Many in Gaza are faced with difficult choices that aren’t choices at all. We know that the price of our survival is flight, and the loss of our homeland. When the world calls this displacement “voluntary,” it makes a mockery of the term.
Our Nakba is being recorded by us in real-time for the entire world to see. Everyone can witness our slaughter and collective death. Our simple dream has been destroyed by Israel, for no greater sin than being born under occupation.
Multiple testimonies collected from Palestinians displaced from northern Gaza reveal the horrors of the Israeli army’s “safe passage” on Salah al-Din Street.
For the people of Gaza, the four-day truce has only afforded them the chance to fully comprehend what they went through: “Only today have we realized that they’re gone. Only today do we feel death’s presence here.”
Ayah Sha’ban was among 14 of her martyred family members in Gaza City. She was presumed dead and wrapped in a white shroud, but a security guard at Al-Shifa’ noticed her breathing and saved her. She still doesn’t know about her family’s fate.
As rain begins to fall on Gaza, one million displaced Palestinians are suffering from cold and lack of shelter, while few are able to enjoy the partial relief it provides amidst the water shortage imposed by Israel’s genocidal siege.
People are dead in the streets in Gaza as hospital staff are unable to help the injured crying out for help outside hospitals. Medical workers who attempt to aid them are targeted and killed. “There are dead people on the streets. We see people being shot at. We can see injured people. We hear them crying for help, but we cannot do anything. It is too dangerous to go outside.”
Waiting lists for rescuing people trapped under the rubble. Bodies decomposing in the streets eaten by animals. Those still living who no longer recognize themselves. These are the stories we don’t yet have words to tell.
People spend hours in line for some bread, braving the hellfire of Israel’s warplanes. Flour has run out in the south. Everything has changed, and life has reverted to a state of bare existence.
This is the life we lead. We die together as loved ones are wiped out, leaving behind little more than a memory. All we can do is write their stories as we wait for our turn.