Welcome to The Truth Museum, the diary archive for our Humans But From Gaza initiative. Explore un-filtered narratives shared directly by individuals navigating life during the war in Gaza, revealing daily survival, loss, resilience, and hope under siege. Engage respectfully with these authentic testimonies to connect with the human experience often overlooked and deepen your understanding of Gaza.
Today they said the war has ended. But it ended in name only. It ended on paper, in the news, in front of cameras— but we still live it every day, in small details no one else can see. For the world, the war is over. But in Gaza, the dust still hangs in the air, the smell of smoke still lingers in the streets, and the sound of planes still echoes in our memories. How does a war end for a mother who still looks at her son’s empty bed and speaks to his picture as if he can hear her? How does a war end for a child who used to chase a ball, and now watches it from afar with an amputated leg? How does a war end for people who lost two years of their lives— two years filled with fear, waiting, and loss? How does a war end for a woman who built a home with her husband, then returned to find only stones—no laughter, no voice? How does a war end when Gaza lost one of its bravest faces— the voice of journalist Anas Al-Sharif, who told our pain with courage that knew no fear? How does a war end when more than half the people carry a wound or a memory that will never heal? They say the war is over, but it hasn’t ended in our hearts, nor in the eyes of the mothers, nor in the sleep of children now filled with nightmares. We try to smile, to live, to rebuild what was broken, but everything around us reminds us—it’s still here. In the ruins of our homes, in the empty schools, in the sea that has become a witness to our screams. War doesn’t end with a signature, nor with the silence of planes. War ends when hearts finally heal, when Gaza laughs again, when fear stops visiting our dreams each night. Until that day, we won’t say it’s over. We’ll only say: The war ended before the world, but not within us.
After we thought it was the end, time showed us it was only the beginning of another! Even if we haven’t forgotten what happened, we’ll return to live through the same stories again—as if time itself had come back to threaten us, refusing to let us escape from that fatal cycle! What does displacement mean? I think the most accurate answer can only be given by the Gazan people, who have been displaced as much as they breathe. Displacement is like a nightmare that haunts the city; it comes as a ghost, confronting everyone in the city, whether they want it or not. During the first displacement—or rather, the first large-scale displacement of the Gazan people from northern Gaza Strip to the south. My family was separated: half of us were in the south, and the other half was in the north. Each side pretended that we were okay, though we all knew we weren't telling the truth. After they returned to the north and we were reunited again, we asked one another if we had to be displaced again like that time, would each of us return to the same place we had fled to? As if we had known we would be displaced again! At a time when no one was ready, evacuation leaflets descended again over our heads and our homes, telling us to leave to where they claim that it’s safe. So, is it time for the bag now? It’s one of the heaviest moments—when I sit in front of a makeshift bag, hoping to fit my entire home into it. The same questions returned to wander through my mind: which things were the most important to put in the bag? The ones I truly needed, or the ones filled with lovely memories? Would the bag bear all of them, or would my back be able to? I had prepared my bag many times; each time I put more into it—as if it had become my entire world! This time, I turned away from the path that I had decided to walk. I chose not to stay in Gaza and instead displaced to Deir Al-Balah city with my family. After many failed attempts, we finally managed to leave on September 24. We left in the early morning, by our car. The road was good—there weren’t many Gazan families displacing at that time, because most had already fled before. The eyes of the drones in the sky observed us, and the bomb-laden robots are waiting to set up a deadly ambush for some random family. This is a new time for us to understand the shape of life here, among a crowd of strangers who share the same fears and the same circumstances. Perhaps changes will happen here that will allow us to return to our normal life, but if everything remains the same, I will build my own world with my own hands—this time I won’t wait for anything.
When I entered the hospital to visit my grandmother, I felt as if I was crossing from the world of the living into a gray realm where life and death intertwine. The walls were pale, and dim yellow lights hung from the ceiling. The hospital was nothing but a suffocating crowd—pale faces searching for a glimmer of life amidst the chaos. In the hallway, the smell of iodine mixed with dried blood on the floor, and bodies lay scattered without beds. Elderly men groaned on the ground, women stretched on thin blankets, and children jostled for space in tight corners… as if the corridors had become wards of death, not of healing. I saw a wounded man bleeding silently, pressing his tattered bandage with his hand, waiting for a turn that might never come, as the beds were full and medicine scarce. At the entrances, exhausted faces stared eagerly at every ambulance that entered, as if it carried salvation—but inside, it often carried only new death. The cries of mothers were more painful than the wounds themselves. A woman screamed, holding her son’s body wrapped in bandages, refusing to believe he was gone. Another whispered to her injured child, "Open your eyes, my love… I am here," while silence hung heavily over his face. In a corner of the hallway, a father covered in dust revealed in his features that he had been running after aid. He returned to the hospital not carrying food, but carried on shoulders—his leg amputated, hands trembling. And others never returned… their fate delivered only in a black bag. Doctors ran as if chasing time itself, and nurses tried the impossible with empty hands. Everything in this place screamed: helplessness, suffocation, deadly waiting. Finally, I sat by my grandmother, holding her hand, but I no longer saw her pain alone. I saw all of Gaza on its white bedsheets, its land turning into corridors crowded with souls hanging by a thin thread. Imagine yourself in my place… entering to visit a loved one, only to confront scattered bodies in the hallways, mothers’ cries melting your heart, and fathers suddenly transformed from life-runners into wounded or martyrs. Could you leave as you came? Does a person still have meaning when left lying in a cold hallway, waiting for a bed that never comes? How do children welcome their father when he returns broken—or doesn’t return at all? And can a mother’s heart survive when her scream rises above her own heartbeat? In Gaza… even the hospital is no longer a place of healing, but an open stage for postponed death.
Imagine yourself after a whole year of war—a year where funerals never stopped, where the sound of bombs became the only language of the sky. And then, suddenly, you hear the news: a 60-day truce. How would it feel? Like being pulled out of the water after drowning, like finally breathing after months of suffocation. The streets came alive again. Children ran barefoot over rubble, laughing as if laughter itself was a form of resistance. Mothers tried to rebuild shattered walls, fixing broken windows with trembling hands, planting a single flower in the cracks of destruction—as if to tell the world: we are still alive. And you too… you allowed yourself to hope. You whispered: _Maybe the nightmare is over. Maybe this time we will live._ But then… sixty days passed. The silence did not last. Until one night, close to 3 a.m., the sky ripped open. Bombs fell from every direction. You woke up shaking, your heart beating like a trapped bird, tears streaming down before you even understood. And then you knew: the war had returned. From that night, everything collapsed. The crossings were closed for five long months. Gaza became a cage without food, without medicine. People searched for rotten flour, fighting for it as if it were gold, just to bake a piece of black, bitter bread to silence the cries of hungry children. Can you imagine a child dying—not from a bullet, but because there was nothing left to eat? Mothers broke down, not because their stomachs were empty, but because their hands were empty when their children cried for bread. And you… you crumbled inside. It was not only hunger for food, but hunger for dignity, for life, for a single moment of safety. You cried until your tears ran dry. You learned that in Gaza, joy is never allowed to last, and war always knows how to return—stealing everything, even the moment you start to breathe again. So imagine this: to rejoice as we rejoiced, to hope as we hoped, and then to wake up, to realize it was all a cruel trick, that the war had come back, sharper, heavier, hungrier. And then ask yourself: _How does a human rise again after all this ruin? How much can a soul endure before it stops believing in tomorrow?
In my hand, I hold a key that opens nothing—a key to a home we dreamed of for years. My mother and father spent their lives saving to build it. We imagined its rooms, its walls, the furniture we chose piece by piece with joy. It was the house of our dreams—a place that resembled us, embraced us. And finally, the dream came true. We bought it, adorned it with the finest details. For a whole year, we arranged everything, waiting for the moment we could rest our heads beneath its roof in peace. But suddenly, the unimaginable happened: war. Relentless bombing. An evacuation order. We left our old home and said, “Let’s go to the new one—maybe it will shelter us.” We stayed there for only two days. Two days without the taste of life. Bombs surrounded us from every direction. Every moment felt like it could be our last. We didn’t sleep. We didn’t feel safe. We only waited—for death. Imagine my mother, standing before the rubble, watching the labor of her life crumble in seconds. Every dream she painted over the years vanished. Her hands, once wrapped around the home, now held nothing but tears. Imagine my father, a man who spent his life working and enduring, watching the fruit of his years collapse. Every moment of patience, every ounce of hope—gone. Now, all he could do was cry, his heart broken, his eyes searching for proof that the world hadn’t completely fallen apart. And imagine me, standing between them, holding a key that opens nothing. A key that was meant to bring us together, to hold our dreams, to be our warmth and safety. Instead, I feel the vast emptiness around me, hear the echo of bombs that never stop, and live each second in fear. Every moment could be the end. Every morning, I waited—just to survive. And if losing a stone can hurt, what about those who lost their children, their siblings, their parents? How much deeper is that pain? How much heavier is that emptiness? Their places are gone, and all that remains are memories that weigh down their hearts and years. Every home destroyed. Every life ended. Every dream locked behind a door that no longer exists—leaving behind a wound that never heals. The key in my hand today is no longer a promise. It is a witness—to a life stolen, to dreams buried under rubble, to a family broken with no return. And when I whisper to it, there is no answer, no door, no tomorrow. Only silence. Only loss. Only a key that opens nothing.
In the company of a costly cup of coffee In the vastness of the sea and its mesmerizing scenery, Amid a crowd of faces, none of whom I know, At sunset—when the sun calms after its midday fury— I’m sitting in a destination that I didn’t plan. After walking roads for the first time, without achieving any goal Having traversed half the distance, I turned back when I was closer. I was following in the footsteps of the city’s people, A city that reminded me of my own. In the hubbub of merchants and passersby, I listened to the driver speak of Gaza I found myself paying attention without thinking. As if he were speaking of a part of me, Of a hometown that had become so hard to reach. He spoke as if it had become a city for ghosts to inhabit Calm, save for the echoes of loss, Secluded, as though in another realm. Do I ask him more about it? Or remain only a listener, not to interrupt his words? I roamed the city, asking for my way I always asked to know, yet found myself asking strangers like me. The answer paints in his eyes: I’m like you As If he comforted himself as much as he was comforting me, In his state of loss and a destination not set yet. And I’m here between the sky and the shore’s sands, My eyes reflecting the redness of the sunset, The rhythm of the waves. As I sip my coffee, Keep a close eye on the time To calculate the rest of the beauty—the rest of the coffee, And The time before the sun dips completely Hoping to pause the time, to keep watching, To keep drinking coffee, leaving everything beyond my back. Yet even if my course strays from its path, The compass will be pointing to one: To a haven that never fails those who come, That listens to the unspoken, That gives without ever taking— A retreat with the sea—and a scalding cup of coffee.
From the very first moment of the war, the machine of occupation was never satisfied with random bombings or direct killings. It deliberately tore Gaza apart—geographically and psychologically—into two halves: north and south. It turned the sea into fire, the roads into corridors of death, and staying in the north became a sentence of extermination, while the south is an illusion of safety. The instructions were clear, dropped from the sky through leaflets: "Evacuate immediately to the south." But to where? To a south already overflowing with its people and the displaced? A south that had never been spared from massacres? A south that turned into a forest of tents, where there is no shelter, no water, no medicine, no electricity, not even the shade of a tree to shield from the burning sun or the cold of night? In the north, the bombing was even more intense. Orders of evacuation fell again and again, as if those who lived there were less deserving of life, as if the houses there were unworthy of remaining, as if the memories there had to be erased. And so, displacement became the only option… but it was an impossible one. Not everyone could leave. The cost of reaching the south could exceed $2,000, and even those who managed to pay did not escape the pain. For pain cannot be bought or sold. It is carried on shoulders, hidden in eyes, buried in chests. Entire families were forced to walk from the north to the south, on a journey that stretched over 15 continuous hours. They walked in fear, under bombardment, on shattered roads, between rubble, carrying whatever they could on their backs: blankets, bags of flour, children’s photos, keys to homes they would never return to. They carried their children, asleep from exhaustion, they carried their memories, they carried the faces of loved ones who were gone, they carried a pain that cannot be spoken, cannot be written, cannot be forgotten. Tears walked before their steps. Children clung to their mothers, crying: “Mama, I’m tired, I don’t want to walk anymore.” And mothers tried to calm them, their voices choked with tears: “Hold on, my love… just a little longer.” Meanwhile, fathers walked in silence, hiding their brokenness behind weary faces, but their eyes screamed: “Where does this road end?” Everywhere, the same phrases echoed like a collective cry: “God have mercy on our home.” “Where are we supposed to go?” “Lord, protect us.” The sounds of displacement were a mixture of sobs, groans, and the pleas of thirsty children— sounds that melt hearts, sounds that stand as witnesses to unbearable pain. Imagine yourself walking this path: each step heavier than the last, each glance backward shattering your heart, each moment ahead without direction, without guarantee, without a clear end. You arrive in the south, only to find yourself standing in the open. No house, no tent, no one waiting for you— just barren land, and a sky that still rains fire. Your child looks at you and asks: “Where will we sleep?”
A story told by a doctor who saw it with his own eyes—no fiction, no exaggeration… just raw pain walking among us. At Al-Maamadani Hospital, where the sound of shelling blends with the screams of the wounded, and where hallways narrow under blood, rushing feet, and metal wheels, the doctor stood in the surgery ward, clinging to the window as if it were his only escape to breathe. In the courtyard lay a black bag. At first glance, it looked torn, maybe empty. But it shifted—too gently for the wind to explain. Heart pounding, hands trembling, he approached. He bent down, reached out his fingers, then stopped. The bag moved again. He pulled one edge open. From the darkness appeared the face of an elderly woman. Her chest rose and fell in desperate rhythm, her glassy eyes staring into nothingness. He whispered: – “Are you okay?” Silence. Again he asked. Finally, a broken voice escaped: “They’re all gone… my children, my husband. I’m alone. There’s nothing left to live for. I entered the bag… waiting to die.” Oh God. What kind of pain drives a woman to choose her grave while still breathing? To crawl into a black bag and seal herself inside, not for safety—but for closure. Imagine yourself in her place: Shelling draws near, then fades. Every explosion drags up a memory, but no faces remain to share it with. The house is empty, the table bare, the silence heavier than fear itself. You close your eyes and find darkness kinder than memory. The scene wasn’t a scream, nor a cry. It was silence—deeper than all the noise around her. The silence of a woman who lost everything, and found no refuge but a death bag to hold what was left of her life. When every loved one is gone, does life still hold meaning?
Suddenly, without warning, the order comes to leave. Not just to leave your house—but to abandon your memories, your childhood, the small dreams pinned to the bedroom walls. You are forced to walk away from everything that resembles you, everything that holds your details. You leave behind things that are not just “things”—but pieces of your heart. “What will you take with you?” What if you had only five minutes to leave your home—perhaps forever? What would you take? Your favorite sweater? The gift from your closest friend? The photo album filled with smiles that will never return? Imagine standing in front of your closet. You know you cannot take everything. So you begin to choose— Not based on what is most valuable, But on what is least painful to leave behind. Your favorite dress? You leave it. The book you read ten times? You leave it. The shoes you saved so long to buy? You leave them, too. Because there is no space—not in the bag, not in your hands, not in your heart. You say goodbye to your bed, The mirror that watched you grow, The chair where your father used to sit, And the scent of home that clings to the walls. And in five minutes, your life becomes a bag. You switch off the light, not because you will return, But because the only thing left to carry is memory. Then you walk away. Not because you want to, But because you must. Because staying means danger. Because running is the only way to survive. But how do you leave your memories? How do you pack your childhood into a backpack? How do you look back one last time… then turn your back on everything? This is displacement. To be torn from your roots, uprooted from your soul. To walk carrying broken memories and fear of what lies ahead. To become “displaced” instead of simply human. Now ask yourself again: What would you take with you? And harder still… What would you leave behind?
I speak to you now from a deep black pit, where no sun is seen, and no sound is heard, no sensation reaches you here but one, the feeling of slipping ever downwards. I am tired of waking to the same sound of *booms*, to the whistle that precedes them, the sound of a drone hovering at the window —whether a quadcopter or an Apache, I loathe them both. I am tired of the drone's buzz at every pitch. The clatter of tank treads. The blast of explosions. The sound of loss, of weeping. The sound of wood splintering from the neighboring roof, the sound of the fan on another roof keeping a fire alive so my neighbor can have a cup of tea after shattering his own mind, and ours*. The sound of my female neighbors at their windows, recounting the daily horrors of the latest massacre, the prices, the names of the martyrs. The sound of the young man who goes out to the street each day chanting, "No to emigration." I am tired of looking at my home as if for the last time. Tired of the house shaking for ten minutes straight, of sensing the depletion of people from afar, of the feeling of comfort fading away. I am tired of fear. My shoulders have fused to my neck, for I am always poised for the next blast. I am tired of disappointments _ a word too shallow for the feeling. I am tired of seeing the night sky turn into a _ carnival of death, Tired of watching my displaced aunt exhaust herself over her ruined home, yet clinging to the hope that it won't be completely leveled, saying, "I swear, just one wall is enough, the important thing is that it doesn't fall." And now, I wish to wake up to an alarm clock that truly aims for something. l wish to hear the neighbors discussing a recipe for a particular dessert. I wish I could embrace all of Gaza, to hear the chirping of birds. Truly, where are the birds? Or have they fled to lands where freedom lives? l want to hear my neighbor laughing with his mother as he always did. To feel the joy on the faces of everyone I see. To be in a state of relaxation more often. To not lose hope in my dreams, even if they are rosier than they should be. For my heart to find rest from this constant "displacement" To see the sky a deep, kohl-blue, without any sudden, violent change. I wish to rest from fear. The fear of my own pieces falling away, day by day, moment by moment. I fear I will forget what I love and whom I love. The fear of becoming what I now despise, and the fear of remaining as I am. The fear of death. The fear of fading away as if you never were. The fear of those you will leave behind, and the fear of those who will leave you behind. But because all I have come to know is war, I am afraid. Every day, I am afraid anew. If surrender were an option, I would have surrendered long ago. The truth is, I have lost my ability, not my desire, to remain here. I am sorry, my homeland !.
There’s nothing that remains constant. For as long as you rejected a certain idea, something stronger than you eventually come to change your mind about it. How great it would be if that something weren’t a human—but this time, it’s the sea! After the first fleeing of Gazan people from the northern Gaza Strip to the south, after the horrible actions that had taken place, I came to hate the south of Gaza strip. I came to hate the moments when my family spoke about fleeing. Although I didn’t flee with them, but my heart was always with them! Sometimes I sit absent-minded about who truly bore and faced the most struggle, the people who lived in the southern Gaza Strip or the northern, but when I remember that the criminal is one, I close the thought by saying, "All Gazan people struggle to live!" The day before, I ventured for what I had always dismissed! Yesterday morning, I woke up as routine every day; there were no alarms, because the sounds of the explosions, the wails of bereaved mothers, and the screams of children had become the alarms that never stop! I ate my breakfast with my family. We were engaged in the usual depressing news, and as usual, we turned it into jokes just to keep going through our days! My father said an something outrageous, that he wanted to go to the southern of Gaza, specifically Deir al-Balah city for a couple of days. He wanted to make some work related matter, planned to return to Gaza. Everyone was shocked, because we all know this decision wasn’t easy at all, even the name " south of Gaza strip" alone terrified us. I listened to that idea, and my mind kept saying, "It’s unthinkable to go with him." My little sister encouraged me to go with my dad. I can say what motivated her was her search for life—normal life, for a glimmer of hope that had disappeared in Gaza, and for air she could breathe freely. Maybe she would find anything! After I had completely refused to go to the southern Gaza Strip, I agreed without much hesitation—more than I had expected, but perhaps like my sister, I was searching for a life that might exist in another city! We packed our bags quickly. I took with me many things that I would need, and because the same fearful thought still haunted me—that I will stay there like my family, for fourteen months without permission to return to Gaza, I took all that I needed. We moved around 11AM: my father, my little sister, and I. There were a huge number of families fleeing in the street, carrying whatever their backs could carry, whatever remained from their homes, leaving their loved ones behind them, and moving far from rockets that could kill them, or the rockets would keep them in pain without the ability to heal, because the injuries would be stronger than what doctors could treat, and the lack of medical equipment didn’t help at all. While my dad was driving, suddenly the three cars in front of us turned back, because there was a bombed robot at Al-Dahdooh roundabout! Our faces changed, as if they had hit a wall. At that moment I could hear my heart thudding in my ears. My dad murmured the prayers, my sister and I with him. After hearing this news, my dad changed our destination and turned onto another street. We spent about three and a half hours to reach Deir al-Balah city, causing the fleeing of the Gazan families, who were carrying their belongings and memories on their backs in bags. While they were still searching for the peace, they had forgotten how to feel alive. We reached the city. The view that caught my eyes was the sea. When I saw it, I remembered that there is a life worth living and a force we can draw from it. After we reached our place, we set down our bags and took a deep breath of the sea air, trying to find the strength to persist. My father told us we would stay here for three days, so I decided to take these three days as a break—from everything, from my university, work, social media, and anything that would stress me, even from people who might bother me. I thought I could make such a decision, in my hometown, and especially in the war, so I just wanted to try. I spent those days like a person, trying to reshape all her city, in the way that she desired. This attempt forced me to wear a fabricated smile in a bleak world, tried to forget stress, that I remember it in the faces of the Gazan people around me. I was chasing beauty, peace, and a life that had already vanished. One day during these three days, our neighbors came to us, to share words and discover one another. They introduced themselves by saying, this is my sister whose husband died, this is my nephew’s photo who died, due to the lack of medical equipment, we have been fleeing since the first day of this war!, and…….. Is that how a person introduces himself?! While the dialogue took a turn that I hadn’t planned, I didn’t want to narrate stories similar to theirs, if not grimmer. I was just trying to change the conversation, to hear about their lives—before the war. I would have forgiven them if they had lied to me, even though that would be uncharacteristic of me. After that night I preferred not to go to them, because I was just taking a three-day break! On the second day, my sister and I went to the place that motivated me to come, a place no force could conquer or destroy—the sea! Or the homes of many Gazan people, who had pitched their tents on the sandy shores to live there, so if I wanted to cross the sea, I had to walk past their tents. I sat on the sands of the sea with my sister, talking about anything but war, until a strange girl joined us. She told us about her martyred brother, about the last thrilling moments before her fiancé was killed shortly after the next day of their engagement, and about the things I had been running from, but these kinds of stories still haunted me, even coming from this stranger whose first name I knew! She gave us her number to see her every day, at the same place. But my resistance forced me to delete her number, as I am satisfied with what I had been living like with these stories. I don’t wanna know more! On the third day we were convinced that there was no escape, because every detail reminded us of the war, and this is the shape of the life that I must live in! We left Deir-Al-Balah at about 6:45. At first the road was clear; there were countless families fleeing from Gaza to the southern Gaza Strip, carrying their belongings on the cars, their children, and all that the war had left them with. The features of the street had been effaced entirely, wiped away as though nothing had ever existed there, like a city of ghosts! Because of the traffic, we moved to another road, but it was sandy, so a lot of cars weren’t able to move easily; a lot of them broke down, and their wheels stuck, but we were with one heart, helping each other as much as we could; we were all facing the same nightmares. Our car was moving ordinarily, and suddenly the engine fan stopped working. Because we were still in the traffic, my father tried to fix it, but it needed a lot of water, which we didn’t have, nor did the other drivers around us. By the mercy of Allah, we met a lot of my dad’s friends; one helped us push the car, and another gave us a rope to tie our car to the van that was in front of us. After these struggles and the traffic that was, we spent eight hours just to reach Gaza; they were really hard hours, but because we successfully returned to our city, all of these troubles felt easy to bear.
The night was eerily silent. A fragile tent trembled in the wind, its fabric ripped at the edges. I was breathing in fear, trying to bury my thoughts… until the sound came. A single scream. But it was no ordinary scream. It seemed to rise from the very heart of the earth, from the depths of pain, from a place no one should have to bear. I leapt from my spot, my body shaking uncontrollably, my heart pounding as if it would burst from my chest. Barefoot, I ran out of the tent, not knowing where… only running toward the scream. People spilled from their tents, faces frozen, eyes wide with shock. Then I saw her… the mother. She was crouched on the ground, hitting her chest, pulling her hair, screaming: *"My only son… he’s been killed! My son is gone!"* Her voice shook the air like an earthquake. Her cries pierced everything, stopping the world around us. Her sisters collapsed beside her, screaming with her, clinging as if they could hold her from falling into an endless abyss. Her son had been missing for two days. He had gone to fetch water and food from the aid distribution center… and never returned. That night, his photo appeared online, listed among the “martyrs.” I was there. I saw the moment she broke, saw how a person could turn into a heap of grief, how the body screams when words fail. I felt as if I broke with her, as if I had lost her son too, as if I could not bear the weight. And in that moment, questions flooded my mind like a storm: *Who gave them the right to take her only son? How can a heart survive such a blow? How will she live the rest of her life with this emptiness? How will she see the world now—through eyes clouded with grief and betrayal? Who will compensate her for this loss, this wound that will never heal? Will she ever believe this truly happened… and somehow continue?* The night, the scream, the faces, the silence that followed… everything felt larger than life. It was like living a heavy dream that never ended—it was reality itself. Since that moment, I have not been the same. Every time I close my eyes, I return there: to the scream, to the collapse, to the helplessness. As if my heart remains trapped in that tent, in that night, in that moment. Imagine yourself there… Could you bear it? Or would you collapse in silence?
Imagine being there—inside the building you lived in, just as the missile struck and the floors collapsed above you. Trapped beneath a mountain of stone, unsure whether this is your final day, or merely the beginning of endless torment. The world above continues, while you lie buried in thick silence—so thick that your heartbeat is louder than any other sound. The air is heavy. Dust fills your lungs. And the darkness… unlike any darkness you've ever known. It’s the darkness of loneliness, of waiting, of fearing that no one will find you. Your hand is wounded, outstretched, utterly powerless. Your mouth tries to whisper, “I’m here”… but your voice is hoarse, and the echo offers no reply. Around you, perhaps a little girl no older than five, clutching her doll. Or a mother, shielding her child with her body, even if she cannot protect herself. Maybe an old man, struggling for breath, wishing he could glimpse daylight just one more time. Under the rubble, there are no names or identities. No nationalities or addresses. There is only a human… who wants to live, to be seen, to be rescued. Can you imagine the waiting? Hour after hour, wondering: Is anyone still searching for me? Will they remember I was here? And if no one comes… will your body become just a number? Will your grave read: “Unknown Martyr”? Will your mother weep without knowing where you were buried? Outside the rubble, there are faces waiting. A mother stares at the wreckage with teary eyes, clinging to a thread of hope—praying she might hear a cry from you, any sign you're still alive. A father stands silently, barely holding himself together, staring at the ruins as if his gaze alone could lift them. Siblings and friends hold their breath with every stone lifted, caught between the fear that you might be gone… and the desperate hope that rescuers will pull you out alive. But time is heavy… and the minutes pass like knives. Perhaps they will reach you in time; perhaps they will pull out your body without a breath left. In either case, the agony is the same: you are there, and they are here—and hope between you may die in any moment. These are not just “victims.” They are us—me, you, our brothers, our friends. They are people who had mornings, small plans, a half-finished cup of tea, a fleeting laugh, a message left unsent. Every stone that falls is another silence. Every passing minute extinguishes a life… yet beneath the rubble, the silence still screams. But we are not just victims. We are the ones who write, scream, and resist from beneath the rubble. We are the hearts still beating through the dust, the eyes still seeing through the dark. And if the world abandons us, we will not abandon each other. We will tell our stories, carry our names, and rebuild life from the shattered stones. Because Gaza does not die… Gaza is reborn—in every child who survives, in every mother who endures, in every voice that refuses to be silenced.
The calendar turns its pages day by day, and the war continues relentlessly to steal pieces of us, without permission, and without return. Time is too weak to serve as a solution—to forget what we couldn’t bear to hear or what we weren’t ready for. For about a year and a half, I have been unable to move past a certain piece of news. During that time, I have imagined my life without truly knowing it. Sometimes, I even wished not to know the truth and live in an illusion, because now I understand why ignorance is bliss. It was a habit for me to touch base with my acquaintances and friends to know they are well. With them, I share my joy to grow and my sorrows to diminish. There was a person who is unique, whom you have only once in a lifetime, like a chance that can’t be repeated. She was a friend I called often to hear her voice and to find the meaning of life. At the beginning of this war, I was texting and calling my friend—Shahed, but I received no answer. At that time the phone connection was really poor. It was hard to deliver or receive the two-words message "We survived," whether from my family or my friends. Every now and then, I tried to call my friend Shahed whenever I remembered her, in the morning or at night, and when the connection was possible, but the answer was the same—there was no reply. I recall once withdrawing from the gathering of my uncle’s family, who had taken refuge in my home at that time, hoping to hear or see any news about Shahed, but after the same reply, a terrible thought haunted me—that she passed away. I put down the phone and left my place, trying to escape the thought of this probability. I felt anxious about these calls, so I went to ask her cousin about her. The frightening thing was she had been reading my messages and didn’t reply a word! I left her as well, and still a shadow of hope drifted upon the sea of despair. One random day, I was scrolling on my phone, and I saw what I had always dismissed—the thing I had been too afraid to even think of. Shahed’s cousin had published a story on Instagram: a prayer for a girl named Shahed, saying she had martyred. I stopped in her story, rereading the words meticulously. Maybe my eyes had scrambled the order of the letter’s name, or there was a typo in the words, but regretfully, I found no mistake, but hope couldn’t be lost so easily, so I decided the story couldn’t be about my friend. I was chasing the shadow of a light in a cave, lying about what my eyes saw, and imprisoning evil thoughts that stuck in my mind. I wanted to stop this struggle, so I asked Shahed’s cousin about Shahed again, and I waited, as I always did—in every heavy moment, bracing my eyes to read anything. While she hadn’t replied yet, I went to pray Al-Asr prayer, and my sister was holding my phone at that time. She told me carefully, fearing to see the reaction that would appear on my face. She told me Shahd’s cousin had replied, so I asked her to read her message. She told me Shahed was martyred! A tear welled in my eyes—refusing to fall. I sat on the chair, clinging to it as though it alone could steady my faltering balance. I sat, absent-minded, while my eyes could see only random forms merging into chaos. Now there was no escape as before, no more excuses; I had proof that she had been killed. I realized I had been searching for a glimmer of hope that didn’t exist. How I wished she hadn’t replied to me, leaving me without an answer that coiled around my neck! I didn’t know where or when she had killed; I didn’t even dare to ask. And sometimes I thought it wouldn’t matter to ask; she simply passed away. I was in shock, holding my grief in my heart. Although I have received so much news of friends lost in this war—and the news still comes—I was neither willing nor ready to hear that "Shahed" was one of them. Not long after—during the truce they had forged, after stripping us of peace—I was scrolling on my laptop, and I saw a video showing the recovery of martyrs from a shattered house, and suddenly I realized Shahed was one of them. She had been martyred along with her entire husband’s family. The crushing war had left no chance to bring them out earlier, but now they were finally being carried out. Is this the manner in which we bid farewell to our dearest friends?! From a cold mobile screen, impenetrable to the hands that once caressed it, and deaf to the words that we shared at midnight. I couldn’t give her a final glance or attend her funeral procession—the least I could have done for her, but I couldn’t! She moved away, but she still present before my eyes—in the faces I see every day. I see a girl who looks like her, like her little sister, like her brother—so many faces that remind me of her. The first time that I had seen a girl who seemed like Shahed’s sister, I stared at her in surprise, my heart throbbing with fear, while my mind urged me to rush forward to ask her about Shahed. But then I banished that notion and began to think of the same questions: whom would I ask her about? For a dead person? Is there any answer that could bring her back to life?! I used to always mention to her a specific verse from the Holy Qur’an whenever she felt sorrow: { لَا تَدْرِي لَعَلَّ اللَّهَ يُحْدِثُ بَعْدَ ذَلِكَ أَمْرًا } But now I want her to remind me of this verse, for I am the one who feels sorrow. Now, it’s too late; the matter has changed from my mentioning it to her to remembering her whenever I hear or read the verse. She isn’t dead; she is present everywhere, in the faces of people around me, in my current diaries as she was in my childhood diaries, in the images and the paper letters that have become just heavy memories, in my dreams, in my prayers while I prostrate, and in every detail of my life! When I learned this news, I refused to call or ask any of my acquaintances, for I am not willing to face the shock of another's loss. I preferred to live in the last moment, when we laughed together. I don’t want to see them bid me farewell from a far and dark place and to meet only their faces among the living people around me!
In Gaza, death is not the end. It’s the beginning of another kind of agony — the search for those who are no longer whole. Some are killed without a trace, without a name, without a final goodbye. They are buried under the label “Unknown,” as if they were never sons, brothers, neighbors, or dreams walking the earth. Imagine your brother among the bodies. You walk between them, searching for something familiar. A face? Gone. A hand? Maybe severed. A shirt? Torn, but it looks like his. You call your father, voice trembling: “Dad… what shirt was my brother wearing?” You ask again. And again. He replies, confused: “Why?” You say: “There’s a martyr here. No name. But his shirt… it looks like my brother’s.” Your father answers: “No, your brother came back.” And then the tears come. But what kind of tears are these? Relief? Guilt? Grief for the one lying before you? You kneel beside the body, kiss what’s left of a forehead, whisper a prayer, apologize to the martyr for not being there… and walk away. But that martyr was not unknown. He was someone. He had a name, a laugh, a home, a mother waiting, maybe a brother searching elsewhere. He had a voice — maybe he was singing minutes before the strike. He had a life, and it was stolen. In Gaza, some mothers don’t know where to direct their grief. Some fathers don’t know whether to mourn or keep searching. Some siblings don’t know whether to cry, wait, or apologize for not being there. And what if it were you? What if your body lay among the nameless, and no one could tell it was you? What if your family searched for days, hoping for a sign, a scar, a shirt — anything to say: “This was ours”? What if your name was never spoken again, and your story ended in silence? “Unknown”? No. They are known in the hearts that break every day. They are the sons of sleepless homes. The dreams that never got to grow. The names that were never spoken in a final farewell. And in each of them, we might see ourselves. A brother. A son. A friend. And maybe, for a moment, we realize how close we are to being erased, forgotten, buried beneath the word: “Unknown.” But we remember them. We mourn them. We write — so they are never lost again. _We speak their names — so the world never dares to forget._
Suddenly, without warning, we were torn from our time—a time that kept pace with life—and thrown into another. A time when everything vanished. No internet, no electricity. It was as if we were in the Stone Age. All we knew of the outside world was the ceaseless sound of explosions and the shadows of ruin that surrounded us. During those long days of silence and waiting, my grandfather was always lying on the green grass in the middle of our rustic yard, a radio by his side, listening around the clock. Every so often, we would ask, "Grandpa, is there anything new?" until the black of night fell. We had to minimize any conspicuous light, for the occupation hunts us more fervently at night—they made us hate the night. We brought out chairs and gathered, as usual, around my grandfather. He lowered the radio's volume. The day's news summaries had been recited, and now the political analyses of the war began among those seated, clinging to the hope that it would not last long. "They'll have no targets left after six months," they'd say. "Of course, it will end." Then, from the radio, we heard a sound we know all too well, unmistakable to any heart or ear. The sound of tragedy at the very moment it strikes. In the background, a tone rises that cannot be put into words. It is not a scream, nor a cry, but something in between... something unutterable. The news anchor's voice trembled as he spoke: the occupation had committed a massacre, it had bombed Al-Ahli "Al-Ma'amadani" Hospital in Gaza City. A hospital! A wave of continuous weeping swept over us in a single moment. Hundreds of souls were stolen, souls that had sought refuge in a place they believed would protect them. A massacre that took with it new victims, dignity, feelings, memories, and future dreams. It was a clear declaration, there is no safe place in Gaza. That moment was the point at which all hope for the world to act ceased. Time kept moving, but without a sound, without an action. In that silence, I remembered a scene from an old cartoon, where a character was trapped inside a small glass bottle, desperately trying to scream for help, but his voice was trapped, muffled. Here we are, pleading with the world, screaming, but the bottle remains sealed, and the curtain remains drawn. I do not know if they have reached such a high state of apathy, or if their minds are shielding them from what they see, knowing that if they truly let it in, they would collapse. But of course, neither can be justified. They stand by, feigning helplessness before us, until our voices fade, and we disappear. For me, the greatest danger in this bloodbath we are submerged in is not the loss of life, but the loss of faith. I don't mean the loss of faith in Allah, but the loss of faith in humanity. This is why I believe that words alone will not change a thing. Yet, I still try to assemble them. Before they ban dreams. Before they ban thought. Before they finish burning the city and the hearts within it. Now, we await the end, even if it is death. Isn't it strange to wait for death when it already visits us every day? I came to understand that we are waiting for anything that makes our lives livable. We wait for what has happened to be undone, for a magical solution, for a savior to come from afar and soothe our tormented hopes. We wait for a future where we can return to the past, to our safe, comfortable, and genuine zones, or so we once believed. Yesterday, I did not sleep. The illumination flares, the constant shelling, the fear of repeating the nightmare of displacement that haunts my mind, and the questions that relentlessly gnaw at my thoughts without mercy or pause. And yet, I was expected to wake up in the morning to study chapters for a course I had long postponed. I looked at the paper, then at the window... watching the white trail in the sky after every blast. The black smoke... even the sky could no longer bear it; it took its blueness and vanished. It feels like a party I have long lost the will to attend—a party of terror, anxiety, and loss. I want to go home.
With a shattered heart, I write these words. In Gaza, death comes easily — but dignity is a luxury we are denied. Do you want to understand what I mean? Let me tell you a short story about a man who received the most devastating news: his father had been killed, innocent and unarmed. He rushed to the hospital, only to discover an even crueler truth — five more of his family members had also been killed. Defenseless civilians. Gone in an instant, for no reason. Each step toward the hospital felt like walking through fire, every heartbeat heavier than the last. He stood frozen. He couldn’t even cry — the grief was too big for tears. Shock gripped him, and his world collapsed in a heartbeat. But the hardest part hadn’t come yet. He just wanted to bury them — to honor them, at the very least. But even that was stolen from him. The landowner demanded $1,000 just to allow their burial. One thousand dollars for the right to lay your loved ones to rest. He struggled — desperate, shattered, feeling the weight of the world pressing down on his shoulders, his soul screaming in silence. He borrowed from neighbors, asked friends, sold what little he had, even pawning treasured belongings, each action cutting deeper into his grief. His hands trembled. His chest ached. Every breath was heavy. Every step hurt. And still, he pushed forward — because even the dead must be honored. In Gaza, life is taken without reason. And even in death, dignity is not guaranteed. Can you imagine standing there, helpless, heart aching, knowing that every goodbye now carried a price, a cruel reminder that even love and memory could be bought? In Gaza, death is easy. But dignity — even in death — is denied.
Where can we flee from a world so cold? Where can we run from the lies we’re told? Oh, someone hear our silent cries, And save us under darkened skies. From killers’ hands and hollow eyes, From evil schemes that never die. We can’t endure — we’ve borne too much, Our souls still ache for a gentle touch. We dreamed once, as children dream, Of skies so bright, of oceans’ gleam. But now those hopes are cracked and dry, Just fading echoes when we cry. Yet no one's there to understand I’m drowning in this broken land. No strength to scream, no will to fight: They’re killing us — do you not see? Oh save what’s left… of you and me Oh world, are you deaf to pain? Blind to loss, to endless rain? We are not numbers, not a score — We are souls you can’t ignore. What if it were your home, your land, Torn apart by ruthless hands? Would you still just turn away, Scroll and sigh, then end your day? The nights are long, the days are bare, Our wounds still bleed, yet none repair. The smoke that chokes, the walls that fall, Do you not hear the children call? Yet deep within, a flame still glows, A spark of hope that ever grows. Through darkest nights, we stand, we fight, Till dawn shall break, till wrong turns right. No chains can bind the human soul, Together strong, we make it whole. With every breath, with every tear, We rise again, defy the fear. And when the dust at last shall clear, The voice of truth will still be near. For every grave, a seed will rise, And bloom beneath the freed-up skies. In every heart, a tale untold, Of courage fierce, of spirits bold. Through storm and fire, we still remain, Unbroken souls, through loss and pain.
It was a night that was supposed to be an ordinary night, but it wasn’t. I recall the nuances of that night, what happened. I hadn’t anticipated being given a chance to recount to you that nightmare night, if only words can truly narrate it! It was the third of April this year, at midnight, when Gazan people knew this wasn’t a time for sleep. I did not feel sleepy, as if I had foreseen what was to come, and so I remained awake, preparing for something that lay hidden in the hours ahead. I was scrolling through videos on my laptop randomly while my mind was filled with thoughts of how trivial these people’s actions were. Or maybe I was judging it by comparing it to what people in my city are interested in. Suddenly I heard a noise—but it wasn’t from the videos I was watching; it was from the window that faced the street. I guessed these sounds were from people fleeing, as usual—fleeing had become routine, so I ignored the sounds and remained in my place, returning to scrolling with a trace of fear. This time, the sounds grew louder than before, so I moved closer to them, and then the night truly started! I saw my mom awake and moving about. She was preparing bags and placing important papers in them. At first glance, I thought my eyes had fabricated a vision before me, so I closed and opened my eyes again and again, but it wasn’t an illusion. I was looking at my mom, and she was silent. I dared to ask her about what was going on. She told me that all people in our area must leave right now; that’s what I came to know. I went to the window, and, surprisingly, it was the same window I mentioned in the last diary, “Pains Creep Through the Window.” Maybe I ought to name this window henceforth the window of pains. I looked out of the window; there were a lot of people—men, women, and children. They were walking without knowing the right direction. The sounds of these agitated people reminded me of what I should do. I went to wake up my sisters and brothers, speaking softly so as not to startle them. They assumed I was rousing them for the Fajr prayer, but in truth, I awakened them to escape terror, not to find serenity in devotion. We wrestled with time to survive, so if anyone was late for a second, he would be in the grave. So, we put the most important stuff in bags and ran to leave this perilous area! We were walking in the street with a lot of people we didn’t know, but we had the same drifting feeling. Step by step we moved farther from our home, and with each step we took, our hearts were throbbing strongly. Dad heard we should go to a school—I forget its name—so we moved to that school. While we moved, my imagination summoned random, haunting, and rapid images and news about school targeting. I felt as if this were the final moment of my life. We reached the supposed area of that school, but we didn’t find it, and we didn’t even find any humans there. We returned to our area—the threatened zone. Suddenly we heard formidable explosions, which were the scariest sounds I had ever heard. Then, my nephews broke down in tears, which sharpened the clamor surrounding us. We were still in the street; the sky was still seeing us. No one knew what we should do, and all we hoped for was that the sky would not see us, for the sky too had become a source from which doom comes. I didn’t know what made my older sister remember our uncle’s home, which we were close to at that time. She knocked on the door strongly; my cousin opened the door, and he really knew why someone had knocked at such a late hour, but this time he didn’t know who the knocker was. He looked at us, realized the fear in our eyes, and saw the fabric bags on our backs, carrying what we had taken from our home inside. We gathered in the living room in my uncle’s home. Each one of us was checking on the other. The sounds of the mighty explosions, which had begun earlier, hadn’t ended. Each one of these explosions was stronger than the last one. My uncle’s wife poured water for us, as if to douse the flames burning within our hearts. The reasons that made these terrible actions increase were that my father and my brothers didn't agree to move very far from our house, so our hearts were torn in two: one fearing for our father and brothers, the other fearing for our home. We had no awareness of what was taking place in the area of our house. While we were sitting in the living room, three women and a kid came to my uncle’s house. At first glance, I didn’t recognize them, nor did my uncle’s wife either. But this didn’t stop her from opening the door and allowing them inside! After a short while, I noticed these three women were our neighbors! I felt no guilt for not knowing them because I believed fear blinds the eyes from recognizing what is in front. In the midst of these horrible situations, a kitty came among us; maybe it was searching for peace that didn’t exist or to create the peace that humans failed to create. It made a gentle atmosphere; we touched the kitty’s fur softly, and we were scared to press upon it suddenly with force—because of the might of the explosions. By the mercy of Allah, the sounds began to slow down little by little, then my cousin told us that my brother had said, "You should return to the house—in two groups." We have been afraid of this idea—dividing us into groups, which had hunted us since the beginning of this relentless war—and we still hoped to push the thought away from our minds. Our uncle’s wife and my uncle suggested that we remain a little longer, but we longed to return home, unable to endure the wait any longer. I was in the second group. I was walking with my sisters and many people in the street. My steps were weighed down with fear: one pressing forward to glimpse the house, the next recoiling, terrified of the truths it might reveal. I dared to look at the house, and I wasn’t able to say anything except "الحمد لله." I was repeating it again and again because there was nothing else I desired to say. We reached the house carefully; the shattered glass was everywhere; all the windows had been blown out into the middle of the house, the doors were buckled, and countless things had fallen into disrepair, but all of that is bearable as long as we and our home are safe. For the neighbor’s houses had sustained significant damage, and the land in front of my house had been bombed—turning all the vans that were there into heaps of scrap. We cleaned the glass on the floor and arranged everything we could at that time—4AM. My nephew, who was about three and a half years old at that time, asked my father in the midst of this chaos, "Grandfather, why didn’t you catch who did this to our house?" The question echoed inside each one of us; my father didn't answer it. He left it unanswered. Maybe he wanted him to realize the answer by himself, as we had, and to understand exactly how this person was and how his allies were.
April 2024 Six months have passed, and not a single corner of my life has been left untouched. After the struggle of being displaced from the sanctuary I now stammer to describe; after being stripped of my life in all its forms; the martyrdom of my loved ones; the knitting of my brows, now accustomed to anger and rejection; the relentless sound of warplanes; the sky reddening at night and the earth trembling with every bombardment; the energy drained in quarrels with fellow exiles; and the countless days overflowing with my prayers to Allah, asking for this agony to end—just end. And yet, nothing is new. I remain in the same small burlap-fenced square, beneath Allah’s blue heaven and the endless hum of the drone—Zzzzzzzz. I gaze at the roof of this nylon room, which filled with the threads of spiderwebs stubbornly settling there despite my mother's and my attempts to disturb their peace. Then I drift into my thoughts, accompanied by an inner voice, wishing I were like these spiders—clinging to my home, refusing to surrender. My wandering mind struggles with the stigma that says whoever leaves their country alone has betrayed it. And yet, the same mind that weaves for me a vision of Gaza, which had embraced us since childhood, and now waves to us from behind the dozens of ruins, sending a fragile light of hope from the depth of the darkness. The earth turns, the clock ticks, and the days pass. Yet this dragon's fire devours our little city, leaving behind only heaps of ash. And I am still here, in the same spot for a year and three months, away from my beloved ones—half of them left this world, and the other half exiled from me. I do not dream of impossible things, just give me back my homeland, my features, my sanctuary, and the self I used to be. January 2025 After a year and three months, we took our first steps back to Gaza. Despite the grey that shrouded the city, I saw our memories pulse with all colors, like movies replayed with sound, image, and the feeling that will never be repeated: Safety. At the start of this year, they had decided to allow us to return on foot to our shattered, beloved land. The moment we had longed for—over a year and three months—had finally arrived! I had almost lost hope of ever seeing its alleys again, but Alhamdulillah, we were granted the chance to enter it once more, to be held by our homes, even if they were only rubble. Here I stand today, on the threshold of what was once called "home." Where the walls that endured all the years now bear the scars of shrapnel, caving untold stories—just as they are etched into our souls. The air is heavy, laden with the dust of memories and the undeniable scent of loss. I try to recognize the features of this place, but they are strange, like the face of an old friend worn by time, nearly unrecognizable. Every corner here that once buzzed with life is now drowned in deafening silence, and every step I take on this rubble is a reverse journey through time. As I search for the echo of a laugh, the remnants of a dream, or even the shadow of a peace that once lived here before being swallowed by the grey light. To be among those whose journey with nylon and canvas rooms and tents has ended, one must be deeply grateful. You are lucky, yet surrounded by anxiety. And even so, it is hard for someone who has always lived with fear to feel joy in tranquility, because at any moment, we could be displaced again—holding the key, reliving memories, waiting for the steps of return that may never come.
It's 8:44 PM. I am sitting and staring at the glittering stars in the sky. This time, I am not listening to a podcast or watching any online videos from the other world. Maybe I can say it's an escape from something I can't escape, from my reality and the circumstances of my town. For a few seconds, I've just been trying, to have a little bit of stillness—a silence I borrow from the heaven—to see the glittering stars that I envy since humans can't control them and they remain unattainable. I keep looking at the sky. Even if the drones mar it, their buzzing breaks the night’s silence, and suddenly change the color of the sky to red, declaring a new tragedy for another family, to be added to an endless list. Now, I think the seconds I have tried to escape my reality have ended before they began. From my place, I can see the street, where many Gazan people are walking. I’ve heard another painful snippet of a conversation from those passing by. From their voices, I guess they are two young men walking after a long and rough day—and that’s what their words demonstrated. One of them said, "I feel I will die; I don’t have a life here." His friend interrupted him to show him sympathy or to ease his sorrow, because I believe in this saying: "Sorrows, when shared, are lessened." His friend replied, "All I have is nothing." Then their voices disappeared, fading in the echoes of this night. They went to another street, far from me, to complete their lament. Maybe there is a person like me, sitting next to the window, hearing these painful voices, and hearing the rest of their dialogue. I don’t want to think of what pushes them to say that. Maybe they have lost what they didn’t imagine losing, and I am sure they have lost far more than I can imagine! The uncanny and agonizing thing is that this isn't the first time that I’ve listened to these kinds of dialogue excerpts, because, from the same window, at different times, my ear caught many sorrowful voices. All of them are events manifested in concise words, for they know the words can’t summarize anything. The second broken dialogue I heard was between a father and his son. And I can guess from the voice of the son that he is young, maybe about 12 years old. How I wished he were older than he was at that time—old enough to bear this kind of responsibility for a kid like him. He said, in a strangled voice of grief, “I don’t wanna sell.” I didn’t hear his father's voice until a few heavy seconds later; he replied: “Why?” The son answered in a fast way, as if he had been waiting to hear this question for a while, but maybe the long wait for this question had left him satisfied with the short words, “There is no reason; I just don’t wanna sell!” A silence prevailed, heavier this time. I remembered stopping what I was doing at that time and just waiting for my ear to catch the father’s reply. Finally, he replied in a forceful and sharp voice, but incapable of any further answer, he said, “Scream aloud, calling out ‘candy.’ That was all. Now go." The child surrendered, realizing there is no way but to agree to sell candy. So, his voice burst forth suddenly, laden with the weight of responsibilities that lay upon him. He called out in a strong voice: "Candy!" I think the son realized that he had become a father now. A father at the age of 14 years old, for children he didn’t give birth to, but a father for the responsibilities this war has brought upon him! Though I could watch them from my window, I didn’t dare to look because I didn't want to see the oppression painted in the father’s gaze. As I have seen many such gazes, they always accompany me every time as if they happened just a minute ago, and until now I haven't forgotten them. Finally, the third dialogue—the last one my memory recalls from that window, not from the whole war—was the most painful one. It was between two young men; they were walking in the street at night. One of them said, “Alhamdulillah; at least he found someone to bury him. We don’t know if we will find one to do this for us!”The two young men walked away, and their voices slowly ebbed away, but there were voices entering my inner thoughts at that time to exhaust me more and more. But why didn’t I hear normal dialogues from this window? Why didn’t the two young men in the first dialogue say, “We have everything we want; this is the life that we want from the place that we feel most at home”? Why the father and his son weren’t fighting to prevent the son from playing basketball and this time to have a rest, not for struggling to make ends meet and survive.” And why weren’t the last two young men talking about “the wedding of that person whom they were talking about, not for his death, and they have a lot of people to share with them this joyful event”? Maybe these kinds of normal dialogues that I want to listen to are happening in the other world that I watch them from in online videos or listen to them by podcasts! This is one of the roughest lessons the war has taught me. I never blame any Gazan person for what he is saying or what he is doing unless I really understand his circumstances and know if he has lost someone or not. I mean, how many has he lost—was it a family member or a friend? Do you know what? It doesn’t matter who has lost. Because the feeling of loss is the same, as he is a ghost, breaking into our life without permission. I will always sit at that window. And maybe I would be alive to hear about peace returning after loss, about laughter ringing with the echo of triumph, and about carrying the promise of tidings long awaited from the conversation between those same people.
How can life become nothing but memories? All we can do is close our eyes—to remember it, to summon it in our distant fantasy. We try to grasp it, hoping to let it happen again! How can we be caught in a shining past and blurred future? We cannot take a step toward it without having to step back twice. Our life has become memories, as if it were a precious museum. In it, we have stored our sweet and bitter moments: delighted words from beloved friends, a surprise from our family, a proud glance from our father. There is the feeling of the moment that we achieved an arduous dream, the pause wrapped in the taste of coffee, and the beauty of walking in the rain after a dry season... All of these tender and passionate feelings that we have been missing for a while, leaving us with nothing but experiences that make our hearts quake. Now we can feel the bitterness of coffee without drinking it—and even if we drink it, its taste has changed. My mom says, "The taste of the coffee changes with its drinker’s mood." Similarly, we can feel the lean seasons without falling the rain; because there are no raindrops that can cleanse our hearts of grief. We lost our beloved people, but we don't own but their words and their images in the dark. They left without farewell or any instructions we could do it for them. They left to take a rest, and to let us proceed the journey—if we still have the strength! Nevertheless, the unbearable reality is this: if our joyful recollections are poured into objects, they can be annihilated with a one touch on a meticulously crafted remote, yet daring to oppose the master of that remote is unthinkable, so in the same way our places that hold all the memories are destroyed along with them, just as the friends we once laughed with have been killed. And if they did not destroy it, they have forced us to burn it, I heard from the people here, they have been burned their belongings—and the memories that held in them—with their recoiling hands and their fiery tears. To use them for temporary purposes, they forced them to burn their child's bed, where a baby once slept, or burn treasured books or even an entire library; to use its wood and paper to cook their food on the fire! Our current life passes, but our words and speech are about the past—on the time before this merciless war. Many of our words take the form of expressions like, "Do you remember when we were...?" or "When did we visit that place before it was destroyed?" On the other hand, our words are about the anonymous future, that there is nothing we can do but wait, we let it to the time; because we do not have any other choice! However, if they have controlled our physical belongings that carry the weight of our memories, they cannot control the memories stored in our minds. These memories are delicately woven, like exhibits in an abandoned museum. Whenever a similar event occurs a word, a smile, even a glance—that once existed in the museum—it opened many doors, letting the light shine again, and reviving a smile, though we have forgotten how to create it now. We alone hold the keys to those doors, and we have freedom to imagine them, to reclaim some of the joy we are missing today. Let us live in the illusion of our joyful memories, beyond anyone’s control, we will roam through those doors, swinging them open and shut at our will, and whenever we choose. It is not wrong to seek life in memory; what is wrong is waiting for the closed doors to open—whether they are the doors of our future or the doors of change in our present circumstances, we hear them slam shut and feel the heavy weight of the silence that follows echoing in our ears. Yet the owners of these keys are merciless—and we do not even wish to encounter them, not even in our dreams!
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.
2023 Hello. It’s Friday around 3 PM In the same place — exile. My aunt called us from my grandmother’s homeland, Lebanon — a land my grandmother left for the love of my Palestinian grandfather. As she does every day, she called to check on all of us, just to see if we have crossed to the other world yet. I’ve never spoken to her since the first day of displacement. I had no energy left in me. Grief swallowed who I was. But today, I said it. “How are you, Auntie?” It wasn’t just a sentence. I wasn’t looking at her face — I was looking behind her. At the stillness around her. I don’t remember what else she said, because my inner voice grew louder, pulling me into the embrace of those safe, tender days that wrapped around every corner of our home. Into the color of our chandelier. Yes, behind my aunt was a chandelier. Would anyone in this world expect pain to come from a chandelier? Yes, we ache from a light fixture, from the door that no longer shuts out the cold, from the fading warmth of the heater long gone, from the absence of our family gatherings, from the silence, from the fragile walls . So much has been stripped from us. But what is ours, is still ours. And we will return. I will return. 2025 We returned. After one year and 5 months We, as Gazans, sat together — somehow trying to process the stages of this endless annihilation. Maybe it was venting. Maybe it was grieving. People who lost everything could do nothing but replay their sorrows over and over again. After much talk, we agreed: There is nothing harder than displacement. Displacement is harder than hunger. And if I gathered every letter in every language, I wouldn’t be able to describe even one feeling I carried while being displaced. And now — once again — the Israeli army is working to tear us away from the remnants of the warmth of our beloved home into yet another exile. Again. I can’t believe it The label “displaced” still clings to my forehead, refusing to leave.
I was listening to Ghayath Almadhoun on a podcast when he said: “I cast an envious glance at writers and poets who were born into different surroundings.” Then the poet’s voice cut off; either the internet or the electricity went out, as usual. Although the silence came suddenly, but it wasn’t sudden for my jumbled thoughts. It slipped into a question that lingered in my mind, as if it tied scattered thoughts and blurred observations into a single thought. The matter turned from simply listening to deeply reflecting on a specific thought. I wanted to complete it with what I had observed and scrutinized. Thus, it became: "I cast an envious glance at writers and poets who were born in settled surroundings. Their words are neither about an occupied homeland nor about ruins and rubble. Their words are about a wish in the sky, about a flower in an orchard, or even about the colors of the rainbow in their land.” Since childhood, I have surrounded myself with Palestinian literature. I feel as if the Palestinian writers and poets have taken it as a vast repository of their tragedies and disappointments. If they try to fly to the sky, they are struck by a spiteful bullet, that reminding them of the black fences that confine them. The ink of their pens is the blood of the martyrs. The pens begin and refuse to place a dot that would suggest satisfaction with the end of the words. Their pens narrate real nightmares, about a family waiting for a tattered piece of paper that would allow them to reunite after years of separation. They tell miserable yet determined attempts, like a little girl trying to write with her left hand after losing her right to an airstrike or a blind bullet. The pen writes easily, without the need for the writer to brainstorm to create detective novels to keep the reader engaged deeply to finish reading the novel. They narrate literally and with actual words; there is no need for metaphors. The literature is stained in red, a spectacle to behold, yet dangerous for any reader who dares to come too close. This is the literature that dropped in my hand and the kind my eyes have read for most of my life. I find myself reading a Nakba novel while living through a present one. I read in the book about the sound of an explosion, and then I heard it exploding in my neighborhood, so I don’t get bored with the reality. I go to read war diaries, and I discuss with other readers about our written reality between the lines at dedicated gatherings, and I find them like me, deeply immersed. I don’t have the time to read Western literature, because sometimes I feel it’s a betrayal. As if there is no trace of reassurance; fear has become the companion, the maze is the compass, the homelessness is the shelter, and the inhalation here has become without exhalation! Maybe this is a reason why I am helpless to write another poem far from the red color, the green color erased from the color wheel here. Maybe we will create another similar and special color for us, recognizing it with us, and we won’t share it with those who don’t understand us. Or maybe if my entire surrounding changed, I would be able to write trivial things and wouldn’t care to share them. Because we are nothing but a mirror of this city, a mixture of it, like a dough that takes shape, and its ingredients are the events and the sorrows of the city. Every event that happened to it is reflected back to us; it rages against us to declare that it is the tyrant. So we turn to paper, hoping we might be able to empty out this chaos; we empty it in random words, in a drawing in black, and recite it in a poem that doesn’t have a title or end; all of it is nightmares, whether in waking or in dreams, and if you ever manage to escape them, tell me how you did it!
"I cast an envious glance at writers and poets who were born into different surroundings." The speaker’s voice dropped—either the internet or the electricity went out, as usual. Even if the silence came suddenly, it wasn’t sudden for my jumbled thoughts. It slipped into a question that lingered in my mind, tying scattered thoughts and blurred observations into a single one. The matter turned from simply listening to deeply contemplating a specific thought; I wanted to complete it with what I had observed and reflected upon. Thus, it becomes: "I cast an envious glance at writers and poets who were born in settled surroundings. Their words are not about an occupied homeland, nor about ruins and rubble. Their words are about a wish in the sky, about a flower in an orchard, or even about the colors of the rainbow that never fade from their land." I find no similarity between the Palestinian literature and Western literature. I don’t know why I get fits of hysterical laughter when I read to the writers or poets of Western literature when they are embodying their greatest tragedies, as if all they have left is suicide as the only solution and end. Do you know what their pen narrates? It narrates about a lover and his beloved, about self-development in ideal circumstances, or about a detective novel they fabricate to spark a little excitement and obsession in the reader, keeping them turning the pages of the novel and finishing reading it. But what about the literature of my homeland? The ink of the pen is the blood of the martyrs. The pen begins and refuses to place a dot that would suggest satisfaction with the end of the words, as if it were a burning ember whose flame never dies out. Their pen narrates about a family waiting for a tattered paper that would allow them to reunite after years of separation, it narrates about miserable yet determined attempts of a little girl trying to write with her left hand after losing her right one to an airstrike or a blind bullet. The pen narrates easily, without the need for the writer to brainstorm to create detective novels. They narrate literally and with actual words, then the foreign writer reads them as if they were metaphors. The literature is stained in red, a spectacle to behold, yet dangerous for any reader who dares to come too. I find myself reading a Nakba novel while living through a present one. I read in the book about the sound of an explosion, and then I heard it exploding in my neighborhood, so I don’t get bored with reality. I go to read war diaries, and I discuss with readers about our written reality between the lines at dedicated gatherings, and I find them like me, deeply immersed. I don’t have the time to read Western literature, because at times I sometimes feel it’s a betrayal, as if there is no trace of reassurance; fear has become the companion, the maze is the compass, the homelessness is the shelter, and the inhalation here has become without exhalation! Maybe this is a reason why I am helpless to write another poem far from the red color, the green color erased from the color wheel here. Maybe we will create another similar and special color for us, know it with us, and we won’t share it with those who don’t understand us. Or maybe if my entire surrounding changed, I would be able to write trivial things and wouldn’t care to share them. Because we are nothing but a mirror of this city, a mixture of it, like a dough that takes shape, and its ingredients are the events and the sorrows of the city. Every event that happened to it is reflected back to us; it rages against us to declare that it is the tyrant. So we turn to paper, hoping we might be able to empty out this chaos; we empty it in random words, in a drawing in a black color, and recite it in a poem that doesn’t have a title or end; all of it is nothing but nightmares whether in waking or in dreams,, and if you ever manage to escape them, tell me how you did it!
Born in Gaza - as though that were a terrorist crime demanding my horrific execution. A small reminder, in case my ashes still whisper: I am human, still feel, and once had dreams .. Even after nearly two years of doors slamming shut again and again in my face, I still cradle those dreams within me - quiet , breathless , starving with me , bleeding beside me - far from missile shards, the thunder of explosions, the stench of death, and those bewildering evacuation orders. They say dreams are stubborn, but I've watched mine flinch at every detonation . And now I wonder .. will my dreams perish when I am martyred? Or can they emerge, surviving, from beneath the ruins of my soul ? Would they choose to remain in a world that watched our torment unfold for decades - eyes wide open, yet mouths sealed? and stood silent, arms folded - a world bloated with slogans of human rights and noble causes, yet powerless to offer a crumb to a starving soul .. just because we are from Gaza! Stay indifferent, as always. I'm just a martyr, whispering final words before I'm reduced to fragments - and by morning, my name will fade, as if I never existed. When I was little - before my bones learned to grow, they learned how to shrink under rubble. Before I knew my own name, I memorized the names of missiles. In one of my favorite cartoons, Ben 10, I used to watch Ben and his cousin Gwen save the world, shield the weak, and defy evil with courage. I always wished to stand beside them. As a child, I truly believed a hero's shield could stop missiles - So I dreamed of building one like Gwen’s. But real life taught me: in Gaza, you don't get to be the hero... You just pray not to be the target! Years later, I grew older . And instead of surrendering, I chose AI - not to fight, but to save. And maybe, just maybe, to become the hero I never saw arrive. Three weeks into university, the apocalypse struck. My campus - one of the few places I felt I truly belonged - was obliterated. Because in Gaza, we are cursed to wander until death claims us ! Despite it all, I did not surrender.. because "Resistance is a continuous purpose", so I decided to pursue my path through self-learning, I was forced to fight draining battles, alongside the savage war that consumed my life - battles born of scarce connection, faltering internet, and relentless power outages, as though knowledge itself were a forbidden incantation meant to destroy this planet. Still, I carried on with what little I had, clutching my fragile dream - flaming with hardship - in trembling hands, to one day craft a machine, a robot. For humanity, not nationality. I would name it "Noor" - "The light", so it might become the light for those whose lives were darkened by evil, whose dreams were buried without mercy, until silent, starving resistance could bloom in a form that transcends all the hell this world has drowned in. But how long could a childhood dream like mine endure beneath the weight of such ruthless, merciless weaponry? The missiles outpaced my thoughts, and the thunder of explosions drowned out even my most desperate cries. Bit by bit, the strength that held me together began to fracture - until the verdict was cast: We are surrounded now. Encircled by rigged machines, robotic instruments of annihilation, built not to protect but to erase us - to scour our existence off the face of this earth. And so “Noor” collapsed before it could ever shine. Perhaps the final question I ask is this: What kind of darkness must reside in a heart to craft such a grotesque weapon - as though pain were a mathematical equation that could be engineered? And what of those who bore witness to every form of inventive slaughter - who watched tens of thousands of us perish while they yawned and scrolled past with casual indifference? No reaction. No outrage. Just a single tap: “Skip.” So dear humans in this "fair" world.. You abandoned us. I suggest you don’t gaze too long into the mirror, lest you catch a glimpse of our blood - tattooed as a stain of shame on the forehead of your counterfeit humanity. I hope you’re granted a natural death, with a whole body - not hungry, not afraid, nor dizzy from the tremors caused by the detonation of residential blocks around you. Because we are the ones who truly know the grotesque weight of death in that form. And I wished I could hope that your conscience rests as ours - but you possess no conscience at all. End of story. Thanks for wasting your precious time on this trivial nonsense. Now, You may return to your day… to live. And I shall remain where I am, waiting for my turn… to die.
After he had stayed in the loneliness of the well, there came one to liberate him to bring out the light from within him; those who threw him to the pit are the ones who were supposed to raise him to the top. It’s 10:44 PM, where I am sitting and emptying the ideas that haunt me before the power goes out and before the ideas fade away from my mind. But it’s strange that my city’s people and I went through what happened to this man— Prophet Yusuf—, peace be upon him, we were dropped to the well too, in its utter darkness, by their injustice, I don’t think they were ten as Yusuf’s siblings, rather, they were much more, the count doesn’t matter now as much as the crime that occurred, as for their silence and lies, God, how alike we are, but we were absolutely certain of their silence, as they were silent several times before, because this wasn't the first time, that they dropped us into the well, they dropped us several times, but this time the darkness is deeper, they are making excuses, claiming helplessness, and we fully realize that they are pretending that. We don’t care to become kings as Yusuf—peace be upon him—became later; all that matters is survival. As for forgiving them, this is a very heavy burden; I don't think any one of us would be so naive as to discard it and simply move on. We see the homeland through the cracks of the well; through two lean years, we see the city lost its identity, as if Allah had just created it, but it left traces that point to the existence of injustice by its rapists, so this time the doom wasn’t for the nations that denied their messengers; rather, it’s for oppressed Muslim people, and the situation remains the same. This final full stop is a doubtful stop because a full stop in linguistics means the end of the actions, but here it didn’t and will never end. I find myself wondering, my mind drifting away, about what is possible for the writer "Gharib Asqalani" to write in his book "The Taste of Sleep" about Gaza, after he wrote about what we were living, and for me, I consider what we were living to be a heaven, but there was a fire that was blazing up and subsiding, but now it is a fire that hasn’t subsided yet. I think he will not be capable of writing about what happened in these two years because he once said this before: "There is no description, for the description is shorter than the described." I could say he shaped it for us, prepared it for us, left it for us, and walked away. Did you understand from the beginning of the diary that we are still waiting for those who would liberate us from the well? I reconsider what I said; I retract what I said because it’s too late, our hope has been dashed, and the rope of the well that once hung there has burned away. This time we will save ourselves. I know the path's features have yet to take shape, but maybe we will dig the tunnel of freedom with our empty hands, using the cunning and wisdom of our ancestors, the prayers of bereaved mothers, and the strength of our men, which resembles the burning power of the sun that is beyond the reach of anyone to extinguish the power of its flame.
We are in the second half of 2025! But yesterday I was imagining achieving one of my dreams in the second half of 2023! Why 2023?! Because the time in my hometown has been frozen Since the 7th of October, 2023, and until now, I have been incapable of seeing the horizon line of the end! But isn’t that enough? Haven’t the criminals had enough from permitting bloodshed? Weren’t the hearts of the humans wrung with pain about what has been going on? Didn’t the bodies resting on plush leather chairs decide to denounce even a little, or are they still afraid of removal from their positions? The answers for these questions are still empty; the only things that I have are my pen, question marks, and exclamation marks. And I think the ink of the pen will run out, and the question marks and exclamation marks will be stealing glances from some of the people! Maybe, but I hope not. I don’t want to use exclamation marks for only critique. I wanna use them when I take a picture of myself in the courtyard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, when the mother of the prisoner is heralded with the glad tidings about her son’s release from captivity. When I am touching the Kaaba’s covering without being drained after crossing the limits between it and between the cities between my town. When I understand a new Quranic miracle while reading the Quran. I wanna use them when I describe the beauty of my mom’s smile and when I am listening meticulously to my dad’s guffaw to create a musical theme of it and play it when life betrays me. I wanna use them when I checkmate the king of my opponent when I am playing chess. when I fix a programmer error immediately when it appears in the code. I am using it now because I am writing my diary in the same diaries notebook that I was using when I was a kid in the fifth grade in elementary school, but now I am writing in it as a writer! I wanna use exclamation marks just with joy, delight, and tidings only. Basmala.
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.
It feels… surreal every single day. I wake up here, in my room in Cape Town. The mountain is visible sometimes, shrouded in mist, and there is the usual student buzz outside—people talking about classes, assignments, and weekend plans. And I go to UWC. I sit in lectures, open textbooks, and try to focus on theories and concepts that suddenly feel utterly detached from reality—my reality. Because my reality is also... Gaza. Simultaneously. All the time. Six months. I lived through six months of the genocide. Saw things. Felt things. Heard things. The kind of things that carve themselves into your soul and rearrange your understanding of the world forever. Then, a path opened, a chance to come here, work, study, and be safe. And I took it. Part of me knows it is important, necessary even, for the future, rebuilding, having a voice that perhaps the world might listen to a little more readily from here than from there. But another, louder part of me screams with guilt. How can I sit here, in a quiet library, surrounded by books and the mundane comfort of stable electricity and readily available food, when my family… my mother, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, my friends… are living minute by minute? How can I read about history, economics, or computer science when their history is being destroyed before my eyes, their economy is non existent while the only computing they care about is whether a signal might briefly appear to send a single, life-affirming text message? The hunger pangs they must feel, the gnawing, constant hunger. It is not just a physical sensation; it is a terror. Knowing your children are starving, and you have nothing. Nothing. This thought haunts me during lectures. I stare at the professor and hear the words. Still, my mind is conjuring images of empty shelves, distended bellies, and the sheer panic of not being able to feed the people you brought into this world. And the danger. Oh, God. Every single second. Will today be the day the building falls? Will the drone strike hit their shelter? Will the sniper take a shot? The fear is a physical ache in my own chest, a mirror of the constant, bone-deep terror they must be living with. A phone call, when it rarely comes through, is a tightrope walk between desperate relief that they are still alive and the agony of hearing the weariness, the fear, the lack in their voices. They try to be strong for me, I know. And I try to sound strong and hopeful for them. But we both know the truth. Being here feels like a betrayal. A profound, agonizing separation. Yes, I can work on PalestinianCauses from here. I can help amplify voices, build the platform, and connect with people outside. This work is fueled by everything I lived and everything my family is living now. It's the only way I can make sense of being here, that this distance isn't just comfort for me but a tool for them, us, and our future. But the internal storm is relentless. The guilt is a heavy cloak. The worry is a constant knot in my stomach. I see students complaining about Wi-Fi speed or exam stress, and a part of me wants to scream. Don't they know? Can't they see? Is it really possible to exist in such parallel universes? Studying here is not a privilege I can basically enjoy. It is a responsibility that is crushing me. It is a race against time. A race to acquire skills, build networks, and strengthen PalestinianCauses so that if my family survives, if our people can return and rebuild, there will be something or anything tangible to contribute. Every theory I learn, every line of code I write, feels stained with the dust and blood of Gaza. It is an education paid for with suffering. I carry Gaza with me into every classroom, every meeting, every quiet moment of study. It is the ghost in the machine, the unwritten chapter in every textbook, the silent scream behind every academic discussion. This is the weight of witnessing from a distance. This is what it feels like to study at UWC while my home, family, and people are being destroyed. It is a complex, unbearable burden, lifted only slightly by the desperate hope that it can, somehow, be turned into a tool for justice, for rebuilding, for a future where such a diary entry would be an artifact of a terrible past, not a reflection of a brutal present. The ink feels heavy tonight. The thoughts are a tangled mess. But this is the truth, unfiltered. This is my diary from the eye of the storm, far away yet inextricably bound.
The screen is finally showing the right thing. The crucial update is live. My eyes ache, raw and tired after a night glued to this monitor. It is 05:08 in the morning. Another night vanished into pixels and problem-solving here in Cape Town. I have been battling a stubborn issue that made it difficult, sometimes impossible, for new diaries to be perfectly saved and displayed on The Truth Museum pages. It is not a simple fix; it is one of those deep-seated snags that required taking everything apart and carefully putting it back together, testing every angle—hour after hour. And all those hours, I kept thinking of them. I think of L and M, whose incredible work involves preparing these vital testimonies and are eagerly awaiting the chance to see people's diary submissions flood into our new Museum. I think of N, whose outstanding art needs a solid platform for the world to see and who shares that excitement for this new space where we will collect the truth. Gym Rat, who is trying to gauge how our message is landing, needs the site to be consistently functional to understand our reach. They could not help me hunt down a digital problem; their fight is a different kind of urgent, physical, and immediate. They only need the tools to work whenever they get a window of possibility. Now, you understand how the pressure came from tonight. It is not the code itself – the logic, the structure. I trust the effort that I put in and the tests I write to catch the easy stuff. The real fight lies in forging a lifeline strong enough to bear the weight of the realities it connects. It is the awareness that my inability to fix this tonight means another delay for L and M trying to get a new diary online during a brief power window tomorrow. It describes another moment where someone outside, searching for truth, might hit a broken link. I feel intensely personal, this fight against a digital wall, knowing the actual walls and blockades they face constantly. So I pushed through the exhaustion, the frustration. Coffee cooled, and the sky outside began to lighten. It is not about proving I can fix the bug. It is about removing an obstacle between a voice in Gaza and the world that needs to hear it. Seeing that final confirmation – that the update is live and the system is accepting new entries correctly – felt like opening a small, vital channel just a little wider. It is 05:08 in the morning. My small victory here ensures the path is ready for their monumental courage in my homeland. The fight continues on screens and the ground, connected by threads of determination and the unwavering power of truth.
I don’t know what I should name this. Is this a diary, or is it a summary of stories that can’t be summarized? Who said that words can describe what we have been living through? There are horrible stories you’re not ready to hear; stories we thought only happened in the movies we watched—but this time, we were the victims in the film! Everyone in this goddamn world was watching us, but no one took a real action! We were living in one of the highest population densities in the world, under gunfire, bombs, rockets, and flare bombs, yet to the world, it was as if nothing was happening. I saw homelessness, loss, confusion, and hesitation in the eyes around me. Our eyes were talking on our behalf. But if I start writing about what was happening, where should I begin? When I found out my best friend had died along with her entire husband’s family while I kept calling her daily, not knowing she was already gone? Or should I start when half of my family was forced to flee to the unknown—to southern Gaza—where all we knew was that they had to leave? No, maybe I should start when we learned that my sister’s apartment had been bombed and she still hadn’t paid off the financial costs of the apartment. Or when we were under bombardment, certain we wouldn’t survive? No, I should start when my pregnant sister had to walk kilometers without rest, without even daring to look back, or…........ Do you think this is all that was happening?! We weren’t searching for food or water, as some claim—we were searching for peace, which no longer existed. The peace, in my opinion, was sitting among my family—I mean half of my family, because half of my family was in the south and the other half in the north of Gaza! We didn’t care about what the news said about us; it was all nonsense. We were asking ourselves, will this genocide end? We did not have any hope in. But if it actually ended, it would end just in the ground. Do you think it would end with who had lost his family, to who had lost his home, to who had lost everything? Once, I tried to escape my reality by losing myself in Radwa Ashour’s novel Al-Tantouriya, but I failed—the same horrors were happening in the book! Since 1948, we’ve been living the same nightmare, the same crimes, the same victims! Wait—who am I writing to? And what am I waiting for? No one cares. Basmala