Watching the massive crowds in Damascus, Daraa, Homs, and other cities and villages across Syria on television in Malaysia in December, I felt an overwhelming yearning for freedom. The joy on people’s faces after years of oppression was profoundly moving.

As a Palestinian, I understand all too well the depth of the Syrian people’s joy. I hope they cherish it, holding it close to their hearts without letting it slip away.

When you witness your people enduring displacement, starvation, relentless massacres, imprisonment and torture, life becomes engulfed in darkness. This is the essence of true suffering. It feels like being suffocated, slowly and relentlessly.

Physically, I am now far from my family in Gaza. Yet, my heart remains there, wandering among my people and my loved ones. Israel’s genocidal war has devastated us mentally and emotionally. For those of us who have watched from afar, we are expected to carry on with normal life. But how can life ever feel normal in the face of such immense suffering?

I cannot fathom that in Gaza during genocide, every day, a mother lost her child, a wife lost her husband, and thousands of children were orphaned.

People succumbed to normally easily treatable illnesses and diseases.

The rest were trapped in a life where the only certainty was the struggle to find food or water for another day.

In Gaza, people waited for a ceasefire, not to celebrate, but to grieve. To weep fully, to uncover the graves of their loved ones, to arrange what is left of their bodies with care so they may finally rest in peace. To process the nightmare that has befallen them. To embrace one another without the constant fear of what the next moment might bring.

Torture

After witnessing videos and testimonies shared on social media by people in Syria’s prisons, I cannot help but think of the thousands upon thousands of Palestinians languishing in Israeli occupation prisons and of the conditions they endure; the inadequate food, the documented cases of torture and the crushing isolation of solitary confinement.

My thoughts turn to the mothers, sister, and wives, whose hearts are heavy with fear — now more than ever — over the uncertain fate of their sons, brothers and husbands even as they wait for some to be released under the ceasefire agreement.

I think of those whose loved ones remain trapped beneath the rubble, buried in mass graves, or laid to rest in cemeteries that have not been spared Israel’s aggression.

Some people have vanished entirely, leaving no trace of their existence.

How unbearable it is to be denied even a final kiss goodbye before losing them forever.

I think of the living dead in Gaza, those who have lost their homes, memories, dreams, livelihoods, and, most painfully, their loved ones. The losses are countless.

I think of the injured: those who have lost their eyes, a leg, or a hand, those who are paralyzed or bear the scars of burns.

I cannot fathom how such a beautiful city such as Gaza City has been reduced to ashes and rubble. Once vibrant roads, bustling universities, sacred mosques and churches, lush gardens, lively malls, fertile agricultural lands, bustling markets, and treasured historical sites now lie in ruins.

Trauma

We are not okay.

We have been torn apart, scattered between the south and the north or displaced to foreign lands that feel nothing like home.

My sister lives in the northern Gaza Strip. She has witnessed starvation, horror and constant fear. She is with her husband and three children. I couldn’t call her for six months.

My mom, dad and other siblings are in the south. I would call my mom, and she would always tell me how much she missed my sister in the north – how worried she was about her health and mental well-being.

I keep reading the list of prisoners that appear from time to time on social media. I know some of the names – neighbors, cousins, acquaintances. I read the list hoping to find someone I know, so I can tell their families that their loved ones are still alive.

I also read the list of martyrs’ names, afraid to recognize any of them.

I have lost hope of ever returning to the villages occupied and depopulated in 1948.

My family is from al-Jura village near Ashkelon, but I am thankful that my grandparents passed away before witnessing this nakba. My grandmother died telling us stories of the homes and lands stolen from our family in 1948. I never truly understood her pain, or felt the rage in her heart, until now.

Now my family has been reduced to wishing to return to Gaza City, where my ancestors were forcibly relocated in 1948.

The occupation has stripped us of our dreams, reducing them to gratitude for some water or a crust of bread.

We are all traumatized – doctors, nurses, teachers, students, civil defense members, housewives, fathers, all the rest.

I have a neighbor who lost her entire family at once. I felt so embarrassed that I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye. It took a long time to gather the courage to even offer my condolences.

Freedom is a precious word. I don’t know when we will be liberated. Nor do I know when I will see my land free from occupation.

But I wish freedom for every Palestinian in the world and for all those who are oppressed.

Ghada Hania is content writer and translator from Gaza, now residing in Malaysia.

Tags

• Nakba
• Gaza genocide
• destroyed villages
• right of return
• Gaza City

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