The Electronic Intifada 22 April 2024
More than 1.5 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced to Rafah by Israeli attacks.
I remember the day in August 2022 when, finally, the war was over. A ceasefire had been agreed to, and the Israeli drones were no longer buzzing overhead in the sky.
For three days, Israel had terrorized Gaza with airstrikes.
I went to help my grandma move the mattresses from the corridor, where we had slept during Israel’s attacks. Then I went for a long-awaited walk.
It felt like a luxury to go for a walk after sheltering inside from the airstrikes.
I bumped into a neighbor on the street and we greeted each other with al-hamduillah al-salama, roughly, thank God for our safety.
The words sounded light-hearted, but the intent behind the phrase was sincere. The rest of the walk was surreal in its “normalcy.” How could this be after the horrors of the past several days?
I received a message on my phone from my professor that class would be re-convening soon, and, of course, al-hamduillah al-salama.
It felt like too much to process: How could life just go back to normal?
That night, we slept in our beds, beneath windows. It’s funny how windows had become my worst nightmare in the preceding days. I was afraid that they would shatter at any moment.
Sleeping was hard that night, but when had it ever been easy? I could barely sleep because of the takbir cries in the streets of “God is great,” as if we had won the war. But we had lost so much, even though we had once thought we had nothing to lose.
After this war, we were all “fine.”
Forgetting past horrors is our coping mechanism. Every war hardens us to something.
We are confused when we see Israelis horrified, running to their shelters. We don’t have shelters in Gaza. They have everything, yet they are scared. We have nothing, but we cope.
In the days after the August war, we tried to live life as we had never lived it before. We went to the beach, we breathed, and we appreciated it all.
October 2023
Just over a year later, in October 2023, another war arrived and the routine started all over again.
We packed our belongings, and I felt like a stranger in my own house. We went to my grandparent’s home down the street, because it was safer. But that was a lie we told ourselves. The truth is, if we die we want to die together.
The first night was full of terror, and we didn’t sleep. Our eyes weren’t even tired. They were wide open because we know that at any time there could be an explosion.
What really caused the most pain was that from the first moments of this “war,” we knew it was different. We knew it would be a genocide.
We soon left our grandparents’ house and walked even farther down the street during a bombardment to my uncle’s house.
At my uncle’s, there was no internet or electricity. I shared a bed with my cousin, because the house was packed. My aunts woke us up a little while later, screaming that it was again time to leave.
I knew that this time it would be to the south.
The southernmost point
In the south, we didn’t know where to put our tiny green tent. I almost felt nostalgic when I saw our tent, as it reminded me of a play tent I had had as a child.
We ended up in the middle of nowhere – no bathroom, running water, or food, with seven of us sleeping in our tent.
On one of the first nights I woke up in the middle of the night and had to use the bathroom. I didn’t know what to do. I walked to a nearby house and asked to use their toilet.
They let me in, but I felt ashamed. I felt like screaming, I used to have a home, just like you!
I couldn’t accept my new situation.
We moved our tent to a denser area, less in the middle of nowhere. We ended up building a bigger tent and even built a bathroom that cost us a fortune.
From my viewpoint in Rafah, the genocide continues. When will it end? Will it ever end? And if it does, will we be able to pretend as if nothing ever happened?
Nowar Nabil Diab is a writer and photographer in Gaza.
