Northern Gaza, Palestine – We had no dwelling to return to. And the Gaza Metropolis we knew was no extra. However we returned.
Why? Possibly it was nostalgia for our former lives – earlier than October 2023. Possibly the feelings we had left behind earlier than our displacement to the south had remained, ready to welcome us again.
Both method, the truth that greeted us was harsh and unfamiliar. I realised how a lot of a stranger I had grow to be in my very own metropolis, the place I had spent almost 30 years of my life.
I wandered by way of streets I might now not recognise, misplaced amid the overwhelming destruction. I struggled to search out my method from my household’s ruined dwelling to my in-laws’ home, which, although nonetheless standing, bore the deep scars of warfare. I walked down one road, into one other – with no acquainted landmarks to information me.
No communication networks, no web, no electrical energy, no transportation – not even water. My pleasure for returning had was a nightmare – destroy and devastation was wherever I turned.
Numb, I roamed by way of the shattered remnants of household properties. My objective was to achieve the place the place my dwelling as soon as stood. I already knew that it was no extra – I had seen photos.
However standing there, in entrance of the rubble of the seven-storey constructing the place I had made so many reminiscences with my household, I used to be silent.
Houses will be rebuilt
One in every of my neighbours, additionally getting back from displacement within the south, arrived. We exchanged damaged smiles as we gazed on the wreckage of our life’s labour. She was luckier than me – she managed to salvage a number of belongings, some outdated garments.
However I discovered nothing. My condominium had been on the primary ground, buried beneath layers upon layers of particles.
My colleague, the photographer Abdelhakim Abu Riash, arrived. I instructed him that I felt no shock, not even any emotion. It wasn’t that I wasn’t grieving, however reasonably that I had entered a state of emotional numbness – a self-imposed anaesthesia, maybe a survival mechanism my thoughts had adopted to protect me from insanity.
My husband, however, was visibly enraged, although silent.
We determined to depart and, as I turned my again on my destroyed dwelling, a deep ache gripped my coronary heart. There isn’t a shelter now, no place to name our personal.
However what stored us from breaking down was realizing we weren’t alone – a complete metropolis stood in ruins.
“At the least we survived, and we’re all secure,” I instructed my husband, attempting to consolation him. After which, horrific reminiscences of the previous 15 months – spent wandering by way of hospitals and refugee camps – rushed again. I reminded him: “We’re higher off than those that misplaced their total households, higher off than the little women who misplaced their limbs. Our kids are secure, we’re secure. Houses will be rebuilt.”
We are saying this typically in Gaza, and it’s true. But it surely doesn’t erase the burden of shedding one’s dwelling.
‘Watch out with the water’
Unable to stroll any additional, we made our technique to my in-laws’ home. We had been instructed it was nonetheless standing however as we approached by way of scenes of devastation, we couldn’t recognise the constructing.
This was the place we’d now reside, in what remained: two rooms, a toilet and a kitchen.
However as soon as once more, there was no area for shock right here. Survival demanded adaptation, regardless of how little we had. That was the rule of warfare.
Inside, we discovered a semblance of reduction. My husband’s brother had arrived forward of us, cleaned somewhat and secured some water. His solely warning: “Watch out with the water. There’s none left in your complete space.”
That single sentence was sufficient to empty the final ounce of hope from me. I felt a crushing mixture of despair, nausea and exhaustion. I might consider nothing however water – simply water.
The home’s sewage system was destroyed. Partitions had been torn open by shelling. The bottom and first flooring had been fully flattened. Life right here is barren and completely bleak.
And what made it worse was the renewed shock of searching the balcony at devastation so far as the attention might see – too huge, too overwhelming to permit escape from the trauma.
My buddy who had stayed within the north had instructed me typically: “The north is totally destroyed. It’s unliveable.” Now I believed her.
My mom’s clothes
The subsequent morning, I went to my mum or dad’s dwelling in Sheikh Radwan, braced for what I might discover as a result of I knew, our neighbours had already despatched us images – the home was nonetheless there, however gutted by hearth.
The Israeli army had stayed in it for a while earlier than setting it on hearth as they withdrew, we had been instructed.
We even discovered a video on TikTok, a soldier who had filmed himself consuming a McDonald’s sandwich in my newlywed brother’s front room whereas watching the neighbouring homes burn.
I wandered by way of the home, overwhelmed by a flood of reminiscences that had been lowered to ash and rubble. Just one room had survived the fireplace: my mother and father’ bed room. The fireplace hadn’t touched it.
I stepped into my mom’s room. I misplaced my mum on Could 7, throughout the warfare.
Her garments nonetheless hung within the closet, embroidered clothes untouched by flames. Her belongings, her Quran, her prayer chair – all the things remained, solely coated in heavy mud and shattered glass.
The whole lot paled compared to the second I stood earlier than my late mom’s wardrobe, tears welling as I gently retrieved her clothes, dismissing the mud.
“That is the gown she wore for my brother Mohammed’s wedding ceremony,” I whispered to myself. “And this one… for Moataz’s wedding ceremony.”
I grabbed my cellphone and known as my sister, nonetheless within the south, my voice trembling between sobs and pleasure: “I discovered Mama’s embroidered clothes. I discovered her garments! They didn’t burn!”
She gasped with happiness, instantly asserting that she would run to the north the following morning to see our mom’s belongings.
That is what life has grow to be right here – rubble in every single place, and but we rejoice over any fragment, any thread that connects us to the previous.
Think about, then, what it means to search out the one tangible traces of our most treasured loss – my beloved mom.
Not the Gaza I knew
Two days later, after sifting by way of wreckage and reminiscences, I compelled myself to step exterior of my grief.
I made a decision to go to the Baptist Hospital within the morning, hoping to fulfill fellow journalists, regain some sense of self and try and work on new tales.
I walked for a very long time, unable to search out transportation. My garments had been quickly lined in mud – all that remained after buildings had been pulverised by Israel’s bombs.
Each passer-by was the identical, coated in layers of gray from head to toe, eyelashes weighed down by particles.
Round me, individuals had been clearing the wreckage of their properties. Stones rained down from collapsed higher flooring as women and men shovelled rubble, mud billowing by way of the air, swallowing total streets.
A lady stopped me and requested the place she might recharge her cellphone credit score. I hesitated, then blurted out: “I’m sorry, Auntie, I’m new right here… I don’t know.”
I walked away, shocked at my response. My unconscious had accepted it – this was now not the Gaza I knew.
I used to know Gaza by coronary heart. Each road – al-Jalaa, Shati Camp, Sheikh Radwan, Remal, al-Jundi. I knew all of the again roads, each market, each well-known bakery, each restaurant, each café. I knew precisely the place to search out the most effective muffins, probably the most elegant garments, the branches of telecom firms, the web service suppliers.
However now?
Now, there have been no landmarks left. No road indicators. No factors of reference. Does this matter anymore?
I continued strolling down al-Jalaa Avenue, struggling to put the previous upon the ruins. Generally I succeeded, typically I took an image to review later, to match it with what as soon as was.
North and south
Lastly, I discovered a automotive heading my method. The driving force gestured for me to take a seat beside a girl within the entrance seat. Within the again, 5 different ladies and a baby had been squeezed collectively.
Alongside the best way, the driving force picked up yet one more passenger, cramming him into the final accessible area.
Each second felt like an error – a system overload in my thoughts.
On the hospital, my reminiscences jolted again to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah the place hospitals turned journalists’ solely refuge – the one locations with electrical energy and web because the warfare started.
This time, the faces had been totally different, and it was obvious that the journalists from the north had skilled this warfare very in a different way from how we had within the south.
I moved hesitantly by way of the corridors, each time we encountered a journalist, I whispered to Abdelhakim: “Is that this individual from the north? Or had been they with us within the south?”
It was a real query. Conversations, familiarity, the burden of phrases – all of them felt totally different, relying on the place we had endured the warfare.
Sure, there was demise and destruction within the south, Israel had not spared Rafah, Deir el-Balah or Khan Younis. But it surely was totally different in Gaza Metropolis and northern Gaza – individuals right here had endured ache to a level that we merely had not.
Every time I recognised a colleague from the south, my face lit up and I ended, keen to speak, sharing tales of the not possible journey alongside al-Rashid Street, asking about their first glimpse of town, concerning the second they noticed their household properties.
That was after I really understood: We felt like strangers in our personal metropolis.
The wrestle to belong once more
Israel’s warfare had not solely reshaped Gaza’s panorama but additionally the individuals inside it. It had shaped new identities beneath hearth, dividing us in methods we by no means imagined.
A bitter, aching reality – we misplaced Gaza, over and over, its individuals, its spirit, ourselves.
For 15 months, we thought the best nightmare was displacement – that exile was the cruellest destiny. Folks wept for dwelling, dreaming solely of return.
However now, return appears much more cruel. Within the south, we had been known as “displaced”. Within the north, we at the moment are “returnees”, the individuals who stayed blaming us for leaving when the evacuation orders got here.
Generally, we blame ourselves too. However what alternative did we’ve?
And now, we stock a quiet disgrace – a small, unstated mark that has lived in our hearts because the day we left, and that we see mirrored within the eyes of those that remained.
I had imagined the day we returned north would mark the top of the warfare however, wandering the devastated streets, I realised: I’m nonetheless ready for that finish, the second after we can say: “This chapter of bloodshed is over.”
I lengthy to place the ultimate interval, so we’d start once more – even when the start is painful. However there isn’t a interval. No closure. No finish.
I drag myself ahead, mud clinging to my garments that I don’t hassle to shake off. Tears combine with the rubble, and I don’t wipe them away.
The truth is that we’ve been deserted to an open-ended destiny, a street with no course: We’re misplaced. Now we have no energy left to rebuild. No power to begin once more.
Now we have misplaced this metropolis, my buddies.
The Gaza we cherished and knew has died – defeated, severed and alone.
However regardless of all the things, it nonetheless lives on inside us.
