Malak Hijazi
The Electronic Intifada / October 9, 2024
I’m not sure who first came up with the idea of dropping flyers from the sky, but it wouldn’t be surprising if Israel did.
It’s certainly not new for us here in Gaza.
I remember being a child during the 2008-2009 war, running to catch a flyer, fighting with another girl my age over who would read it first. Back then, holding a paper that fell from the sky – where God supposedly resides – felt like a game.
But those flyers clashed with what I knew to be true from the harsh reality around us. They pretended to care, as if the Israelis were genuinely concerned for our safety.
I can’t even recall their orders clearly. They probably don’t either, there have been so many. We didn’t pay much attention to them back then. What I do remember is mocking the grammar mistakes and punctuation errors.
Now, though, they’ve grown more aggressive. The Israeli army introduced a new evacuation system in northern Gaza, replacing the old “block” system with a new one. They claim, in their flyer, they’ll use it “as necessary.”
They’ve announced they will invade Jabaliya and the surrounding areas for the third time.
The message is clear: Leave now for your own good.
As if Palestinians across the Gaza Strip don’t already live in a constant “dangerous combat zone.” As if danger is something foreign to us.
They want us to abandon our homes forever. They want to empty our streets and our lives, all under the pretense of protection – even though they’ve bombed supposed humanitarian zones countless times before.
The Israeli dream
This escalation is especially alarming because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has initiated a new phase of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, focusing on taking control of the northern Gaza Strip.
Netanyahu’s plan appears to be to expel Palestinians from the north and establish Jewish settlements in their place, with the goal of annexing the territory to Israel. The ongoing war is being used as a pretext for this.
The Israeli government is also manoeuvring to control the distribution of humanitarian aid, sidelining international organizations such as UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees.
Netanyahu seems to envision a future where displaced Palestinians are confined to a southern “humanitarian enclave,” with no hope of returning home.
“What’s the wildest Israeli dream?” someone once asked me.
Without hesitation, I answered: the disappearance of the Palestinian people.
But would even that satisfy them?
Under a sky that rains orders for us to vanish, this is just a persistent threat to everyone who refuses to disappear.
Some in northern Gaza saw the flyers falling from the sky as a strange kind of gift. Since Israel had cut off cooking gas a year ago, they used the paper to fuel their fires. Wood was scarce – most of it had already been burned.
My neighbour laughed bitterly. “Thank God, Netanyahu will finally kill us all,” as though this was the only salvation from our misery.
Meanwhile, my father sat counting his money, calculating if it would be enough if we were forced to leave.
Stay or leave?
He compared the orders posted on Facebook by the Arabic-speaking Israeli army spokesperson to the ones dropped from the sky. There was a difference: the word “evacuation” wasn’t the headline on our flyer; instead, it was labeled “urgent warning.”
I didn’t see much difference, but my father did, maybe because he didn’t want to believe he could be forced to abandon the home he’d spent his life savings building. He couldn’t bear the thought of being homeless, now at 60, with no future in sight.
He always tells me, “You’re young, go see the world, travel, live wherever you want. You can always start over.”
But for him, time is running out.
“Shouldn’t someone like me be retiring peacefully by now, taking care of my plants in the home I built? I’ll only leave if God takes my soul,” he says.
There is no safe place in Gaza. In the north, we’ve lived through more than anyone should endure – massacres, hunger, destruction. What more can they take when everything’s already been taken?
Still, if the Israeli soldiers come into our homes and drag us out, one by one, there will be no way to resist.
I started wondering how I would carry my belongings if I had to walk south on foot. Cars are banned.
Would I leave everything scattered along the road?
Would they kill me in the street like they did my classmate and her husband?
The so-called “safe roads” are littered with bodies, families unable to bury their dead because the soldiers control the area. Many didn’t even get the small dignity of a grave.
I thought about how the army uses the sky against us. The same sky that once brought rain – rain that Palestinian farmers saw as baraka, the ultimate blessing – now brings military planes and evacuation orders.
The world watches
My sister interrupted my thoughts, frustrated.
“This isn’t the time for one of your rants … This is ethnic cleansing. They can’t do that.”
I replied: “Your grandparents were ethnically cleansed. Don’t you remember?”
The only difference now is that we are being killed and displaced in front of cameras. Our houses are being bombed. They ask us to leave our homes forever or face violent repercussions. It’s been a year now – a year without action.
Sometimes I feel my grandparents were luckier than us.
They didn’t have Instagram story archives to remind them of what they lost, like the almond tree by the house or the house itself.
They weren’t asked, “What’s your message to a world that has failed you?”
They didn’t see pictures of themselves while evacuating or videos of them crying over their murdered loved ones.
The world watches as the skies rain down orders, and we’re left to contend with a reality of uncertainty and despair.
The disconnect is overwhelming.
We’re expected to comply with threats, our very existence reduced to numbers scattered across all of Palestine. We hold on to hope, wishing that someone, somewhere, will break through the indifference and finally see us.
But as the echoes of bombs fill our days, I can’t help but wonder if anyone is truly listening.
Malak Hijazi is a Gaza-based writer
