By Rita Baroud
AS I write this, I’m sitting in a bare, grey room surrounded by the stifling August heat in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. The sun’s harsh morning rays pierce through the windows. There are no curtains. Those, like so much else that should be mundane, have become a luxury.
In fact, there are no furnishings in this room at all. Just the worn-out floor and my notebook beside me.
This is the second time I have come to Deir al-Balah as a displaced person during Israel’s unsparing war on Gaza, which has now been going on for more than 10 months. The first time I came was last October, shortly after the war began.
I grew up in al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City. My family’s home was hit by two airstrikes during the first week of the war. Luckily, we were able to escape. But since then, everywhere we have gone, Israel’s evacuation orders and bombs have followed.
We eventually went to Rafah in the south of Gaza, where we thought we might be safe. But Israel invaded that city as well at the beginning of May. It had become a last haven for so many of us, but we were forced to escape once again.
It seems unimaginable, but I have been displaced 12 times in the past 10 months. I feel that I will never have a home or a safe place to stay again. I can no longer imagine living without fearing that I will be displaced and lose everything I have at any moment. It’s like we’ve been trying to escape from death, but death keeps chasing us.
I don’t expect to be able to stay here in Deir al-Balah, either. I’m afraid the Israeli army will return and we will have to flee again.
I am only 21 years old. Before this, I dreamed of finishing my university programme and travelling abroad to study for a Master’s degree. I wanted to see the world and explore different cultures. Now, I feel as if death is near. I have been stripped of hope.
From Rafah to Deir al-Balah
Before Israel invaded Rafah at the beginning of May, my parents, two siblings, and I were trying to leave the Gaza Strip. We were getting ready to pay the $5,000-per-person fee required by an Egyptian company to coordinate our exit. My 18-year-old brother and my grandmother were the only ones able to leave before the invasion began.
Now, the Rafah border crossing has been closed since it was taken over and destroyed by the Israeli army.
Instead of leaving for Egypt, I fled Rafah with my remaining family members and returned to Deir al-Balah. On the way, we passed through Khan Younis, which is nestled between the two cities.
Khan Younis was a horrific scene of destruction and rubble. Ruined buildings stood with their iron rebar twisted and charred by bombings. The air was thick with ash and smoke. Every step I took caused the debris beneath my feet to crack, as if the ground was groaning in pain. I felt the walls of the buildings whispering the tragedies of their former inhabitants, now displaced like us or dead. Even the sun seemed faint, hesitantly lighting the place, as if reluctant to reveal what had become of it.
The destruction was so complete that, in some places, I couldn’t distinguish the outlines of roads from the houses that once stood there. Fragments of doors and windows lay scattered on the ground. The trees that once provided shade and comfort to residents had turned into charred trunks, their leaves vanished into the air like they had never existed.
When I arrived in Deir al-Balah, it had been five months since I’d last been here. We came back to the same partially destroyed house we had stayed in before. The land around it had all been bulldozed by the Israeli military since we were last here. Before, it was all farmland and greenhouses that provided a livelihood for the people who used to live here.
Now, many of the other houses that were here have been completely destroyed and ground into rubble. The only thing left is uneven ground and dirt mounds left behind by Israeli tanks and bulldozers that make it difficult to walk around.
Holes in the walls
Since May – as people around the world have crowded into airports and onto trains for their summer travel and leisure – I’ve been confined within the four broken walls of this house. Eighteen of my extended family members live here, and I share this one grey room with seven of my family members. My mom, my little sister, several of my aunts, and my cousin sleep here, while the men sleep in another part of the house.
There are holes in the room’s walls from bombings that we’ve patched with bits of tattered cloth and wood. We cannot keep out the cockroaches, ants that bite, fleas, and sometimes even rats. There is no privacy and no comfort.
Food is more scarce now than it was before, and it’s very expensive. The indefinite closure of the Rafah border crossing has made me lose hope that I will ever leave the Gaza Strip alive.
All 18 of us in this house share one bathroom. There is no door: just a piece of tattered cloth covering the entrance. Inside, there is a large basin and a cup for bathing. There is no running water because the pumps have been destroyed and there is no electricity. We have to walk for kilometres each day to fetch water.
The mornings can be deceptively calm. The air carries the smell of the sea – a 30-minute walk away – and sometimes we can hear the distant sound of the waves, offering a temporary escape from the reality of death around us.
The calm never lasts for long. It is always shattered by the sound of Israeli drones, helicopters, and fighter jets. The drones, especially, are with us 24 hours a day. Their fly-like buzzing is a constant reminder that at any moment we could be killed.
Imaging myself as I was before
I stay awake late into the night, listening to the sounds of bombings and drowning in anxious thoughts about death. I only sleep for around four hours a night – a temporary escape from our unforgiving reality.
In the morning, I wake and brush my teeth. I still have the electric toothbrush I took with me when we fled our home in Gaza City. Now, it is often dead because it is hard to find a place to charge it.
I wash my face from the cup of water. There is no mirror, so I imagine myself as I was before 7 October. The truth is, I have changed a lot. My face is now covered in acne and my hair is damaged. I’ve lost about 12 kilos of body weight. My face looks tired, and I have dark circles under my eyes.
I used to be disciplined in everything – diet, sleep, exercise, taking care of my body. This war has turned me into something completely opposite. It has made me a body without a soul.
We don’t have soap, and I can only bathe once or twice a week, if I am lucky, because of the scarcity of water. But I wash my hands compulsively throughout the day, hoping that it will prevent me from catching the diseases that have become widespread.
Despite everything, my mother still ensures we start our day with a breakfast. Her smile is unchanged as she places the humble meal before us. It’s usually just bread – if it’s available – olive oil, and thyme. We sit and eat it, imagining the cheeses we used to enjoy.
The availability of food is unreliable. When we have milk, I drink it in the morning, imagining it with oats and honey. But it’s now been two months since I last tasted milk.
Reality
After breakfast, I sit alone on a chair to meditate. The drones and planes are always with me, distracting my thoughts. I try to escape into my imagination because, in it, I have a life.
I imagine myself as a normal 20-something-year-old balancing my university studies, a social life, and a job, striving for success. Maybe I have a car.
But this is not my life. I am fortunate that I have been able to continue my university studies online. I’m in my third year. We use electronic SIM cards for internet access. But the signal is poor, and we have to use solar panels to charge our cell phones. My family doesn’t have a solar panel, so I have to walk to a nearby area and pay money to use someone else’s.
While waiting for my phone to charge, I go to the market to try to find food. It’s around a 13-kilometre walk or ride on a donkey-drawn cart. There is no petrol for cars. Along the way, I see people who have been made homeless in the streets. Everywhere is filled with tents made of worn-out pieces of cloth that provide no protection from the heat or flying shrapnel.
The market itself is gloomy and packed with blank-faced people, each carrying their own pain and loss. It smells of sewage and is surrounded by flattened homes.
There are large mounds of garbage around the tents, swarmed by giant flies. There are no municipal services.
The market itself is gloomy and packed with blank-faced people, each carrying their own pain and loss. It smells of sewage and is surrounded by flattened homes. Prices have skyrocketed. With almost nothing being allowed into Gaza, the only items available in limited quantities are canned foods – and those are barely affordable.
This is the reality I try to block out, at least for a little while, when I meditate. When I open my eyes, I ask: “Where am I? Why am I not at home? When will I return? And If I return, will I recognise my home amidst the rubble?”
It has been over 300 days since this began, and I still can’t grasp that there is no Gaza anymore.
Edited by Eric Reidy.
