still do not fly kites as they used to. Maybe because the war made them men before time, or flying kites no longer succeeds in making them happy.

Meanwhile, the fishermen are searching for fish, but they still have not found any; perhaps the fish are in mourning for the martyrs. And about the swimming in the sea, it's a horrible thing that it is holding nameless corpses rather than divers in the water. As it has become a cemetery for them! The strange thing is that the sea embraces us in all its vastness and breadth; it knows our sorrows well, and its calm waves soothe us. It won't just watch and remain silent as humans. Maybe it will rage to avenge us, through the power of its waves and the fury of its depths, to return our lives that have been lost.