Echoes from the Ruins

What can we possibly say when mourning a homeland?

A homeland with its entirety, its sky and earth, its youth and children, its olives and palm trees, and its flowers and colors.

This home we love has become a mirror of our pain and a breeding ground of our confusion, where its details have turned into wounds we daily live with. Everything our eyes gaze upon has turned to ashes. Everything our souls desire is but a mirage. Tranquility has become a trap as if fear itself is the comforter, and stability has become turmoil as if displacement there is a rest. And when these concepts confused us, we were displaced this time while hoping it would be salvation. I no longer count the displacement numbers, nor do I write memoirs or document the endless suffering. Why must we write diaries filled with pain, oppression, and loss? For whom do we write while we are the forgotten stories in this world?

But there's no harm in writing, if only to unburden the soul and avoid choking on words. Though there are many reasons leading me to dump my fatigue on papers, I know exactly at the moment what drains me most is the frequent exposure to scenes of destruction and rubble that I keep looking into.

Yesterday, I walked among roads full of rubble, feeling as though beneath every step lay a buried martyr, a limb of one's body, or even a pile of shreds that doesn't suit to put in one's grave. I stood, then I contemplated the depth of rage and hatred that drove such an Israeli occupation to cause this amount of destruction, and the tremendous anguish that must strike the owner of that home if they were in my shoes. Behind every shattered wall, I began to hear the whispers of the stuck memories. The alleyways that once echoed with laughter now hid in a strange silence.

At the end of it all, I lifted my eyes to the vastness of the sky, and I was sure that if they could have deprived us of it, they would have. There, in the sky, I saw a large kite soaring above the rubble, decorating the colors of our Palestinian flag. At that moment, I muttered: "Gaza might be destroyed, but not defeated".

The night comes; I have felt the darkness of this world as I do these nights. Before the war, it was a haven, a time to call a day of striving. I would read, write, or watch a film; something far from action, if only I had watched action movies as a preparation or a rehearsal for what we're living through now!

But night has turned into a monster, waiting for me to doze off so it can pounce on my heart. Ever since the sun disappears from the sky, the bombings madness begins. Cowards, they commit their crimes under the cover of darkness. The night is a shared suffering we all endure as Gazans, beyond the personal torment that uniquely marks each of us living under the fire of war. We all fear the night, tremble at its horrors, and wait for the morning sun, hoping it brings not just light, but news of survival. Survival isn't just for the one who survives from a missile, but who wakes to see the sun, finds a bite to eat, has a wall left standing, or manages to find a tent as many sleep on the ground and cover themselves with the sky.

In the shadow of the harshest moments, the darkest nights, the hungriest stomachs, and the aggressive bombings, I wish I could carry my whole city away far from the unjust world to feed their thin bodies, plant hope in every heart, and sow seeds in every land. They have stripped us of our humanity, closed their eyes, and blocked their ears, thinking that the arrows of pain will never reach them.