Don’t Look Back: Diary of a Life in Gaza

PALESTINE - ISRAEL, 9 Sep 2024

Nahil Mohana | Literary Hub – TRANSCEND Media Service

Gaza – Literary Hub

The Toll of Living with Endless Displacement and Fear

4 Sep 2024 – Since November I’ve not been able to keep a daily diary. Instead I’ve spent much of my days just watching the news. On January 29, they announced the beginning of negotiations towards a long-term ceasefire. This left me stuck in front of the TV like a wax statue for hours on end, depleting the charge on the house battery, powered by the solar panels still working up on the roof, despite their many perforations from nearby airstrikes. I kept watching the news hoping to be the first one to hear the announcement of a ceasefire, so I could break the news to everyone else, as if I’d get some kind of reward for it. What does a drowning person do in our country? He waits and waits, hoping for a miracle to come and change the fact that he’s drowning.

But I was mistaken—mistaken to waste so much solar energy on the TV, mistaken to place so much faith in hope, which had clearly turned its back on us and left. At night, my daughter Habeeba and I looked at the pictures I kept on my laptop taken over many years. Family photos of our home, trips, picnics, her first day at nursery, her first day at school, birthdays, activities and summer camps, dabkeh dancing, camping trips, and swimming competitions… images that took us all the way up to her graduation from the sixth grade, and the scout group that she was a member of.

Touched by nostalgia, sleep overcame us. Little did we know that we were about to face the hardest night ever, not just since the war started, but since either of us were born and had names for people to call us by. I didn’t know that someone could climb so far out of the maw of death.

We were awakened at exactly midnight by the sounds of shells and bullets falling like a downpour. At first we thought the clashes were some distance away, as everyone knew the tanks had withdrawn a month ago, and the danger had somewhat subsided since then. We were mistaken. These sounds were way closer.

We got up and moved from our “room” which was next to the street towards my family’s, separated from our room only by a curtain. This was only meant to be a sneak visit, to see if they were awake, a matter of seconds, a movement of just a few meters. But these few seconds were the ones that saved my life. In that instant, shells and artillery fire started raining through the window in quick succession, penetrating the walls on either side. Shrapnel flew around us, landing on the pillows and sofabed we had just been sleeping on.

Iֹ’ve never felt the taste of fear the way I did in that moment. I’ve never felt the presence of my own death so close to me. When it happens, you become trapped in the moment.

We were in a state of shock, not knowing what was happening in our own house. Were these clashes between IDF and resistance soldiers? Were these tanks breaching barricades and clearing the way so as to take up new positions? Or were these soldiers running in the streets with machine guns in their hands? We couldn’t tell.

Iֹ’ve never felt the taste of fear the way I did in that moment. I’ve never felt the presence of my own death so close to me. When it happens, you become trapped in the moment. Minutes seem to stand still. Seconds seem reluctant to tick. Time is out of focus. Heartbeats race, inhalations and exhalations speed up, as we all lie flat on the ground, face down, unable to lift our heads or utter a single word. The gunfire intensifies, and the explosions and stun grenades sound like they’re coming from inside the house. The drones hover low in the street, peering through the holes in the walls and windows taking photographs presumably of the scene inside our house. In that moment, it all feels inevitable: we are dead, everything is over.

Who will tell others that we have been shelled or injured? Will anyone be able to help us? In moments like this, a hundred questions run through your head without a single answer. You start counting yourself among the dead, and thoughts crash in about where you’ll be buried and who will mourn your death the most. Or about what you did in your life to deserve this retribution?

Oh world, I am a Palestinian citizen, or a refugee, as you wish, it doesn’t matter, but I have not killed anyone and I have not oppressed anyone. I don’t even remember lying or stealing. Why all this fear, all this terror, all this injustice, all this gunfire?

I couldn’t bear it anymore. I burst into tears, helplessly, as various items around the apartment exploded: window panes, bits of wall, plant pots, colorful ceramic jars adorning the kitchen. I felt like my head was imploding and my nerves were on fire. I prayed that I would faint from fear or slip into some form of unconsciousness for even a moment, just to take relief from the hell around us. I recited the two shahadas (testimonies of faith), closed my eyes, rested my head on the floor, and prepared myself for death.

I found myself lying between my daughter’s arms, with her whispering in my ear, “Don’t be afraid.” She asked me to intensify my prayers. I fell silent for a moment… I began to breathe and adjusted my posture, my heartbeat started to regulate, and the sounds started to fade. Five pairs of eyes stared at each other, asking each other the same question. Did they move away? Is this a dream? What’s happening outside? I looked at my watch; it was 3am. At first, I couldn’t believe we had endured this madness for three whole hours. If what we have lived through is not hell, then what is hell?

My brother Munther, who lives in the apartment opposite us in the same block, opened the door and peered into the darkness, dreading what he might be about to find. He was looking to the floor, looking for the color red, no doubt expecting to find it everywhere. “Don’t worry, we’re alive,” we called. Munther finally breathed.

As a doctor, he had taken responsibility for our well-being since the beginning of the genocide. He explained that a fleet of thirty tanks had passed through our street under full air and ground cover. He had been hiding with his family in the kitchen the whole time, being the furthest room from the street. Of course, we are residents of Al-Nasr Street, so every time “the cup clinks against the pot,” as we say in Arabic, it means tanks are passing through. Unfortunately, the proverbial pot exploded into pieces long ago. It’s too delicate an invention for Palestinians.

The Israeli army dropped leaflets urging those remaining in Al-Nasr and nearby neighborhoods to evacuate and head to the Deir al-Balah camp in preparation for a wide-scale campaign of arrests.

We learned after five hours, just before we collapsed like corpses from exhaustion, sleeplessness, and terror, that this particular fleet was headed towards the headquarters of the Palestinian Telecommunication Company and positioned itself there in preparation for a new operation.

Following this sudden escalation, the Israeli army dropped leaflets urging those remaining in Al-Nasr and nearby neighborhoods to evacuate and head to the Deir al-Balah camp in preparation for a wide-scale campaign of arrests. Entire families packed up and fled, carrying whatever they could of their provisions, blankets, and clothing. We made a decision to relocate to the house of relatives nearby, so as to avoid the hardships of the main street, but difficulties in transporting essential resources like water, food, and bedding prevented us from following through with this decision.

My uncle Ibrahim, the only one who’d been living with us in the family complex, decided to relocate with his family to his son’s house, back in Rimal. Similarly, once the complete withdrawal of tanks from the northern part of the city, around Al-Karamah, had been confirmed, we resolved to return to our home there, despite the distance and the fact it would take a whole day, going to and fro, to transport all our stuff there. However, an hour later, my siblings returned from their foray north, with their hands black with soot. The story that the house was completely burnt and uninhabitable wasn’t just a rumor.

All of us, that is to say the remaining three families in the complex, totalling fifteen people, moved to an apartment located in the building across from our current one, not because it was less exposed, but because it was the last place left that we could reasonably make a home in. It was also just ten meters away from the main street.

We agreed that this relocation could only happen during the night hours, while everyone else was asleep. In the morning, each of us would return to our apartment. Being no longer able to head back north, this was a compromise. The fact is, though, you lose no matter you do: displacement means the home you leave is vulnerable to theft, while staying put means risking death.

Tanks advanced into Tel Al-Hawa, Beach Camp, Al-Nasr area, and Sheikh Radwan after the deadline for evacuation had passed. The tanks stationed at the communications junction continued to fire on random passersby, meaning once again we were trapped. We stayed awake every night until dawn, fearing the kinds of raids and arrests of men that we heard about in news broadcasts.

Every night, we meticulously checked our belongings, counted our bags, and packed heavier clothes in case we had to evacuate. We passed the time discussing our plans for the raid, cracking jokes to lighten the heavy hours and distract ourselves from the lurking fear—that wild animal within us we couldn’t deny.

On February 5th, we all celebrated my birthday. I made a cake without eggs because the price of an egg was six shekels, and in the absence of gas, I baked it on firewood. I decorated it with cream and lit a candle on it. I made a wish and found myself looking around a lot, for I was now celebrating my birthday in a place, time, and circumstances that I had never dreamed I would be in. I blew out the candle and cut the cake, then, along with the others, prepared myself for another heavy night.

I had reached my ideal weight not because of the stupid gym, which I hated, but because of the stupid siege—the scarcity of food, not to mention the complete lack of sweets.

After ten long days and nights, filled with the continuous sound of artillery fire and aerial bombardment, we woke to the sound of people in the street shouting that the tanks had withdrawn and the place was now safe.

We hurried to congratulate each other on being granted yet another new lease on life, perhaps for the fifth time during this war.

We wandered around and took in the destruction left by the tanks, the relentless bombardment of the entire area, the evidence of devastation. The area’s landmarks had all been rendered unrecognizable, and until recently this had been one of the few remaining parts of Gaza left unscathed.

That night, as we lay under air strikes and artillery fire, my daughter Habeeba confessed to me that the times I’d left her at home, to run errands, she hadn’t always been studying as I thought she had been. Instead, she’d spent much of the time on her phone, browsing TikTok and listening to music. She asked me to forgive her. She also confessed that she had been neglecting her prayers and had skipped fasting for two days last Ramadan without telling me. When I asked her why she was confessing all this during such a difficult time, she told me that she wanted to die feeling brave, without having hidden anything from me.

I mustered up the courage to tell her I owed her a confession too. I admitted that, before all this started, I used to go to the gym not to exercise, but to meet friends, have meals with them, and smoke shisha in the gym cafe. This is why I never lost any weight, or reached the ideal weight she had in mind for me. But today, six months into the war, when I weighed myself on a set of scales that we chanced upon in my uncle’s house after he left, I discovered that I had lost twelve kilos. Finally!

I had reached my ideal weight not because of the stupid gym, which I hated, but because of the stupid siege—the scarcity of food, not to mention the complete lack of sweets. What we’ve been eating since the beginning of the war, mainly legumes, barely sustains us. On top of that, I have been doing all the household chores, which these days includes kneading and baking, hand-washing clothes, gathering firewood, and walking hundreds of kilometers a day to fetch essentials from the market or the pharmacy.

On the 19th February, I discovered a new internet network at Al-Ghafari Junction extending down al-Jala’a Street. This was the fifth wifi network I had discovered, the four previous ones having all been disabled by the continuous incursion of tanks. It’s like clockwork: every time we discover a random, new network in the street, on a junction, or in a school, the tanks immediately pour into the area and destroy everything and we have to revive our search for a new one. This time, though, when I heard that someone had found this network, I honestly wished they hadn’t. Truly, being disconnected from the internet during wartime is a blessing. No news is good news.

Over the months, I’d been in continual contact with the director of the organization I work for in Ramallah, which has a branch here in Gaza. She always reassured me about my colleagues who had scattered here and there, without means of communicating with me directly. She also provided me with emotional support to help me stay well and maintain my mental health. But today, she spoke very bluntly when she informed me that a colleague of ours, Iman, had been martyred. I asked her to repeat the news, thinking I’d maybe heard her incorrectly. But she repeated the news in the same tone, with more detail.

She wasn’t just martyred on her own; both her immediate and extended family had also been killed. “My God, where has such cruelty come from?” I sighed. “Why all of this pain? Why all this loss?” She told me that the extended family had actually been martyred more than two months ago and that our colleague had taken refuge in her family’s house in Khan Younis thinking it was safer. But death drew near and chose them.

At first, I couldn’t comprehend it. It is the nature of the human mind to not be able to process multiple shocks all at once. It tries to break them down or mislead itself, causing reactions like flashbacks from time to time, as the realization catches back up with you. Only when Iman started visiting me in my dreams every night, did I realize: I wasn’t going to see her again.

If you want a harvest, you must not hesitate to plant. Stability is never guaranteed to Palestinians, so you must take what you can.

For a few days after this, I fell prey to severe depression, afflicted by the same nightmares night after night. I confined myself to my room, scrolling through pictures and trawling my memories for hours on end, wondering who might be next. This damn war claims a colleague, a friend, a house, an institution, a street, or a cafe every day, ripping apart your shared past without a moment’s hesitation or the blink of an eye. I had avoided the internet, that devious clown who rains down news of our loved ones, like rockets falling on our heads, but that same creature transmits celebrity news, horoscopes, and trailers for Ramadan soap operas. Oh God, how does this world accommodate all these contradictions? Are we really children of the same planet?

We started planting seeds in the small space in front of the building: potatoes, parsley, okra, rocket, and tomatoes. It is, after all, late February and there are barely any vegetables in the market; and what there is is extortionate.

My grandfather Nazeer was a farmer. He was driven out of the village of Al-Masmiyya al-Kabira, and forced to flee to  Gaza when my father was four years old. Sidi Nazeer learned a lesson from his displacement: wherever you find yourself, plant seeds; you don’t know how long you’ll be there. What you plant today, your children will eat tomorrow. It doesn’t matter where it is. In Al-Masmiyya, in Gaza, even in Rafah. If you want a harvest, you must not hesitate to plant. Stability is never guaranteed to Palestinians, so you must take what you can. My grandfather had large orchards where we used to go every Friday and eat mangoes, peaches, figs, and apples.

My grandfather also used to provide all kinds of fruit and vegetables to the hospitals up and down the Strip. After planting expansive orchards around Beit Lahia, he decided to build a large, two-storey house there for his family, being one of the most environmentally conscious people you could ever meet. He valued clean air and a healthy, natural environment above everything.

Four years before he died at the age of 84, the occupation army rolled into his land and demolished everything, every last tree. They claimed it was on settlement territory. They disintegrated his two-story house with a single bomb. The fruits of his life’s work had vanished—quite literally: the figs, the apples, the mangoes, the peaches. Along with the tomatoes, the  cucumbers…

Before my grandfather died, he taught all his grandchildren how to farm. The grandchildren grew up and earned degrees in medicine, engineering, and law, but after so many years, the most valuable lessons they learned turned out to be my grandfather’s lesson: how to farm.

It was 28th February, but it was like Eid had come early. Flour finally entered Gaza. We woke up at dawn to the sound of people calling in the street, telling everyone to head to the Nabulsi Roundabout on Al-Rasheed Street to get flour being distributed from trucks there. This was after five consecutive missions had failed to get here. Each house was allocated two bags of flour—as white as the moon—and we started preparing the kneading and baking tools immediately. The sense of joy that came with kneading this pure white flour—without having to mix it with the corn flour or barley that had eroded our stomachs and assaulted our taste buds for the last two months—was indescribable.

We prepared pies and tea, and ate from the new bread. It was as if we had never eaten bread before! News started to come in that now the flour had entered Gaza, the bakeries would reopen. Did this mean that we could bid farewell to the firewood, the fires, the queuing and the baking tents that had popped up everywhere. Was it safe to celebrate yet? Or should we avoid another disappointment and just wait?

On March 1st, Jordanian planes started air-dropping food on various parts of Gaza. This was because of the restrictions on the entry of aid trucks to the northern regions. The first time we saw a plane dropping parachutes, our eyes grew wide and our necks stiffened. We just stood and watched. When it was first reported that there would be goods delivered to Gaza City by air, nobody believed it: we thought it was just more war nonsense, the usual delusions of world leaders. But when it actually happened, we felt like we were in a movie. Sometimes it seems truth is stranger than fiction, and reality is more absurd than wildest movies.

The planes seemed to be dropping the parachutes randomly. Some of them landed in the sea and floated away. Not a single parachute landed in our neighborhood; instead they seemed to be focusing on the camps to the south or way up north. When we first started seeing these drops, men would jump into their cars or set out on foot, rushing towards the drop zones to get as close as they could to their precious cargo. But after a few flyovers, they gave up and simply enjoyed the spectacle of the planes dropping their spoils and flying away, waving at them like children. As for me, I gained nothing from these operations except a headache, due to the noise of the planes and the noise of those cheering and waving at them.

It’s a second incursion in the area, or was it the third; it didn’t matter. We lose track of the numbers although we remember every date and detail.

We built an oven from scratch in preparation for Ramadan, which will start in a week, as cooking on a stove is a fantasy these days, just as ever finding a full gas cylinder is. We collected pebbles and the finest sand we could find to make bricks and called on our neighbor Hossam, who is a baker, to help us finish the task. We searched for a spot in the yard out of the wind and sun, and we built it there. Two days later, after the cement had dried, we cut the ribbon.

I woke up on 6th March to the sounds of Facebook notifications pinging on my mobile. At first, I thought it was part of my dream. I’d almost forgotten what these notifications sounded like, so long had it been. Was it real? In the old days, I would be the one who always put their mobile on silent, to avoid being disturbed! I got up but before I reached the phone, I heard another trill of multiple WhatsApp notifications, followed by text message notifications.

So, it wasn’t a dream! I couldn’t handle this much joy! I had mobile coverage as well as internet! Is this possible? I thought. As I approached the mobile, my heart leapt in my chest. My eyes turned into heart-shapes like the emojis in the messages. Finally! After a near-complete outage for five long months, the outside world was back.

Since the beginning of the war, we have all been playing a beautiful game based on cooperation, called “From Us, From You.” For example, we provide tea leaves, you provide water. From us: Solar panels. From you: a battery. From us a satellite dish. From you a TV. From us: a generator. From you: diesel, and so on. It is rare to find a house that has both things. Indeed this is what the occupation wants. But we outfox the occupation through simple community collaboration.

Sometimes the system breaks down though. It’s difficult finding certain skilled tradesmen—a plumber, an electrician, or a blacksmith—to bring some of this cooperation together. The skilled tradesman starts acting spoiled, making demands, like transportation to and from the job, at a time when medics and engineers are working themselves to the bone for hours on end.

The daily rate of any junior tradesman is two hundred shekels. You give it to him before he even enters your house to find out what the problem is. Like a private doctor; he takes his fee before examining the patient. Tradesmen have earned a lot of money during this war, enough to guarantee a good future for their great-grandchildren. On top of that, the job now brings prestige. Every time a worker passes by your neighborhood everyone in the street waves and craves his approval. Some of them even run out and give him a pack of canned food or a kilo of flour to lure him in.

Today is 11th March, the 1st day of Ramadan. My sister Nihaya, who lives in America, called me to assure me the war will end in two months’ time. She asked how we were  managing things and how we were getting supplies for Ramadan. I told her, “Leave it to God.”

At night, we all break our fast together, which is a family ritual that hasn’t changed over the years, in peacetime or war. We watch Ramadan adverts on TV and find ourselves in tears thinking about our situation. It seems the Arab world is turning its back on us, so quickly, and devoting itself to dancing, singing, celebrating, and chanting praises. As a Palestinian, you are no longer yourself: you are the victim, you are the forgotten, you are drowning in your worries, you are alone, and no one can save you except yourself.

At dawn, on March 18th, the 8th day of Ramadan, we were woken before the time for suhoor by intensive gunfire and the sound of bombs. It’s a second incursion in the area, or was it the third; it didn’t matter. We lose track of the numbers although we remember every date and detail. We gathered in the room farthest from the street, and after a couple of hours we heard the news that the Al-Shifa medical complex was being besieged once more.

This is just 400 meters from our street. The residents around that area were ordered to evacuate through loudspeakers and given instructions to go to Deir Al-Balah. The gunfire and clashes extended from 2:30am till the morning, and a residential compound just 40 meters from us was bombed. This was a five-storey building that had, written above its entrance, the phrase, “This is by the grace of my Lord.”

I will not talk about the aftermath of destruction. Nor about the burning of a specialized operating theater that had treated over a million Gazan citizens. Nor about how many houses were flattened.

Our neighbor lost his wife and daughter in the bombing. He swore she was right beside him as he performed the noon prayer when the bombs struck. The young men of the neighborhood worked furiously to search for the woman and child under the rubble to no avail. They had to call the man’s relative to take him away as he was in shock and shouldn’t be there. Two days later, they found what remained of her and her daughter’s hair up on a roof. They didn’t tell the husband.

One day, we received a delivery from a friend who has a farm in Beit Lahia: each house in the extended family was given two tomatoes, three cucumbers, and two green peppers. I can’t describe how happy we were as we scoffed down the green salad—after four and a half months of not eating anything like it. We also received a supply of canned food, flour, and rice from the nearby mosques. For a moment, our fridge was full and we could stop worrying about what we would eat at suhoor. For the first time in ages we felt what it was like to be full.

Once more mobile connections dropped, as they do whenever a new siege is imminent. We’ve learned this by now: the connection drops just before the tanks close in. It has become an omen. The loss of connection means a ground invasion is planned. Or, the ground invasion happens and, in the process, the signal goes down. It’s the eternal question: which came first: the chicken or the egg? Only the egg costs nine shekels now and nobody remembers what chicken tastes like.

We were preparing for the iftar, on the evening of the 18th day of Ramadan, which was the 28th of March, when we heard a cry for help coming from the direction of a besieged compound nearby. What was even more worrying was the complete silence of the rest of the neighborhood . Ever since this latest siege began, no one has left their house.

At first, we thought it was an abandoned child calling for help, but when my brother Munther, who is a doctor, went with my cousin Mustafa, they found that it was a woman who’d been wounded. Both her legs had been injured by rocket shrapnel and she was bleeding profusely. She had crawled about 100 meters from the place where she’d been hit till she reached the main street. People tried to call the ambulance a hundred times, but the connection was too weak. When we finally got through they said it was impossible to send an ambulance there because it was a closed military zone. Instead they asked us to bring her to the closest point where the ambulance could come and then they would take her from there. Munther stopped the bleeding, and got her on a wheelchair and took her to the point where the ambulance arrived. He told us that she had been on her way to get water for her family—who’ve been besieged like us for ten days—when she was injured.

On the 22nd day of Ramadan (1st April), tanks withdrew from the Al-Shifaa complex. We knew that when we heard people’s noise in the streets at Suhoor time. We learned from the news that there were only 50 people remaining in the hospital, out of the 7,000 that had been there when the siege started. This included refugees, medical staff and patients. As it withdrew,  the Israeli Army ordered the medical staff to go in and retrieve the 6,950 bodies for burial. Is the word “genocide” still controversial to you?

Before we broke the fast, I walked a little in the street to breathe in the air of freedom. For two weeks of siege, the idea of being down on the street had been like a dream. I will not talk about the aftermath of destruction. Nor about the burning of a specialized operating theater that had treated over a million Gazan citizens. Nor about how many houses were flattened. The thing that caught my attention the most was that people looked shorter. I couldn’t work out if it was the effects of starvation, anguish, or just humiliation.

Our house in Al-Karamah had started to visit me a lot in my dreams, telling me how lonely it was, and reproaching me for abandoning it, just as the horse who’s left alone in Mahmoud Darwish’s poem does. Each time, I would wake up upset, remembering every last detail of the dream, and would struggle to go about my day.

This morning, when I woke up, I felt determined to visit it. I set out on foot, and walked for over an hour, taking in the destruction of neighborhood after neighborhood: Al-Nasser, Al-Sheikh Radwan, and General Security Region. It haunted me. I arrived at the house, wandered around it, smelled its smell, touched its walls, ran around in its garden, and cast one long farewell look at it, then left without taking a single picture; without looking back, exactly like Hanzala. After that, my sleep got a little better, and it stopped visiting me in my dreams.

Today is 7th April. The war has been going on for six months. We are still in Ramadan which will leave us in two days. As a family we agreed to observe the same Eid rituals as every year. Each family would take its own group photo and share it in the wider family Facebook group. It doesn’t matter the amount of tears that are shed in the process, what matters is that we are all alive, even if great distances still separate us.

I went to the internet cafe round the corner to check on our neighbors there after the last incursion. Over the last few months, a nice friendship has grown up between me and the visitors to the cafe. We come to miss each other greatly if one of us is absent for a few days. After each tank withdrawal, the first thing we do is go straight there and congratulate each other for having survived, then work out who isn’t there and fear the worst, or speculate about them fleeing to the south with no intention of returning.

Here you could bump into anyone: a friend who’s been displaced from a completely different part of Gaza, a survivor, a former neighbor, an old college friend, or a professor from your university. The funniest thing that can happen in the cafe is when people start talking to their relatives abroad through video messaging. Everyone in the room, which is no more than 20 meters square, can hear every last detail of the call, which is usually about a money transfer, conversion fees and transfer fees.

I remember one day, a lady, who had just been passing by chance, decided to sit down beside me and start asking questions:

“Sister, how’s the internet connection?”
“It’s fine.”
“How much do they charge for an hour?”
“Five shekels.”
“Sister, do you know anyone who could cash this transfer for me at a low commission rate?”

She said the last sentence with a wink of her left eye, as if she was under international surveillance and was trying to tell me a secret. I winked at her with my left eye as well, came closer to her, and got ready to whisper. She got closer and got ready to receive after she looked right and left, and nodded twice by way of urging me to speak. I told her: “No, I don’t know of anywhere.”

*

I have always been fascinated by that phrase that so often flashes up in movies: “Six months later.” Today is the 15th of April, which means over six months have passed since the start of the war. The question here storms through our minds and knocks thunderously at the door: What’s next?

Usually, in films at least, after six months, great things happen—that’s how the legend goes—but in our case, what could possibly happen next?

Victory?
Liberation?
Independence?
Adaption?
Persistence?

Or just survival, with us thanking God for not having been killed, and for sparing us the evil of fighting.

My hilarious friend Wiam told me, over the phone, that she has been craving Maftoul (couscous), so she asked her poor husband to go and buy some for her. She had been displaced from her home during the last incursion on the Al-Shifa area and came back to it after the tanks’ withdrew to find it, by the virtue of God, bereft, vacant, hollow, denuded, and all the other Arabic words for empty. It had been completely burgled.

And yet, despite this latest disaster—the theft of everything she owned—the house had survived: survived being bombed, being burnt, being bulldozed, and because of that she was happy and wanted to celebrate and invite the neighbors, all of whose houses had also been burgled of course. She wanted to invite them to lunch, and the lunch just had to be Maftoul.

If you were asked to leave your house immediately and you could only bring one thing with you, what would you bring?

Her poor husband came back from the markets with a used Maftoolieh (steamer) that he bought from an impromptu stall. The salesman swore that it was one of the best kinds he’d ever seen, that it was unique, and the only piece he was likely to get anywhere, and charged him 50 shekels, not a shekel less. The husband had already trawled for two hours through kitchenware stores trying to find a new one.

My friend Wiam screamed with delight when she saw what her husband held in his hand: “That’s our Maftoulieh! Where did you find it!!”

Back in the days when my friends and I used to sit and chat, we’d always ask each other one particular hypothetical question: If you were asked to leave your house immediately and you could only bring one thing with you, what would you bring?

One of us would say the Quran, another would say prayer clothes. It was the usual list:

Mobile.
First aid kit.
Laptop.
Passport.
Recipe book.
My perfume and shoes.
My kids’ certificates and documents.
My marriage certificate.
etc.

In reality, however, bitter experience has shown us the true answer. A hundred percent of the time, it is actually:

Nothing.

By the way, my grandfather’s house in Al Nasr, the old family house where we were born and raised, is the only building that seems to have held on through this war. It has been a tree from which many houses have branched off but then been cut down and destroyed: like my father’s house and the houses of my two uncles, Abdelrahim and Abdel Nasser, who were displaced to the south.

Likewise, their children’s houses, and my cousins from the third uncle, Ismail, who emigrated during the war in Russia. But only the original tree still stands. Which is ironic as my grandfather’s house, which shelters us now, was supposed to be sold  to an investor who planned to pull it down and build a shopping mall in its place.

15 April 2024

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Read the First Part of Nahil Mohana’s account of life in Gaza during genocide.

Nahil Mohana is the author of the novel No Men Allowed (Arab Scientific Publishers, 2021); the story collection Life in a Square Meter  (The Ogarit Cultural Center); and six plays, including High Pressure, which received the 2008 Abdul Mohsin Al-Qattan Prize; Ghoson, which received the 2008 Children’s Culture Award; and Lipstick, which was produced by The Royal Court Theatre in London in 2015. Born in 1982 in Gaza City, Palestine, Mohana is a graduate of Al-Azhar University, and now teaches creative writing to children and young adults in Gaza. More at nahilmohana.com.

Translated by Respond Crisis Translation

Go to Original – lithub.com

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation’s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.

DON’T BUY PRODUCTS WHOSE BARCODE STARTS WITH 729, which indicates that it is produced in Israel. DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!

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