Editor’s Note: The article is part of our series Gaza Diaries which shares firsthand accounts of Palestinians who lived through the 11-day Israeli attack on Gaza in May 2021, and are now dealing with its aftermath. You can read the entire series here.
May 18th, 2021
“It was the toughest night,” I tell my friends, but as I experience another, I know I was wrong. I could not sleep for four days now. Nights during escalations come hand in hand with more death, fear, and fire.
At 9:00 pm, we ware lucky enough to receive a warning notice to evacuate our home because they want to demolish a building nearby. We have ten minutes to take our essentials, and leave our home with all our memories behind. There is no shelter.
We run into our neighbor’s house that is further from danger than ours. We sit on the floor waiting for the airstrike to hit, imagining the worst scenarios to happen.
It breaks my heart that this is our reality again after six years.
I feel my heart pounding, and I am hearing my 11-year-old neighbor humming and repeatedly wiggling his foot.
“Abdallah is not used to wars, yet” his mom says.
She adds, “Sometimes I wish I wasn’t sensitive, it’s awful to feel everything extra, and he inherited this trait from me.”
A flashback to my previous experiences in wars storms my head. I pat Abdallah’s shoulder, and I tell him everything will be alright. A framed flower painting in their kitchen catches my attention. “This painting has a very precious memory. Indeed, my house is full of memories, I don’t know if they asked us to evacuate, how can I take them all with me!” Abdallah’s mom tells me.
I do not believe any human being should ever be accustomed to wars; it is just abnormal to live under fire and rockets with this amount of tension. Neither Abdallah, nor any other child should ever get used to wars.
Fifteen minutes later, we start to wonder why they did not strike the building that had been warned yet. We keep waiting while my mom was making dua’a, and I ask Abdallah’s mom if she could share the painting’s story. I wanted to distract Abdallah’s attention, as well as mine.
“In my senior year in college, I went on a trip with my professor and colleagues to an orchard. Our professor stopped by a very interesting tree and said it only blooms one flower a year. He cut it down and gave it to me. I felt sad he cut the only flower down. I kept it with me till I arrived back at our house, and I saved it in a glass of water. I was thinking of ways to make it last forever, and eventually decided to paint it”.
Our houses are not made of rocks and bricks only, they are also our stories, passions, and hopes.
Thirty minutes later, we still have the same tension and fear, and everyone around me is asking if they will bomb the house or not. “Are they enjoying playing with our feelings!” my 11-year-old brother says, confused.
Tomorrow is my birthday, and since they haven’t bombed the building near my home yet, my bedroom and all my souvenirs survive for one more day. Maybe they will survive for another week, or a month, or a year.
On this day last year, my exchange year in the United States ended, and I was packing my suitcase to return home. My heart was pumping out my chest out of excitement to return home as a kid waiting to celebrate Eid. Today, it is beating fast out of fear of losing everything attached to it since birth.
We have already missed this year’s Eid? I think of my youngest brother and Abdallah, and wonder how many Eids they would miss? What is the fate of the memories they’re building now? I am glad I could take my emergency bag that has my official documents and my favorite handmade embroidery souvenir from my American roommate.
Thirty minutes have passed, we all start to argue whether we can go back home or not.
“But what if they bomb when we go back?! That possibility has happened before to another family and they all died,” my mom asks my father, and no one has an answer for it. Personally, I do not believe any place will feel safer than the other. It is just a reflex to save our souls from an imminent attack, not our lives…
I wake up, and I suddenly feel 10 years older. Two hours of sleep was a luxury I finally enjoyed. The sun has risen. I hear the birds singing louder than warplanes. My feelings are indescribable. Meanwhile, I feel on the edge of losing everything. Our souls are the flower my neighbor painted, they only bloom once, and their lives are either saved or reshaped.
I want to believe it is my mom’s determined prayers to protect us and our beloved that prevented the Israelis from bombing the building nearby.
“Abdallah is not used to wars, yet” YET. OMG. Why should anyone ever get used to wars? How can anyone ever get used to wars?