-Essay-
In 2014, I lived through my first war in Gaza. The fear, screaming and crying that accompanied it will stay with me forever; that fear turned into a ghost under my bed, haunting me every night. I’ve never stopped being scared of that ghost, waiting for the moment when it attacks me.
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And I will never forget the moment the war began: at 1 a.m. on July 8 — just as I will never forget the date of any of the wars. Our lives seem like continuous wars, interspersed by occasional periods of calm, but also anticipation — anticipation for the next war.
On that day in 2014, we went straight down to the basement of our house in Rafah, believing that our chance of survival might be greater there. But we knew very well that if a missile landed on the house, it would destroy everything in it, leaving us corpses and body parts. To avoid the idea of death, my mother would try to hug me and my brothers every time we heard a missile over one of the neighborhood’s houses.
One day, a warning missile hit our neighbors’ house, which meant we had to evacuate the house within 10 seconds. The Israeli military does not give you time to even comprehend the idea that everything will be demolished over your head. Ten seconds is nothing; We were not able to evacuate in time.
I don’t want to die now
My mother, as usual, put her arms around all my brothers. I only found the washing machine to hide in. I covered my ears tightly. All I could think of was my fear of death; and I repeated “I don’t want to die now, I don’t want to die now.” For more than an hour, I stayed there, staring at the ceiling. My mother checked our bodies one by one to make sure we were not injured.
I asked all my questions about life in Gaza and at an early age. I had not experienced any other form of life.
Our lives are not only on hold but have turned into something without a name or description.
I was not confused about the difference between the meaning of life and the meaning of siege. They are two aspects, two images in one image. The siege is the most ultimate meaning of the death of human life anywhere in this world. The truth is that our lives are not only on hold as Palestinians in Gaza, but have turned into something without a name or description.
In my 19 years in Gaza, I always felt lost in my mind, body and even time. I was very desperate to escape abroad, and made one attempt after another to find a way out. I literally felt like my body was melting and my mind was losing its balance.
I have always believed in the need to traveling, to have the opportunity to take a step back and look at my psychological and social history. This is something that we pay attention to only when we leave the place in which we grew up.
To be a woman born in Gaza
The system forced us to neglect this history, and not deal with it. The system does not pay attention to our psychological conflicts that parallel our conflicts with the outside world. For women and girls, conflicts are not only wars.
We face other conflicts even within wars: over the way we dress in Gaza’s conservative society; the hijab that was imposed on me when I was young when I got my period for the first time. I struggled to join the College of Journalism and Mass Communication — an option that was not available to me as a woman born in Gaza.
After three wars, I left the Gaza Strip with deep psychological scars and psychological traumas that haunt me to this day.
All these wounds returned on Oct. 7. The fear of loss that I carry with me all the time did not prevent the death of my two aunts and their eight children.
Leaving didn’t make things easier.
Since then, the days have been closing in on me, and their fingers press on in my heart every morning that I am somewhere else — away from my family, who is still caught up in successive wars. Leaving Gaza did not make things easier. I feel the same sadness every time I receive news of the death of a relative or acquaintance. It’s as if the distance has increased the weight of the news and made it more painful.
When will it end?
Every night, I go to bed and wait for a new massacre. I check the messaging app Telegram to follow the names of the dead. I, who preceded them to survival, am sorry for that. I am sorry for surviving alone, without them, without my two aunts and their eight children. I am sorry because all my prayers for them were not enough.
In order to resist all this cruelty, I imagine that I will wake up tomorrow and see all the people as I left them in my memory when I left Gaza. I will see the streets, the neighborhoods, the camp, my favorite restaurants and the Gaza Sea. I will see the crowd of people in the open market. I will see all my friends and I will smile. We will visit our favorite places and eat our favorite foods, as we used to do together and always.
I will remember people without crying. I will remember all of them with the memory of a traveler, not the memory of a farewell forever. Something in my mind continues to sob.
This is all just a nightmare. Some day it will end.
