Gaza diary part 12: ‘We don’t have access to the internet … we are blindfolded’

Friday 27 October

4am It was another hard night. I, my sister and the two cats were not able to sleep. Manara, the abandoned cat we took in, was sleeping peacefully. I don’t think the words “tired” or “exhausted” would describe her state. The word that came to mind is one I heard in an old Arabic song, it could be translated into “crushed by exhaustion”. It is weird how the cat found safety among people who are in dire need of safe haven; she came to us while we are away from our home, the place we belong to.

A few nights ago we started a new tradition, since it seems the situation is going to last for a long time. The guys of the house started playing cards joined by their cousin. Most of the time I will let them play and I will just watch while reading a book or writing my diaries.

The cousin is in the last year of high school, the “definitive year” according to us because this year’s marks determine which faculty you could join. While playing, their cousin started talking about how the students studied for one month only before the situation started; he worries about what will happen to him and the thousands of students. There are many challenges, the most clear one is that people who lost their homes are staying in the schools – where will they go? They have no homes left.

Also, can the students, who are traumatised and most probably have lost someone close, be able to learn? And what about the teachers, the heroes who do not only teach but also build students’ characters. Do they have enough energy to do their noble work? Studying is your way to a better future, I doubt our students see any future after what has happened.

10am My sister takes the cats, including Manara, to the vet. He agreed to open his clinic for half an hour.

The road was not safe, but my sister was ready to take the risk – “it is for the cats” – as if there is no negotiation. Even the drivers who used to take lots of money stopped working with no fuel left. Ahmad went to the street and started asking the neighbours, and finally he found one. He was a wonderful man who did not charge her a lot.

My sister tells me that the vet’s hands were shaking after a miserable night he and his family spent in their area. He wanted to give one of the cats a pill. In these situations, the cats resist, so my sister and the vet were supposed to hold her together to give her the pill. The doctor stopped after the second try and asked her to crush it and put it in the food. “He wanted to cry.” my sister told me. Manara has a lot of inflammation in the mouth and stomach. He gave her an antibiotic shot and said she still needed to take two more, but he was not planning to open the clinic again. “Figure it out,” he told my sister.

Noon On my way to get some basic needs, I witnessed a new way of getting water. People were using a pulley. They would fill a big tank of water in the street and then fill buckets of water and take them up to the roof using a pulley. It will take hours, but they were doing it gladly.

After a long search, we were able to find an additional small battery to buy. We connected it to a small device into which you put the mobile charger cord to charge it. It can charge one mobile at a time and takes several hours before it is completely charged. I discuss with my sister, almost daily, how evacuating is like preparing for a new house – you need to buy a lot of things and everything is expensive.

Today my mobile fell for the hundredth time since the beginning of this week. I pick it up and talk to it. “Listen,”I say. “I don’t have the luxury of losing you. I cannot even replace you even if I have money. You are my only connection with this world during these horrible moments. So you need to promise me that you will stick with me at least till we get out of this. Deal?”

3pm The grandmother pays us a visit in the room. It is weird how in these situations, where death is behind every door, people are so traumatised that they speak of sad and happy events at the same time. She started by telling us about a woman she knows who has four sons, they all travelled outside to work and send her money so she could build the family dream building for them to come back and settle down.

“The whole building is gone. All their hard work for years was gone, just like this. The mother was devastated.”

After that story, she shared some of the wedding traditions of the family. Groom’s mother nights are celebration nights, could reach up to seven. Every day the women wear something different. Every day there will be a certain type of food: pastries, chicken dishes, western cuisine etc. During all these celebrations the women would sing and dance till late in the night.

The guys also have festive times. One activity is called the Arghul event. The Arghul is a flute. The Arghul player would come and start singing and the guys will be dancing and creating the rhythm for him. This could take hours. Also, they have the Dehia dance, the guys stand in two opposite lines and dance using the same rhythm while clapping their hands. After the guys’ party, they eat a traditional dish called Sumaqia.

5pm A new day is about to pass, hopefully it will. I wonder, while sitting with the guys playing cards, if one day I go to the streets and instead of seeing evacuated people, wearing torn clothes and looking for food and medicine, I will attend a wedding and see men dancing to the songs of the arghul and dehia, while women are in their own party, wearing embroidered dresses, singing and dancing.

6.30pm I check my phone and notice that the signal bars of both SIMs are marked with an X. I hear people outside the room talking about the loss of the signal. I think of the worst-case scenario, did the communication companies stop working in Gaza? Some people, including my sister, were sceptical about this, but an hour later, after checking the radio, it was verified. All communication channels stopped working, we don’t have access to the internet, not even via the data. We cannot receive any messages and we cannot make any phone calls.

We were not afraid, we were terrified.

We never thought the situation could get worse. We have already been living in continuous fear and facing death every second. Now there is more – we are blindfolded.

This means we cannot know what is going around us, we cannot check on our loved ones in other areas in the Gaza Strip, we have no access to any emotional support of any kind, and the scariest of all, if anything happens to us, no one will know.

If the past three weeks were scary, the coming would be brutally insane …

Saturday 28 October

6am I am sure that no one in the Gaza Strip slept at all. Since all the communication was cut, we were terrified to death. The waiting for something bad to happen while everybody is completely clueless was horrifying. We just heard the sounds of airstrikes without knowing where they are.

I thought of every possible downfall to what had happened. For instance, our friends and family members who live abroad and who were trying to contact us via internet or through international calls, suddenly find themselves unable to reach us.

What if someone gets injured and needs an ambulance to go to the hospital, which cannot even provide medical support? There are no phones to call. You will simply wait for a miracle to happen.

What is going on! Someone tell us something … Anything.

8am After discussions, all night long, we reached the only idea that will calm us down. We simply cannot control anything. We need to take it one day, and night, at a time. We are disconnected from the whole world. We are clueless, let’s hope for something good to happen, and pray nothing bad does.

We all knew that us reaching this “belief” is our way of numbing the feeling of fear and terror, but for once we all chose to lie to ourselves, because other than this, we will go crazy.

9am Manara the cat needs another shot of the medicine. The vet that helped us on Friday said he cannot help any more. There are no phones. Ahmad goes into the street and starts asking all the neighbours about any nearby vet. After an hour he tells us about a man who “gives injections to animals, but he is not a vet, he is an animal lover”. The man has already evacuated with his family, but he visits his house every three or four days to put food for the pigeons. Ahmad asked every neigbour of his to ask him to come visit us so he can give the cat the injection.

Noon My sister and Ahmad go the pharmacy to get Manara an antibiotic, for human babies, to give it to the cat as a precautionary move. They also go to bring some food. Once they were out of the house, there was no connection between us – if something bad happens to them we wouldn’t even know about it.

An hour passes, and I am at home worried sick, I can hear the continuous airstrikes and hits not knowing where they are happening. I cannot even send an SMS to check on my sister. There is nothing I can do.

At first I start praying, I recall all the prayers I remember. The cats are lying in the room, each one on a separate couch. Then I decide to listen to music, I turn on a song I like and I raise the volume up, not caring about what others outside would think, and I sing along:

Maybe he forgot, because of all the pictures he deleted and the denial he is living in …

Maybe he forgot that on his forehead, his whole story is written …

They arrived an hour later … Ahmad told me that within two days there will not be anything left in the shops. Many items have already disappeared from the aisles.

1.30pm My sister brings an orange out of the bag, she tells me that she wanted some fruits and was able to get four oranges and four apples. The orange looks almost damaged, and my sister, who wouldn’t have even touched it in the past, was cleaning and eating it quietly.

I look at her and say: “It seems the whole situation is gonna last for a long time, we need to be patient.” My sister replies: “I have no patience left …”

2.30pm Even though I am sure there is no connection at all with the outer world, or even the local one, I couldn’t stop checking my mobile every five minutes to check the signal. I even tried sending messages on WhatsApp and SMS messages, but they never went through.

The only way of knowing what is going on was through the radio or the TV. Only few people, with solar power and TVs, were able to watch the news. People would go on foot to another street, just to hear if there are any new updates.

Ahmad’s brother told us he saw a man screaming in the street. Some family members of his did not evacuate, and on the news he heard that the area they are in has been heavily targeted. He does not know if they are still alive or dead, he just wanted answers, whether good or bad. People were trying to calm him down, but it did not work. “He went crazy,” he said.

10pm To kill time, I played cards with the guys. They were talking about how, in over 20 days, they haven’t earned any money. Another reason to be worried. I was almost absent-minded the whole time. I won the game!

11pm I wonder, if we die, when will people even notice we are gone? Will we be buried under rubble alive? Or die immediately?

Will anyone tell the world that I had many dreams? And that I wanted to visit Italy and Morocco one day? Will anyone tell my story? Or will I be “a guy who died”?