LAST UPDATE | 11 Mar
EXCITEMENT CRACKLED THROUGH me on 30 August 2023. It wasn’t just any day; it was a day that eclipsed even the joy of holding my newborn niece, Yafa, for the first time.
Simply because I was finally leaving the world’s largest open-air prison: Gaza. The place I called home was about to be exchanged for what had become my second home – Ireland.
Landing in Dublin on 1 September, I held a scholarship for an MBA at the Dublin Business School. I was chosen along with 200 international students from 60 countries. While leaving my family was heartbreaking, they were happy for me to pursue my master’s degree abroad.
I was struck by one thing in Ireland straight away — the silence. In my war-torn home, such quietude was a luxury I have never lived in due to the constant hum of Israeli surveillance drones, nicknamed “Zanana” for their buzzing sound, monitoring every movement in the Gaza Strip.
I couldn’t sleep last night,” I told my mother, Somaia, with a hint of irony. “So unfamiliar with this peaceful silence. The Zanana has been my lullaby for decades.
Days turned into weeks as I explored Dublin, its breathtaking coastline and the verdant depths of Wicklow’s forests. Needless to describe the beauty of Howth. September unfolded as the most beautiful month of the 27 Septembers I have lived so far.
“I am free now,” I told my friend Fady, who was sitting in the darkness of Gaza power outage at the time.
“Free to travel, free from occupation, free from bombings, free from war. Believe it or not, I even have 24/7 electricity!”
A grim joke often circulates in Gaza: “Even heaven does not have 24/7 electricity”. Since the Israeli blockade started in 2006 and its bombing of the sole power plant, Gazans have endured endless hours of power outages daily, ranging from eight to 16 for more than a decade.
But the fragile peace of Gaza was shattered on October 7th when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil, resulting in the deaths of approximately 1200 Israelis. Gazans were deeply disappointed; having endured more than enough wars.
In retaliation, Israel has responded with a bloody attack on the strip, killing more than 30,800 Palestinians, including 25,000 children and women, and wounding 71,377.
In January, South Africa filed a case to the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.
On that dark day of October 7th, instead of having lunch with my friends in Carlow, I spent the entire day consumed with worry and scared to death about my family in Gaza, who had to evacuate our house to our relatives.
Over the past 12 years, Israel has launched seven wars on Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. During each of these conflicts, we sought refuge either at the homes of relatives or in UN schools that provided shelter to over a million Gazans. Sheltering in a school is unbearable and more difficult than the war itself. I still vividly remember how we slept with more than 50 people who I did not know in 6×6 classes. And we were the ones who were lucky enough to find a class to sleep in, as most of the displaced people slept in tents on the streets or in schoolyards.
As for the bathroom, it’s another suffering. I’d wake up in the morning to line up, among tens, for almost an hour, to use one of the five bathrooms in each school. No need to describe the hygienic situation in the toilets.
As Israel always closes the crossings with Gaza during its wars, prices always soar, making people unable to afford the basics, relying on food aid from UN agencies and local NGOs.
Since October 7th, my mind has been filled with haunting memories that weigh heavily on my heart. Every day, I find myself bracing for the worst, unable to shake the pain of what I witnessed in Gaza.
“We are experienced survivors of death,” I always reply to non-Palestinians who ask me how I can cope with the current genocidal war.
In 2008, on December 28, the second day of the first Israeli war on Gaza, my family was awakened by frantic shouts in the dead of night. “Get out now! Get out now! The Israeli war will bomb my house in minutes,” my neighbour was shouting immediately after the Israeli army had warned him. We grabbed light clothes, although it was freezing, and started running on the street with tens of our children, neighbours, women and elderly people.
After tens of metres, two Israeli missiles were unleashed, flattening our neighbour’s house and, tragically, ours as well.
My father had succumbed to cancer in 1999, leaving the burden of raising four young children on my mother, Somaia. With her hard-earned savings, she had built our house just two months before the war in 2008.
We could only return to check our house the next morning. We did not find the house, however, only rubble.
“Why? We are civilians. My children are only children,” my mother sobbed, her voice heavy with pain, before fainting. “I haven’t even paid the $35,000 debts and loans of the house.” It took two bitter years of displacement to rebuild it again in 2010, burdened by even more debts.
In 2012, Israel launched another 8-day war on Gaza. We were scared to death about our house. On the last day, we were waiting for the ceasefire announcement. Only one hour before it, our house was bombed. My mother could not speak for a few days after that.
After 18 months, my mother, the sole breadwinner, took more loans and rebuilt the house again in 2014. This cycle of displacement and rebuilding became our harsh reality. Working tirelessly after graduating, my siblings and I finally paid off the debts and loans in 2021.
Two months ago, I was in a finance lecture. The teacher was explaining some hidden costs that were causing businesses to fail, while across the world, the news was filled with the tragic toll of the war on Gaza, where the brutal cost was not measured in numbers on a spreadsheet, but in the shattered lives of innocent Palestinians.
Shortly after that, my younger brother, Momen, sent me a message on WhatsApp: “My uncle Imad was martyred today by an [Israeli] airstrike when he was sleeping, leaving some light injuries among his children. My mom still doesn’t know. Don’t tell her if you talk to her until my aunts gather after a few hours to tell her.”
Since October 7, messages like this from Gaza have not stopped, each one with a new wave of grief – my uncle, seven cousins, friends and finally, that our house had been bombed again.
Last December, the Israeli army bombed our neighbour’s house, killing 10 of them, resulting in destroying our beloved house again.
It was heartbreaking but cannot compare to the killing of tens of our relatives and friends. But this time is different: we have lost everything: my two brothers have lost their jobs, my family has been displaced for almost five months, sheltering in a tent in Rafah, in the south, with no access to necessities. The suffering is indescribable, with even the simple acts of using a toilet and finding nappies and milk for my niece considered luxuries.
If you were like me, witnessing these horrors unfold for your loved ones from the peace of Dublin, I cannot tell you just how tormented you would feel. The feeling of helplessness is hard to describe. Talk of further incursion into Rafah has filled every Palestinian with dread and fear. Waiting, waiting and waiting for the international community to intervene, to shout ‘Stop’.
My family, like all Gazans, is suffering from famine. Every year, just before Ramadan, we go shopping and fill the fridge with chicken, meat and nutritious food to prepare for a 16-hour fast. However, this year is completely different. Ramadan starts today, and there is no food in Gaza to buy, except for some canned food that has made them sick many times recently.
“We’ve been living on one meal a day for four months,” my mother told me in a choked voice yesterday. “Muslims around the world wait for Ramadan to fast, but we’ve already been fasting for four months.” What worsens the situation is that Israel is threatening to invade Rafah, where more than one million displaced Gazans are sheltering now.
Clinging to hope once more, I have done the only thing that has made sense to me and I have launched a fundraising campaign on GoFundMe. It’s a desperate attempt to rebuild our home and regain a semblance of normalcy. It is the only thing I can think of to help my family, my mother especially.
“Why do you want to rebuild the house again, bro? Just sell it and bring your family to Europe or elsewhere? You know for sure the house will be bombed again in another coming war,” my friend, Laurent, asked me.
“Clinging to our homeland that holds both joy and sorrow is our only way to be steadfast. This land is ours, and will stay forever, despite the relentless attempts to take it away!” Perhaps, Laurent did not understand my answer clearly, but the Irish people, with their own history of struggling from colonisation, of course you do.
Ahmed Alsammak is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. He is currently based in Dublin to pursue his MBA studies. He was a project assistant at We Are Not Numbers, a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in the Gaza Strip. Twitter: @Ahmed_al_sammak.
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