Sondos Sabra
Mondoweiss / November 29, 2024
Since October 7, 2023, Sondos Sabra has kept a diary of the genocide. These entries serve as a window into her life and the universal Gazan story of what it means to survive. “I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased.”
October 7, 2023: Rain and olive trees
It’s raining. I love rainy mornings. October rain is particularly eagerly anticipated by Palestinians, especially my father. He’s on pins and needles for it. It’s the season for Palestinian festivals. People consider it a sign from Mother Nature, signalling the start of the olive season, a gesture from her to cleanse the grains with green gold, as they call it. This morning seems beautiful. In Palestinian slang, this time of year is called the “Jad al-Zeitoon” season, where the bond between the land and the people is renewed, and families gather to pick olives in an atmosphere of cooperation and joy.
My grandfather, born in 1898, “before the establishment of Israel and the British Mandate,” spent much of his life planting his land with olive and prickly pear trees – my family’s name ‘sabra” comes from their reputation for planting it. Over 80 years ago he established orchards that my father and my uncles then inherited. My grandfather lived a long life, nearly 100 years, and when he passed away his sons pledged to care for his trees as if they were their own children. My grandfather used to say, “The olive tree is like Palestine: its roots burrow deep into the earth; its branches are a symbol of peace, and its oil is the elixir of life.” Despite all the colonisers” attempts to steal his land, the Palestinian clings to it to every last inch of it, facing the Israeli thirst for annihilation with an even more steadfast determination for life, dying a thousand times, if necessary, only to rise back up with a newfound love for the homeland.
Every October, our family, from the youngest to the oldest, prepares for this season. My father has bought a new ladder, and my younger brother Mahmoud fetched out a large, elegant glass bottle he had put aside, to fill with oil, after the pressing, to give to his friend at school. Yes, in Palestine, we give olive oil as a gift and a symbol. A present for a friend, a reward for success, a blessing for a bride.
For me, I try to convince my father to buy a new tea kettle, but he insists on keeping the old one that has been so charred by fire over the years it’s now completely black. My father cherishes his things. He doesn’t let go of them easily, and shows endless fondness towards them. He is the same with his relationships. He always says, “The dearest things I own in this life are my land, my library, and you,” referring to us “his children”. I’ll let you in on a secret; throughout my childhood, I felt jealous of my father’s library because of his preoccupation with it. I used to chide him, “The dearest things you own in this life are me, me, and me… then your books. I’ll donate all your books to my school, if you don’t accept that.” “I’ll donate you,” he’d reply jokingly. “Or better still, I’ll sell you and buy more books with the money.”
Picking olives is as laborious as it is enjoyable. Tasks are divided among the group. One spreads out the mats on the ground, another undertakes to pick the olives from low-hanging branches, another climbs the ladder to pick those on the higher branches, and another prepares breakfast, usually skiving the bulk of the work to sip a cup of tea and wait for the others to join them. We pick the olives by hand, a method my late grandfather insisted upon. Others get machines or even chemicals to do the work for them. But my father says picking by hand is gentlest on the tree and causes it the least harm; it also yields the richest oil. The olives that fall on their own, or with a gentle shake of the branches, go for pickling and rather than being squeezed for their oil, for reasons of quality. They are the best.
The mats placed under the trees catch everything that falls. During the picking process, large leaves, old or sick ones, fall with the fruits and must be separated out before they’re sent for pressing or pickling. The separation process is done either with a large sieve or by exposing them to an air current, such as the waft of a palm frond.
Harvesting activities begin in the early hours of dawn. Our visit today is to prepare for the season, and we won’t start picking today. My four-year-old sister, Fatima, woke up and didn’t allow anyone else to sleep; the whole family has to wake up once she’s up. No one dares to break this rule, not even our cat Oscar. We prepare for the busy day ahead. We load the necessary items for the season into the car – ladder, ground mats, cooking pots – and head towards our land. We haven’t even had our morning coffee yet; we’ll have it on the land today. Once we’ve had breakfast, each of us will go about our separate tasks. On the way there, I receive a message from my writer friend Mahmoud El Basyouni reminding me of our meeting. Because he can be a bit bird-brained, I often skip some details that he considers important, so he’s chasing me. Mahmoud is publishing a sequel to his first novel, and we are planning a launch event. He knows I’m passionate about Arabic literature and poetry, and he chose me, “proudly”, to be the MC for the event.
As soon as we reached the land, and got out of the car, explosions began to echo in the distance. Consecutive explosions rattle off in time to our own heartbeats. What is this? Is it a new war launched by Israel? Didn’t they have enough bloodshed in previous wars and escalations? But these rockets are coming from Gaza. Is it a mistake in the resistance’s missile platform system? My questions are interrupted by the screams of my little sister Fatima, screams that fill the orchard. I hug her tightly and try to calm her down. Fatima is very attached to me, but I can’t seem to ease her shock. I remember this fear well. I have lived with it throughout my childhood. My lungs can’t forget it. The smell of gunpowder still lingers within them.
This is what it’s like for Gazan kids. Alongside the alphabet of letters, we learned the alphabet of wars. I was in the Arabic language test hall, when my eight-year-old heart was tested on this latter subject. We received our papers, and explosions began to thunder around us, their sounds creeping closer and closer to my school – the Cairo Elementary School, in the Rimal neighborhood. The words “war”, “escalation”, or “conflict” weren’t yet in my vocabulary, and I didn’t understand the subtle differences between them. We poured out from our desks, into the rows between exam tables, then out into the corridors of the school, screaming and stumbling. What is this? What will we do? Why is this happening to us? I wanted a hug that day from my mother. I remember needing it so badly, so I don’t leave Fatima for a moment. Panic gripped everyone that day, including the teachers and the administration. For the first time, I saw my teacher trembling with fear and crying. Then I knew it was serious. This was in late December 2008, when Israel launched a bloodthirsty war on Gaza, killing over 200 Palestinians on the first day alone. In this war, Israel used white phosphorus for the first time and has reused it in all subsequent wars on Gaza, despite it being banned internationally. They even used it in an attack on Al-Fakhoura school which is run by the UNRWA, killing 40 civilians.
We quickly decide to pack up and return home, to leave the harvesting for another day when things calm down. On the way back, passersby exchanged news with us about one of the prominent leaders in Hamas being assassinated by Israel, and Hamas launching rockets in response to the assassination. This didn’t surprise me; Israel has a long history of assassinating leaders, figureheads, even academics and poets – Ghassan Kanafani being one of the most prominent examples. No Palestinian is safe from Israel’s targeting. The very existence of any Palestinian – man, woman, or child – is unsettling for it. My brother suggests we go grocery shopping, get a week’s load in emergency supplies in case we’re not able to leave the house for a while. We do just this, quickly grabbing whatever we think we might need, before heading home.
Uncertainty still prevails over the course of events. Uncertainty about what’s happening and what will happen. Uncertainty about my to-do list for today, tomorrow, who knows how long. For someone like me, who’s mad about planning, this chaos is disturbing. But it’s normal in Gaza. Life is full of surprises at the best of times, no doubt. But Gaza’s surprises never end, and they’re all unpleasant.
October 13, 2023: An emergency bag
This morning is unlike any other; the war rages on without pause. The house is crowded; my older sister arrived yesterday with her children and grandchildren after her home was badly damaged in a bombardment that pounded her neighbourhood. We wake up early to prepare breakfast. I sit next to little Fatoum (as we call Fatima), both of us in front of the dough board. My task is to spread the cheese, thyme, and oil onto the dough, and she carefully mimics my movements, watching and learning with childish curiosity. Though the task is simple, I feel a small degree of responsibility, then start to wonder why my older siblings always entrust me with the easier jobs. I don’t mind; in fact, it pleases me, but I can’t help but wonder if they will always see me as the youngest, no matter how old I get.
When it’s time to bake, my father takes over with skilled hands. The aroma of the pastries fills the air, and as the first batch comes out, I quickly grab a few along with a cup of sage tea and retreat to my room to continue watching a movie I started the night before. I’m not sure if it’s the commotion I’m running away from or the tension I need a time-out from. I tell myself it’s a little soldier’s break, an excuse to detach, and decompress, even if momentarily.
In the movie, there is a scene of a woman trying to get the hero’s attention, walking back and forth in front of him as he sat engrossed in his newspaper, oblivious to her efforts. The scene stirs something in me, evoking a strange sadness for women who chase men this way. For me, love cannot be forced or won through tactics; it should flow naturally, unscripted. I hold onto the traditional idea that femininity shines in calmness, while courage and initiative are more a man’s game.
My sister’s husband returns from an emergency meeting with UNRWA. The staff have been ordered to evacuate North Gaza as Israel has declared it a high-risk combat zone. It is unsettling to think that a prominent international organization might leave thousands of people behind; it hints at something far more ominous. Suddenly, the sky is filled with little pieces of white paper fluttering down like leaves. We rush to the rooftop, watching as they drift slowly downward. They are warnings from the Israeli army, demanding everyone in the north evacuate immediately to South Gaza. What does it mean to have to abandon our homes like this? Where do we go, and for how long? Are we just to leave these homes as if they are worth nothing?
Back inside our apartment, we feel the whole city rocked by loud explosions. The walls shake, sending shockwaves of fear through us all. I’ve lived through wars before, but this time, the force of the explosions is unlike anything I’ve experienced, and the destruction is more widespread. The news is terrifying: entire neighbourhoods are collapsing, with hundreds dead. How is this justified as self-defense?
My father is worried about a repeat of the 1948 displacement, recalling how Palestinians were forced to leave their land but hoped to return a few weeks later. And as Egypt voices its rejection of any attempts to relocate Palestinians to Sinai, it feels as if we are on the edge of an unknown fate, a choice between dying here or leaving everything behind. My father suggests that the children and most of the women go south, while he and some of the men stay behind. The thought of splitting up is heartbreaking; I am not used to being away from my family. I try to convince him to let me stay, but he firmly refuses. I have never seen him so tense, so I stop arguing and go to pack my bag.
In my room, I collapse onto my bed, tears streaming down my face. The fear of what is to come overwhelms me and suffocates me, and the thought of harm befalling my father or any of my loved ones is unbearable. This senseless chaos in our lives, as if our existence means nothing – we are always forced to endure it, as if our lives and homes are disposable, as if our very presence is denied.
Displacement is a leap into the unknown; you leave behind all that matters and pack your life into a small emergency bag, light enough to carry. As I prepared mine, I wondered what it could possibly hold. How can a bag carry everything that makes a house a home?
Today is not a day I will forget in a hurry; a day unlike any other, like the first day of a new job, or a first love, or the first time you taste the bitterness of loss. The first of anything leaves a lasting impact, sweet or bitter. But displacement is unique in its abruptness, its sting. There’s no rehearsal, no preparation – you must learn to improvise. You must train yourself to let go of the things you cherish, to turn your back on them as if they never existed, and to set out on a path that is jagged and desolate.
November 24, 2023: Rest from the shadow of death
At seven o’clock on the 24th of November, a truce came into effect after 49 days in which Israel tried to wring death out of every last second. This is not a metaphor but a fact. The news of the martyrdom of Mohammed al-Bayadh and Noaman al-Bayadh, prominent sons of the neighbourhood I had recently moved to, came just ten minutes before the truce began. Mohammed had gone for the dawn prayer at the mosque across the street, and the Israeli planes bombed the mosque, bringing it down on over the heads of the worshippers. When Noaman heard the news, he rushed to the site to try and save his brother, but the plane bombed the area once again.
The mosque was not just for prayer but also housed a huge generator that supplied the neighbourhood not just with electricity for charging phones and batteries, but also effectively with water, as all water tanks needed refilling through pumps. Its destruction would cause a crisis for the entire neighbourhood. I was on the roof of the building, watching a huge crowd of people trying to lift the rubble of the bombed mosque with their hands, searching for their loved ones. With each martyr they pulled out, someone would cry out: “Martyr, martyr!” And the crowd would chant loudly: “Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar.”
The number of martyrs so far is 12, but there are still people missing under the rubble. Their fate is unknown—whether they are dead or wounded. Until now, everyone pulled from under the rubble has been a martyr. Mohammed and Noaman’s uncle arrived at the site and sat under a tree, weeping. Another man came and told him that Mohammed and Noaman were gone, and soon the news of their martyrdom spread.
I came down from the roof after a few minutes to tell my sister what I had heard: Hammoud (as they called him) and Noaman have been martyred!
“I knew him,” she replied, “He was a kind boy; he helped me many times carry water upstairs.”
“May God have mercy on him,” I said. After a few moments of silence in the presence of death, I added, “I will prepare to return to our home. I miss it, the rose plants on the balconies. Have they withered? I miss my room, especially my bed.”
“Let’s wait,” my sister said. “I fear Israel might break the truce, and we could get hurt.”
“So be it,” I replied. “I don’t care!”
“Shall we have breakfast?”
“I can’t bear to wait, not even for seconds.”
Reaching our neighbourhood during the past few days had posed too great a risk, but I have to admit it, although I hid it from my sister, I have on several occasions made secret attempts to return, trying to get as close to it as possible, only to be stopped by warnings from passersby about the dangers of going any further.
My sister’s husband brought a container of water, and I took some to wash my face. I tried to inhale it to clean my nose, which was clogged with dust and dirt from last night’s insane bombardment. Everything in the house was covered in a layer of fine dust. I shook off my coat, put it on hurriedly, and my sister and I left.
At the entrance of the building lay the bodies of Mohammed and Noaman, surrounded by a crowd of people performing the burial rites. Their mother sat at the head of Noaman, her youngest son, crying, clutching their shrouds, and saying, “Wasn’t one enough? Both of them! Why am I not with you?” Her husband held her, trying to wipe away her tears, but they both broke down crying together.
Mohammed was tall and broad, but in his shroud, he was the size of a one-year-old child. His body had melted, and they had only found his head, parts of his limbs, and a few kilograms of his flesh. But at least, as one passerby put it, he was lucky because he received the prayers of the men from the neighbourhood and would be buried in a grave. His body wasn’t left for stray dogs to feast on.
Have you ever heard of people comparing one death to another?
Once, during a conversation with my nieces, Abir, my 8-year-old niece, said to me: “I hope I die instantly so I don’t feel anything, and that no part of me gets amputated. I always pray not to get maimed. I want a quick death, all at once. And you, auntie, how do you want to die?”
We continued walking toward the sabra neighbourhood, where my home is. The streets were filled with people, most walking on foot, carrying their bedding and belongings. Whenever someone met someone they knew, they would shake hands as if it were a holiday, thanking God for the safety of their neighbours and relatives.
“Where are you headed, old man?” I hear one passerby say to another. “Are you still alive? Only the good people die, and those like you stay alive!”
It is a dark joke, but he laughs loudly and shakes his hand warmly.
I wish I could shake someone’s hand, hug them, and tell them that I am still alive! My family and most of my friends have now fled south to Rafah. I feel the vitality of gratitude for being alive in the joy of passersby when they are reunited with their loved ones. It stirs something in me! If my Fatoum (as I call Fatima) were here, I would run to her, lift her in my arms, throw her into the air, and catch her again, kissing her a thousand times. Fatoum’s kisses are sweet, with a special flavour and scent. Fatoum, with her eyes, her heart, her hugs, her kisses, and her mischief, ignites my appetite for life. I love life because of her. A ceasefire and a hug from Fatoum are truly worth celebrating!
The streets no longer looked familiar; the destruction had altered their appearance, like a scene from a horror movie where the director went overboard in terrifying the audience. Most of the buildings are damaged. The cars on the streets seem to have just come out of a fierce battle. It is rare to find a car unscathed, undamaged, or unbroken. I see cars with flat tires still being driven. But most people have replaced cars with animal-drawn carts due to the lack of diesel and gasoline. The streets resemble a poor, dishevelled man from another era, wearing tattered clothes, who everyone looks at with disdain. Walking through them requires physical fitness; you have to climb over mountains of rubble from destroyed buildings, then descend through deep valleys left behind by crazed rockets determined to abolish life and infrastructure. Electric poles lay on the ground, and the manhole covers gape open. The remnants of explosives lie everywhere—some made in the U.S., others in India, Germany, and Britain. Has the entire world united to kill this place? The faces of the people are pale as if their colours have been stolen.
When my house came into view from afar, my anxiety slowly eased. I had been afraid we would lose it. My father spent a lifetime building it. I know exactly how it feels when your house is bombed, and you see its rubble before your eyes. It’s like having your heart ripped out of your chest. After that, you spend your days wandering between refugee schools and displaced people’s tents, both miserable in their own right. From a house full of love and the laughter of your children to a tent that doesn’t protect you from the summer heat or the winter cold. No safety, no privacy, no comfort, no life. How I wish I could open rooms in my heart for those displaced children!
I love my house simply because it has four walls where I can withdraw and retreat, away from the noise of the world. I hate how they treat our homes as if they’re just buildings made of stone—they are much more than that. It’s my sanctuary. I can walk from room to room, talking to myself like a fool without drawing anyone’s attention. I can run, dance, sing, and cry. They say walls have ears, but I hope the walls of our house are deaf because I babble a lot. I love my house because, once upon a time, it gathered us as a family under its roof. We have family memories in every corner of it. I love my room in particular. The best thing about it is that it’s mine, and I have the freedom to choose its decor, paint, and furniture. The ability to choose, even within limited options, gives me a sense of control over this chaotic life. These days, limited choices bind me, making me feel like a one-eyed puppet. What also delights me is that my room overlooks a balcony where I plant roses like geraniums and… seedlings like basil and mint. My room’s door, along with my father’s room and the house windows, are all broken, and some walls were hit by small shrapnel. But despite everything, I’m grateful that the damage was only to this extent.
This long-awaited moment, after more than a month, is when I can lie on my bed and sleep like a mischievous child worn out from playing all day. If time could stop here, at this moment, I wouldn’t mind.
January 16, 2024: Living in darkness
Sleep during wartime is elusive, the search for it is like the search for a loaf of bread. Low-flying planes emit a never-ending buzz, and I wonder naively and with a hint of seriousness: Does their fuel ever run out? Does the pilot ever tire of soaring and diving, bombing and surveilling? Is he ever tempted to retreat from our besieged skies and grant just one Gazan some peaceful sleep.
Gunfire echoes sporadically. Any one of those bullets is capable of rending my body to shreds. Any one of those missiles is capable of levelling an entire neighbourhood. Inside me, there’s another kind of buzzing, no less tumultuous than the buzz of war, audible even amidst the gunfire and confusion, asking questions like: “What if tragedy befalls my family in Rafah?” “Will I see my little sister, Fatima again?” “Will we be separated forever?” “Will we be the next target?” (When the bombing became too much, my family had to flee, but my sister Shirin was pregnant and couldn’t walk long distances so I stayed to look after her.)
We all sleep in the central corridor of our home, stretched out on mattresses in neat rows, like bodies in a mass grave, enveloped in darkness. The thirty or so people currently taking refuge in our apartment crowd my thoughts, as I try to work out how we can all share the lone bathroom at the end of the corridor. Attempting to leave my mattress, using the light of my phone to guide me, I am scolded by an elderly woman well over seventy years old: “Put down the phone, child, you’ll get us all killed! Don’t you know there are snipers on the rooftops all around us?” I return to my place, a lump forming in my throat, wanting to scream – as much at the old woman as at the sniper on the rooftops and the rest of the world.
In the morning, the same old lady recounts stories of battles past and present, detailing the many different risks resistance fighters take every day as if she were one of them herself. She speaks of how the Israeli Army monitors civilians’ movements through patrols, forcing them to evacuate to Rafah and leave their homes, then monitors them as they move, and then monitors them when they arrive and set up their tents. She obsesses over the devil that she calls the mobile phone, how it exposes civilians and fighters alike, makes them vulnerable with their bright screens and their traceable signals. She forbids their use. Most likely, what the old lady is doing is channelling some of the psychological symptoms of war through a generational gap, a distrust of technology, and an abiding belief that all corruption stems from this advancement. Whether in war or peace, she views the phone as the most trivial invention in human history, a distraction and a hindrance we must rid ourselves of. For her, it’s just a phone, but for me, it’s a lifeline connecting me to my memories and beloved people. Even though communications are down most of the time, there’s always hope – that a message from my father will reach me at any moment, reassuring me that he and other members of my family are safe.
I’ve become indifferent to everything, even the necessities of life. All I can think of is how my heart would ache, when, back at the start of the war, I would hold my four-year-old sister Fatima close to my chest, shielding her from the sounds of explosions. Fatima and I have birthdays just a few days apart, and we usually celebrate our birthdays together. Now we are separated, whenever I feel lonely, I open up the photos on my phone, and look at pictures of her, her eyes beaming with secrets, as if I could find solace in them. Her name feels like a beautiful symphony, perhaps because it was also the name of my mother, who took her place in heaven early, whose clothes I have kept yet refrained from wearing yet, out of respect; the time is not right.
I used to call my little sister “Tomato”, “Fatoom”, and “My Duckling”. How much I miss her and want to call out to her: “Fatoom, my darling.”
Warplanes launch their missiles day and night, and the explosions cast a pall of choking gasses across the neighbourhood, carrying a foul odour scraping at our throats, sometimes even claiming lives. No one knows what is in these gasses, and they seem to change each time. They target our area in the early hours of the night, and a scent reminiscent of sewage permeates the apartment.
To think I have made peace with these foul fumes and no longer care about them out of sheer familiarity. I no longer even cover my mouth and nose when I smell them after each explosion. But I can’t forget that one night; the bombing raid wasn’t the same as other nights, and nor was the smoke. When it crept into my nostrils, I struggled to breathe; I grabbed a towel, dampened it, and attempted to breathe through it, but I lost consciousness, only waking up in the hospital. I wasn’t alone in my bed, in the emergency room, but accompanied by a spiderweb of tubes leading to oxygen tanks and other things. I learned then that what spread wasn’t smoke but phosphorus, white and internationally banned, and tested regularly on us Palestinians.
In January, the cold at night is biting. My hands and nose freeze, hurting even more each time I have to use water. I wish I could light a fire to warm a little water, but my sister warned me repeatedly against even lighting a small light at night, fearing the planes might notice it. Although they pretend their missions are all directed at military targets, we know the enemy’s real target is indiscriminate – all people in Gaza.
I hear the sounds of clashes nearby. Time passes slowly as if stretching in on itself so thinly it will disappear in the chaos of war. We wait eagerly for the dawn, hoping it will bring a semblance of peace.
We remain in our homes until late morning, hoping the sun will provide us some safety. As always, we keep a close eye on the news, listen out for gunshots and explosions, search for any glimmer of hope, from tracking the footsteps down in the street below, to eavesdropping on others’ conversations and differing opinions. Our thoughts swing like a pendulum between hope and anxiety. It seems like a breakthrough is imminent. They say the enemy is withdrawing from the area. People go out to verify the news, and gradually, there is a light scattering of movement spreading across the neighbourhood; a reassurance seeps back into people’s hearts, as if life were slowly returning to our forgotten streets.
Fear recedes slightly, but the queues at the bathroom door didn’t get any shorter. When it comes to my turn, I discover the water ran out with the person holding the eighth spot. I curse my luck and join a new queue, searching for a litre of water, to no avail. I feel the great sadness of our collective existence. If I were a cat, I wouldn’t have to queue for water; I could eat from the earth’s scraps and drink from its puddles, not have to wait for the war to end or the world’s sympathy to turn towards us.
In the afternoon, the doorbell rings and I go to answer it. Our neighbour stands in front of me, with a ball of dough in his hands, asking if he can use our wood-fired oven. I hesitate for a moment, then find myself agreeing in exchange for four liters of water. He accepts, and I’m ecstatic at the thought of having secured some water but just as quickly saddened by the thought of us bartering over such measly things, when once we would boast to the world about our qualities of generosity and chivalry.
At last, I get to wash my face, though I’m unable to avoid showing it to the mirror as I do so. Just then our neighbour abandons his attempt to bake the dough and I hear something in the kitchen crash to the ground, as he flees the apartment. Before we know it we are all fleeing to the sound of a missile screeching overhead. The walls shake, but the missile didn’t explode yet. Maybe it is a warning strike, identifying a location for a subsequent, larger strike. It’s so close its message cannot be any clearer: the withdrawal of tanks doesn’t mean an end to the destruction.
Our neighbour’s radio blares loudly, broadcasting to the entire neighbourhood that international pressure is being exerted on Israel to allow aid to enter, particularly from the United States. “Our generous friends! They’ll send aid while the waterfall of blood is still flowing!” our neighbour comments sarcastically. This friendly character once fashioned a bombshell casing into his favourite ashtray, hollowing it out and inscribing it with the words “Made in America”. He calls out to his wife, Saad, “Tea without sugar?! Add some sugar to it for goodness sake. We’ve been married for twenty years, and you still haven’t learned how much sugar I prefer!” Saad retorts, “A kilo of sugar costs ten times its normal price, my dear. Your teacups alone need a pound of sugar a day. You have to get used to tea without it!”
They say humans adapt and get accustomed to life. Perhaps Saad’s husband will get used to drinking tea without sugar, but how will Palestinians get used to what’s really happened over the last few months – our city in ruins, our people stripped of their basic dignity? The shards of war have caught our souls in the ricochet and robbed them of their joy. Let’s step away from the ambiguity of metaphors and strive for the clearest possible language. This war has exhausted us, drained us, worn us down. Those who haven’t received their share of Israeli occupation weapons have suffered greatly, mentally and physically drained. We are nothing but oppressed in our own land, counting the days and misnaming them.
May 12, 2024: “We Kill Terrorism”
Of course, they don’t intend to kill me, even when they drop 2000-pound bombs on us. Even when they rain down bombardments across entire neighbourhoods and make life impossible in our city. No, no, don’t misunderstand. They are merely eradicating “terrorism”.
Today, “terrorism” was hiding in the body of Omar, my six-year-old nephew, perhaps in his heart, or maybe among his soft locks of hair; so they killed him. They dropped two missiles on him and his siblings, Aya and Ahmad, and his niece Sila, who was only six months old, killing them all. Who knows, perhaps terrorism hides in a garden, in the warmth of a home, in the bells of churches, or the minarets of mosques, between the pages of books, in the streets and alleyways of the camp, or even amidst the tents of the displaced. They have every right to erase anything from the face of the earth if they so desire, and no one has the right to criticize Israel.
After all, they are saving humanity from the evildoers!
How valiant of them. How noble.
This is the story of how my nieces and nephews were killed.
At five o’clock this morning, my sister Randa woke to strange noises around her house. She roused her husband to go and investigate, and as soon as he opened the window, two successive explosions shook him, and a thick layer of smoke filled the air outside. After a few moments of trying to discern the source and nature of the sound, he stammered, “It seems the army’s machinery is digging in the nearby streets.” Randa fell to the floor and crawled on her hands and knees, fearing a sniper might be in the surrounding buildings, toward the adjacent room to wake her children. She found them awake. She whispered in the ear of her eldest son, Samir, “The army has surrounded us.” Fear gripped Samir’s heart; he picked up his seven-month-old daughter, Sila, kissed her, and put his hand over her mouth to prevent any sound that might alert the soldiers to their presence. Her husband suggested they go down to the basement on the lower floor until the army withdrew from the area. As soon as they went downstairs, shells began hitting the courtyard of the house, making the decision for them: they had to leave the house immediately.
The sun was already rising, as they moved cautiously towards the backyard, which led outside. There were ten of them in total. They began to sneak into the garden one by one, holding a white flag above their heads as they ran. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder; a dense fog enveloped the neighbourhood, and the sounds of cannons echoed on all sides. The family ran as fast as they could towards the entrance to a side street about ten meters wide. A “quadcopter” drone flying low over the rooftops noticed them and rained bullets down on them. They scattered, stumbled, and fell to the ground thinking it was all over for them, then realizing they were still alive got back to their feet and ran with all their might, driven by the most profound of instincts, survival. Some ran into a house at the end of the street. Others continued running along the wall. None of them were injured. They thought they had survived. But nowhere was safe around there, so they kept moving. After half an hour of running like this, they reached a school affiliated with UNRWA and took refuge.
But the missiles had followed them.
How must it have felt for them to be on the verge of safety, to be able to have smelt survival they were that close to it, only to have death pounce on them, as they rounded the corner.
My six-year-old nephew Omar was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel and died instantly. His brother Ahmad, sister Aya, and niece Sila were left wounded, and bleeding. This was Omar’s first year in elementary school, but he never got to memorize the route each morning to school or mischievously ring doorbells and run away before anyone came. He chose another path, a more peaceful one, to soar with the flocks of young pigeons to the skies above Gaza City. Samir dragged his siblings with the help of a local resident to a nearby house and tried every possible way to stop their bleeding but to no avail. Aya was wounded in the side, Ahmad in the chest and legs. Samir ran out again, trying to find an ambulance, even though he himself had been injured by shrapnel in his throat and had lost a tooth in his lower jaw. Ambulances have become scarce in northern Gaza. Thousands of wounded are left to die on the pavements or in their houses because there just aren’t enough of them. Samir’s efforts to find an ambulance failed, and returning to Shuja’iyya became impossible as the army had surrounded all its entrances.
When I received the news, I tried to contact the Red Cross, and after struggling with the network, I finally got through:
“Hello habibti, Red Cross here, how can we help you?”
“This is Sondos, I need an ambulance to transport my sister’s children who are wounded to the hospital. They are now trapped in Shuja’iyya in a house belonging to…”
“We are sorry, habibti, we cannot help. The army is preventing our personnel from entering Shuja’iyya.”
How cold the answer was, and how warm the blood.
Ahmad followed Omar, after an hour of bleeding, and Aya joined them minutes later. Sila remained bleeding. The neighbour who was sheltering them wrapped the three bodies in a cover and placed them on the second floor of the house, away from the eyes of his children. Sila tried to cling to life as much as possible, craving more of her mother’s hugs, her father’s kisses, and her grandparents’ gifts. Sila’s arrival, the first grandchild of my sister’s family, had brought joy to the entire household, with everyone participating in setting up her room, equipping it with everything a child might need up to the age of one. The day of her birth had been a celebration. Her father distributed sweets to all the children and adults across the entire neighbourhood, rejoicing at her arrival. During the November truce, I visited her, took her in my arms, and smelled her. That day, a tiny white tooth had started to press upwards in her lower gums. True, it hadn’t yet fully protruded, but beware, it already felt sharp, biting voraciously any finger that dared touch it. She had a laugh that would melt your soul, transporting you out of your own dull world into hers with all its exuberance.
After 12 hours of bleeding, Sila decided to let go of this world that turned its back on her.
Until we meet again, summer fruit.
Sila’s body remained in the arms of her mother, Saja, for a whole day. Due to the ongoing fighting in the neighbourhood, and the fact that they couldn’t go outside, they were unable to bury them. Saja was injured herself, a piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in her right elbow and another piece in her left leg. She was barely able to move. The neighbour’s wife tried every way she could think of to persuade Saja to let her take her daughter from her, so she could place her with the other three bodies on the upper floor. But she refused. “Please,” she begged, “Let her stay in my arms; I want to hold her some more.” Saja married at 18, gave birth to Sila at 19, and lost her in the same year. How can her small heart bear this amount of anguish? And to have this heartache compounded by the pain of milk drying in her breasts.
My sister Randa, her husband, and their daughter, Fella, were trapped in the house they sought refuge in, unable to leave, unaware of their children’s martyrdom. They tried calling Samir and his wife several times, but the network was down throughout the neighbourhood – cutting off all communication and internet is a common tactic of the army when entering an area. They were not alone in the house they’d taken refuge in; over forty people were trapped with them. All of them went without food and water in that house a whole day, before they felt safe enough to venture out. Only then did they hear the news.
October 1, 2024: A day in the life of a woman living under genocide
This morning, George Orwell’s 1984 lingers in my thoughts.
“How does one human impose their authority on another, Winston?”
The answer: “He makes him suffer.”
These words feel awfully close to how Israel deals with Palestinians. Today is a new day, but we may as well be living in the past – dragged back a hundred years. If only that long-dead author could be my friend. He would tell me more about his life, about the details of his day. How would he manage to start a fire quickly? What would he do when it rained, and the wood got too wet to burn?
I imagine channelling his physical strength, the size of his hands, the thickness of his skin, just for a few hours. My hands feel too fragile to light a fire, or endure its flames. After all that I’ve lived through, I fear that if I were to hold a rose in my hands, I might break the petals, and ruin it.
I want to ask my long-dead author friend, how does the sound of wild pigeons in the morning feel without being disrupted by the roar of fighter jets?
At noon, I resume my work with a youth initiative where we provide psychological support to children. I work in a school in northern Gaza that shelters displaced families. I spend most of my time with the children. For them, the word “school” now means nothing more than a shelter, stripped of its original meaning as a place of learning.
Today’s mission is to gather the children in a circle and spark conversations and interactions that steer their thoughts away from war. On the surface, this might seem simple, but it’s one of the hardest tasks I’ve ever faced. All their stories revolve mostly around blood, loss, and destruction. I tried talking to them about dreams and the future, but every time a child speaks, they start with, “When the war ends, I’ll do this and that.”
One little girl particularly dear to my heart is named Masa. Her name means “precious gem” in Arabic. She’s five years old and is convinced that when the war ends, her father will return. She and him will play with her toys on her colorful bed, and she’ll scold him for being away so long. But Masa’s father isn’t coming back; he was lost to the war, along with her home and her bed.
I hug her, kiss her, and we sit together in the middle of the circle. I ask the other children to share with me the things they love most about Masa and give her a high five. They do, and as they return to their places, I can’t help but feel the weight of their words.
After work, my colleague Noor and I decide to go to the market. On the way, she complains about her child’s health, as the doctor has told her he is malnourished. We arrive at what Gazans still call a “market”, but just like the school, it has lost most of its meaning. Supplies are scarce, prices are high, and most of the food is canned.
Noor points to the shelves of cans lining the market and says, “Do they expect these to provide my children with the nutrients they need to grow?” Adding: “This food is just meant to fill their bellies, nothing more. The bodies of adults are already exhausted, so imagine a child’s!”
The road is long, and we walk on foot because there is no diesel to run the cars or other forms of transportation. When I finally get home, I light a fire to make a cup of tea. I sit on my bamboo couch, sipping my tea, and the children’s stories fill my thoughts.
As I sat there, I realize all the stories that have accumulated, and I’m afraid I might forget them. My mind can’t keep up with all the events or remember them in full. Each time I try to craft a narrative, a new story is born, and I try to shape that one too, with clumsy, tangled words. My thoughts are like half-formed sentences, lacking the cohesion they need due to the overwhelming things I see and feel.
When I lay my head on the pillow, after almost a year of living through genocide, I think about how disappointed I’ve become. How much I’ve let others down. I think about how deeply sad I am, and I don’t know who to tell. I don’t know how to wave to someone and say, “Hello, there’s a massive fire inside me. Do you think you could help put it out?”
I feel alone with all the little details, and the big ones, the ones that have harshly strummed the strings of my heart. Since then, my body has been playing a long, lonely wail.
October 31, 2024: When memory becomes consolation
It feels like I’m walking on a taut thread, as if I’m balancing mid-air. I still haven’t gotten used to this harsh way of life imposed on us. Despite the war’s persistence, I cling to my refusal to adapt, with all the patience I have. I revisit my old photos, reminders of who I am, and whisper to myself, “This is me” – a butterfly, fluttering lightly; I won’t let sorrow turn me into a mountain weighed down by despair.
I know my steps have become heavier, the stabs of betrayal exhausting me, but from the depths of my heart, I refuse to let scenes of our slaughter become routine as they flash up on our screens. I refuse to let the souls of my friends and loved ones disappear into passing numbers on news broadcasts, or for our name as Palestinians to be synonymous only with misery and despair.
Today is Thursday, and for the umpteenth day in a row, Israel maintains the closure of the Kerem Shalom border crossing – the lifeline that keeps our food markets and our healthcare going. Hospitals in Gaza face severe shortages of medicine and fuel (needed to run vital equipment), putting citizens’ lives at direct risk, while bombing continues in many different neighbourhoods. Here in the north, food is scarce and prices have skyrocketed. This strategy of starvation has continued for over a year now, and no international law or humanitarian plea seems capable of stopping it. What a farce this world is.
On my way to work today, I see a blonde-haired little girl who looks like my younger sister, her innocent smile lighting up her face. I stop, look at her, and ask, “How are you, little one?” I hold her hands, hug her, and almost kiss her before catching myself. I chide myself: She’s not your sister; it’s just longing. You’re missing her.
When I reach the shelter where I work as a volunteer with children, a missile lands near the market next door. The screams of mothers fill the air as they run to find their children playing outside. I realize leaving the house is not a safe thing to do, but seeing the children and trying to ease their suffering lifts some weight off my shoulders. Today, because of the incident, we decide to cancel our activities, postponing them to another time in much the same way as everything else that’s been delayed since the war began. Life itself is on hold until further notice.
In Gaza, living under such brutality, you find yourself struggling to remember that you’re human; that you deserve life. Israel gives you nothing to allow you to recall this – not even a sip of drinkable water, not even a warm shower to wash off the dust of war. From day one, they announced loud and clear: “No water, no food, no electricity.” And for seventeen years before that, they imposed a suffocating blockade on us, making us feel as though even the air we breathe is being watched. A world busy with its own news and gossip had forgotten that there were human beings with hearts and blood in Gaza, and only woke up on October 7, shocked, as if nothing had happened before, suddenly concluding that we were beyond the salvation of international or “humanitarian” law.
The sting of memory is painful, yet essential to our survival. Dear reader, once we had lives. We had friends. We had Gaza, with its sea, its bright, breezy mornings, its balmy evenings that still reside inside us, strong and defiant against forgetfulness. I remember poetry, how I loved it and still do, and how I had dreams and ambitions that I will nurture again one day and see grow. I remember my breakfast in the university courtyard, the sound of car horns in the morning traffic, and the words I once wrote but never finished. I remember that I remember!
They want to amputate my memory. They want to erase every trace of that life. But I still remember. I remember Gaza as it was. I remember its streets full of life, the little shop on the corner where the owner would expertly fry falafel, its smell instantly stirring the birds in your stomach. I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased…
Israel wants to strip me of my humanity. But I always remind myself that I am a spirit, a beating heart, a free being. They don’t want me to see myself as anything but a number, just a voiceless creature. From the first moment of the war, they declared loudly: “No water, no food, no electricity.” It’s as if they were also whispering out of the corner of their mouths: “We won’t let you remember your humanity.” But they have failed. I think, I write, and I remember. I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased…
I remember the day I was forced by their cruelty to eat animal feed; there was no flour, and the feed’s rough fibre tore the roof of my mouth for days. I remember them dragging the men from our neighbourhood, barefoot and naked before our eyes along the street. I remember how my sister’s children lay dead, unburied, for days. In those moments, I turned inward, and I began to write. Writing became my salvation; it was my path to reclaim my essence, for they may take away food and water, but they can’t strip us of our minds. Every tyrant on earth has tried to control the oppressed by depriving them of the simplest necessities of life, but none succeeded in controlling their minds. Thought transcends shackles, it soars into the sky, free. Yes, I remember. I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased…
I once had a life. I had a home. I had a family who wrapped me in warmth. Overnight, we lost everything; we became displaced, and hungry, as if we had been plunged into hell itself. Nothing remains but memory and a pen. But with these two instruments, we can still reclaim the world, so we must cling to them as if they were lifelines. In this age of injustice, it feels as though we are living in the days of Abu Talib’s boycott, when the Prophet and his uncle were shunned by society for spreading the word of Islam. Like them, we can only wait for some noble spirit on the other side to tear up the “document,” and end the hunger gnawing at our children’s bellies. But I have memory, I have a pen, and I have the world.
I remember that I remember, and I will not have that memory erased…
Sondos Sabra (25) holds a bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the Islamic University of Gaza and is a founding member of the Shaghaf Youth Initiative, where discussions on texts and literary works are organized
