Monday 30 October
10am “I have made the most difficult decision in my life. I am leaving with my kids without my husband.”
My friend told me this when we spoke about the scenarios for us in this unbearable situation. Her husband has a lot to take care of, his work and his extended family. But for my friend, her children’s safety comes first, even if this means leaving her husband behind. As she told me, she started crying.
The conversation of whether people should stay or leave, if it is even going to be their decision in the first place, is being held everywhere in Gaza. Some are ready to leave immediately “until it gets better”; some are not even considering the option, believing “dying in my own place is better”; while some are torn. Will this pain come to an end?
Noon I hear the grandmother yelling at one of her sons. It turned out that a neighbour asked for drinking water, which is scarce, and the son decided not to give him any. She insists that he does. “Anything you give others will get back to you. Don’t worry, we were able to find drinking water before and we can find it when it is over. We need to help each other in these difficult times.”
The grandmother is loved by everyone, old and young. I admire how hard she is trying to keep calm.
Later, I saw her dressed and going to visit a relative nearby. Since there are no doctors, she went there to perform “the egg technique” on a newborn child. When a child is held in a certain way, their bones and ribs can start hurting. It is usually caused by something like a lightly dislocated bone. The grandmother takes the egg yolk, passing it over the body of the child. It remains solid until it reaches the painful part, then it becomes liquid. This happens because of the higher temperature. She keeps the egg on that part and covers it with gauze. After a couple of days, the pain is gone. “I learned it from an old lady in the neighbourhood a long time ago, and it has always worked out,” she says.
3pm To be honest, I am tired of talking about Gaza. Even those outside Gaza, they only speak about us. I want to talk about books, music, love, food and work. However, this is a privilege I cannot enjoy.
“I had to walk with my husband for about 20 minutes to reach someone we know who has bread,” a friend tells me. “I am asking my children to eat half a loaf; my son is a teenager now and he used to eat much more than half a loaf.”
I receive a WhatsApp message from a wonderful friend who lives abroad, sending a picture of the beautiful mountains near where she lives (the picture takes a lifetime to open), and telling me that one day she will take my picture there when we go together. And she promises lots of junk food, which I love. I react with “love”, yet my heart aches.
4pm It is no longer a surprise when you hear of hundreds of people staying in one house because they have nowhere else to go. I heard today about a man I know who is staying with almost 60 people in a chalet. At night, some of them sleep in the cars or under the stairs to make space for others. They use the stagnant water in the pool for flushing the toilet. Sixty people, almost half of them children, living in these conditions…
6pm Every time we open the door of the room we are living in, the young cat tries to escape. All of us run after her until we get hold of her. I completely understand. For almost a month, she has been trapped in one small room, away from home, and she can feel the huge stress we are going through. Today, she escaped three times. Our big fear is if she escapes and we couldn’t find her.
After the third time, my sister came into the room and started sobbing. “I want to go to my home. I want safety. Is this too much to ask for? I cannot handle this any more. I cannot.” She spoke a lot, and I listened to her for a while. However, I had to be the voice of reason as well. I told her that this is going to take a long time. We need to be as patient as we can. It is not going to get easier any time soon.
8pm I am able to load Facebook on my mobile (the internet is very poor). I see a few posts: two from people asking for an apartment or a room to rent for those coming from the north of Gaza, and one for an elderly lady who has nowhere to go.
Some posts show pictures of men and women who have died. One is of a young guy who got married soon before the whole situation started. The words of mourning break my heart.
There are posts asking for a place that sells food and another from someone asking for a certain medicine that they are willing to pay any amount of money for.
I close the application.
10pm On my mobile, I have a voice-activated “personal assistant”. Sometimes, I press on something by mistake and a screen appears, encouraging me to use this feature.
Today, the message was: “Try saying, ‘Sing me a lullaby.’”
Lying on the couch, I couldn’t stop thinking about that message: sing me a lullaby. Do people know what “lullaby” is being sung for the children of Gaza? Do they know the kinds of sounds they hear every night?
Do parents realise that while they are reading bedtime stories to their children, other parents, in a place called Gaza, are holding theirs close to their hearts and praying that nothing bad will happen?
I am 35 years old … and I miss my mother, I wish I could bury my face in her hands, and listen to her singing me a lullaby.
Tuesday 31 October
8am Manara, the cat we took in, is getting better. My sister is taking great care of her. Judging by the marks on her body, my sister thinks she was in a house that was destroyed. “It feels like a number of heavy objects fell on her tiny body.”
While the big cat was not bothered , the small one was irritated by Manara. Every time she came near, she would hiss. Usually, when you bring a new cat home, you should keep it away from the others in a separate room until they get used to it. In our case, we are all in one small room, and we are not home.
Manara, on the other hand, is very grateful for being with us. When my sister puts out food, she waits patiently. She eats anything offered to her. And when she’s finished, she goes back to a box that was used to carry the sand that passes for cat litter. I think she chose this torn box to show that she does not want to bother anyone, she just wants to stay with us.
10am I go out to buy some items, but this time, I go by myself. I go to a shop looking for a small bag. A lady comes in and asks for something. The shopkeeper tells her: “It is not available. Once we sell out of a product these days, it is gone. We cannot bring in new ones.”
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She looks upset and says something like: “They left nothing.”
I find a small bag, I want to use it for the many chargers and leads we have accumulated. I ask the price and am surprised by the number quoted. I am blessed that I can pay, but I have to say something.
“Your prices are really expensive. This is not fair,” I say.
“No, no, we have the best prices,” the shopkeeper says. “Go and ask in the other shops and compare.”
“You know very well that nothing is left in the other shops. And we are in no state to keep walking and checking other places. Your prices are very expensive, and what you are doing is not good.”
I pay and leave.
11am I go to a shop that still has some food and other products. The shop size is medium, but the number of people who want to buy is huge. Two workers stood at its doors allowing only a few people in every 15 minutes.
Once I’m in, I start choosing what I need. I get pushed so hard that I have to stop and tell the guy behind me that there is a woman in front of me and he is pushing me into her.
Then I find treasure. Four tiny soda cans that are cold! I buy them and go directly to show them to my sister. It has been a long time since we drank something cold. Even though she does not drink soda, she takes one of the cans and drinks it like it’s the most expensive drink in the world.
When Ahmad joins us, we talk about how every area had its own market day. Sellers would come from all over the Gaza Strip to sell their products. Now there are no markets left.
4pm I am talking to my sister when she refers to an incident that happened before the situation started as “in the good times”. I say we have never had any “good times”. Even when things were relatively stable, Gazans suffered. We did not have a reliable electricity supply; we couldn’t travel easily and some could never travel at all; unemployment is very high and life is far from normal. It is just that we have bad circumstances and deadly ones. I might be exaggerating, but this is how I see things.
We also talk about how many things we had bought since we evacuated. I joke with my sister and say that all we need now is a carpenter to put up a couple of shelves in our room to give us more space.
My sister does not laugh.
8pm The news is not good. The situation is getting worse – horrible and terrifying things are happening. The level of our fear is beyond normal. Nothing shows any sign of hope. I tell my friends that I am not sure we will see another morning.
10pm I hear Ahmad outside, reciting a poem I love. I am not sure what prompted him, but hearing it warmed my heart:
“When you prepare your breakfast, think upon others / Don’t forget to feed the pigeons.
When you engage in your wars, think upon others / Don’t forget those who demand peace.
And when you return home to your house, think upon others / Such as those who live in tents.
When you fall asleep counting planets, think upon others / Who cannot find a place to sleep in.”
Is anyone thinking of us? And are we going to end up living in tents, or worse, become one of those who cannot find a place to sleep in?
