The Electronic Intifada 15 August 2025
People mourn their loved ones after a bombing in Khan Younis on 29 July.
APA imagesThey say there is a time and place. My experience tells me you might find yourself living in a different kind of time, simply because you exist in a different place.
I studied Einstein’s theory of relativity in school, but it never truly resonated with me. I never thought that this concept, filled with equations and laws I can barely recall now, would burst into my own life.
But here, in Gaza, time is relative. It doesn’t simply pass, it rips through us.
We might share the world’s minutes and seconds, but the agonizing truth is, we live these as years.
And in the merciless blink of a few moments, your very existence is suddenly and starkly determined: martyr, injured, missing or shattered witness.
On 3 July, I woke with a jolt, ripped from sleep by the deafening sound of a bombing. It was just past 2 am.
The explosions were relentless and terrifyingly close. I tried to make sense of the chaos, waiting for a moment of quiet to process what was happening.
My first thought was that it was the usual time for flour distribution, for people to rush to aid trucks.
But then, the piercing screams of women shattered that idea.
“No, this isn’t aid,” I whispered to myself.
The shouts from the street grew louder, yet still couldn’t drown out the women’s cries: “The school! The school!”
I rushed to the window overlooking Patient’s Friends Benevolent Society Hospital, in Gaza City’s al-Rimal area, from a charred apartment we had rented.
This apartment, which faced the hospital – and where everything has been charred black from fires and smoke – had become our temporary home since our seventh displacement of this war.
Chaos
At first, looking left from the window, I saw nothing in the school beside Mustafa Hafez school, just two minutes away – only a faint commotion.
I moved to the balcony that directly faced Mustafa Hafez school.
It was horrific: fire, smoke and the screams of children and women.
Voices rose in desperate pleas:
“Mama, Mama!”
“Haven’t they had enough?”
“For God’s sake, stop!”
A thunderous explosion tore through the night’s silence, immediately followed by the sight of fire and smoke billowing into the dark sky. A violent tremor shook the ground.
I heard the anguished cries of the injured and the heartbreaking wails of children.
“He’s alive! Don’t cry! Don’t cry! It’s okay! He told me to go inside! He’s alive, I am sure!”
A woman’s voice, perhaps trying to reassure those around her, perhaps trying to reassure herself.
Just two minutes had passed since these scenes unfolded, and already, survivors began carrying their loved ones to hospital.
But after the outbreak of the genocide, this charity hospital has focused on caring for pregnant women and children, closing its emergency department because it could not cope.
During my more than two months of displacement here, many wounded have desperately sought help there to no avail.
“Open the door!” someone else cried out, “Open the door!”
“Take them to Al-Shifa,” they were told.
I will never forget, as long as I live, the sight of injured, emaciated people – bones almost protruding through skin stretched taut from hunger – carrying their own wounded children.
They didn’t stop knocking.
A massive crowd streamed towards the hospital. It was pure chaos.
But from the hospital gates came the same refrain: “Take them to Al-Shifa.”
The minutes stretched into years.
Helpless
Wave after wave of young men arrived, carrying their loved ones, their cell phone flashlights cutting through the darkness. Most seemed to have just woken up.
A young girl appeared, carrying a terrified child, screaming to her shocked mother, whose hand another young man held: “He’s alive, don’t cry, don’t cry, it’s okay. He told me to go inside. I wish I stayed next to him. He’s fine, God willing!”
I stood on the balcony. I cried, long and hard, feeling utterly helpless. I went to the next room and stood at the window, looking at the hospital gate directly opposite our building’s entrance.
Some young men downstairs – some just back from trying to secure food at aid distribution points – stood by, unwilling to help carry anyone.
A passing driver refused to take an injured person, even after one of the young men, carrying a bag of flour, urged him to accept the precious foodstuff as reward.
I wished I could have helped someone, kept them alive.
A girl was leaning on her father or brother and stumbling – her left hand pressed against her profusely bleeding right as she walked the distance to the Patient’s Friends hospital.
After ten minutes, ambulances finally began to arrive, heading towards where people pointed out the injured.
Fourteen minutes after the attack, the civil defense arrived.
“Take the martyrs,” people told the paramedics.
I remembered my brother when he was injured in the head, and the crew of the ambulance told him they only transported martyrs. So he walked.
Twenty minutes had passed since the bombing. I heard the shelling, saw the fire and smoke, and heard the cries of the injured, the pleas of the martyrs’ families and the weeping of children.
Everywhere emaciated bodies, bearing the marks of death and destruction.
The actual time of any bombardment is seconds. But it creates hours, days and years of pain.
At 2:32 am, the civil defense put out the fire.
At twenty minutes to three, the crowd fell silent.
The civil defense was still there, still transporting the injured and the martyrs.
There was still shock and disbelief for those killed, injured and lost. The pain lingered as those returning from aid distribution learned the fate of their loved ones.
There was still an injured person waiting to be taken to hospital. There was still a martyr to be identified.
Thirteen people were killed in the bombing on 3 July. Dozens were wounded.
Then another day came.
Time moves differently in Gaza.
Israa Alsigaly is a writer and translator in Gaza.
