The Electronic Intifada 31 October 2023
Gaza’s healthcare system is collapsing.
APA imagesMy 24th birthday has just come and gone.
Over the past 24 years, I have lived through five wars in my beloved Gaza. The experiences of the previous four wars mean nothing in the face of the inhumanity we are now witnessing – not only from the Israeli occupation but also from the world’s governments.
We have been categorized as subhuman creatures by the occupation. The world’s supposed advocates of humanity heard what Israel said and have seen what it has done.
Yet no one has taken any action.
They have seen thousands of our children killed. And they have remained silent.
They have seen our hospitals collapse due to lack of medicine and equipment, as well as threats of destruction and orders to evacuate patients. And they have remained silent.
They have seen our homes being demolished, often with us inside them, and turning into rubble. And they have remained silent.
Since the first day of Israel’s latest war against Gaza, I have been trying to write something. I have wanted to document what we are going through, how we live under bombardment.
Each time I have tried, I have failed to find the right words.
How can I describe the destruction of my city and the neighborhood I live in?
How can I describe the moment I evacuated my home, leaving behind all my memories? All those moments of laughter with my siblings.
We left our homes because Israel forced us to choose between saving our lives and saving our homes. We could not stay within the walls that gave us a sense of safety.
Fear of the unknown
How can I describe the collapse of my beautiful homeland?
How can I describe the way gentle breezes have been transformed into the smoke of gunpowder and white phosphorus?
How can I describe the smell of blood and death?
We have been deprived of electricity and water. Basic necessities that should be readily available.
We have been subjected to an internet blackout.
Communications firms and the networks on which they depend have been destroyed.
Israel has isolated us from the world and from people within our homeland. It has stopped us from accessing news.
We now face not only the threat of death from Israel’s missiles but also the struggle for survival.
How can we survive without food, water and electricity?
We are enveloped by a strange sense of resignation and fear of the unknown.
Should we worry about the present moment or think about the future?
How will we be able to live in our destroyed city?
What will happen to us? How will the days pass?
Something inside me dies
We have sought refuge in my grandfather’s house, located in southern Gaza. Israel described the area as a safe zone.
To get here, we had to leave behind all our memories.
It is anything but safe here.
We have awoken to the sounds of a massive explosion nearby. There was a belt of fire beside us. Eight missiles were dropped on homes – dropped on the heads of their inhabitants.
Fragments from the explosions flew toward us as we lay on the ground.
We had all rushed to a corner and fallen. We could not walk because of fear.
We embraced each other and screamed, as if it was the end, as if death had come.
We could not escape amid the chaos.
Yet we saw a glimmer of hope as my uncle and my cousin ran to rescue us. They were terrified of losing any of us.
We got out of my grandfather’s home. And we soon discovered that my brother had been outside on the street that had just been targeted.
God had protected my brother.
We have survived until now. The world is still watching.
I am alive, living under bombardment. But something inside me dies every day.
Something inside me dies with every missile fired at my country and my people.
I feel like I am dying with fear. The constant fear of becoming homeless.
The constant fear that I will go back to our home and find nothing there.
I feel like I am dying with the fear of losing someone.
I am not writing for sympathy or to make the world understand.
Images from Gaza speak louder than words. The images are clear, no further details are needed.
I am writing only to remind myself of how the world abandoned us, how it oversaw our suffering and death.
The spilling of our blood did not move the world to action.
The day this war ends, we will return to life. It will be the date of our rebirth.
From that day on, we will mourn for a long time for the rubble of our beautiful city. A city destroyed not just by Israel but by the entire world.
My message to the world is simple: I hope that the images of all our martyrs and our destroyed homes haunt your dreams as long as you live.
Nour Khalil AbuShammala is a trainee lawyer in Gaza.
