“Every person here has a story, and these stories deserve to be told,” Dr Refaat Alareer once said.

Inspired by his words, I felt called to compile diverse voices from Gaza. These are not stories of numbers, but of people—surviving, remembering, and hoping.

Heba, a medical student at the Islamic University of Gaza, lived in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood in northern Gaza. She remembers the early days of the military operations with a mix of shock and fear.

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“Anyone who has experienced displacement once knows what it feels like,” she recalls. “You tell yourself you will never leave your home again, no matter what happens. At first, we thought the occupation wouldn’t reach our area—that someone would see what’s happening to us and the world would intervene. But the world remained in deep slumber.”

While initially they planned not to leave, as shells hit houses on their street and sent fragments into their home, it became impossible to ignore the danger.

“The feeling was unbearable,” she remembers. “I understood for the first time what displacement really means. I wasn’t mentally ready for these emotions, especially not knowing if we would ever return home, or if the house would even still be standing.”

Each item they packed—their belongings, furniture, and everything they had held dear—felt newly significant in the shadow of surrounding destruction.

They left in the afternoon. The journey itself was another ordeal. Thousands of displaced people were on the roads—some walked because transport was impossible; others faced broken vehicles and no way to fix them.

After five hours, they finally reached the southern Gaza Strip. “We pray that one day we can return safely, that our house will still be there, that we will be reunited with the life we were forced to leave behind.”

Breaking Point

Mariam, a translation student at the Islamic University of Gaza, still remembers the moment she realised her home in Tel Al-Hawa was no longer safe.

“Just a week ago, I was living in Gaza City,” she says. “Everything changed so fast. Almost immediately, the Israeli threats began—against towers, schools, and entire neighbourhoods.”

Tel Al-Hawa was overcrowded, full of displaced families from the north, all trying to survive in tents and the ruins of buildings.

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Her family’s house was near Al-Quds Hospital. At first, they tried to stay. “We watched as buildings fell one after another—the Mushtaha, Al-Roia, and Al-Sosi towers were demolished. Even the Islamic University, where thousands sought refuge, was struck,” Mariam recalls.

“Every morning we woke to the sound of robots—machines carrying explosives, capable of destroying an entire block. They were getting closer and closer. It became unbearable.”

“It wasn’t an easy choice to leave,” she says. “When we climbed into the truck, our eyes were full of tears.”

On Al-Rashid Street, Mariam saw a sight she will never forget: “It felt like all of Gaza had fled. There were so many vehicles, I couldn’t even see where the line began. The congestion was endless. We spent twelve hours on the road.”

Eventually, they arrived in Mawasi Khan Younis. “It was not a journey, but another form of death,” she says quietly. “A tent awaited us, just as it did so many others.”

Enduring Survival

Heba Ahmed, 36, has lived with combined visual and hearing impairments since birth. She holds a degree in English Language Education and has faced increasing health challenges during the ongoing genocide.

She describes her life before as manageable, but everything changed as access to treatment collapsed.

“I have a condition that increases heart rate, which worsened because medications were unavailable or cut off for long periods. The power outages forced us to wash by hand, which worsened my chronic eczema because the cleaning products weren’t suitable for my skin.”

These limitations affected her mobility and care. “I was limited in leaving the house to seek treatment or find sufficient medication. Many essential nutrients were missing, and it was difficult to get enough calories.”

During sudden heart palpitations, she could not move or help herself. “I felt a deep sense of ‘Ajz’.”

Rimah Adnan, 24, is deaf and has been displaced repeatedly—around seven times—since October 7. Her early life had been stable; she excelled academically, graduating top of her class in Multimedia.

But the war disrupted everything. Her family of nine struggled with severe food shortages and lack of medicine. Many lost weight, and skin conditions spread due to poor hygiene supplies.

Despite this, Rimah continues to focus on her future. She hopes to take design courses and is seeking support, including a laptop, to resume her work.

Sudden Loss

Aya shared the story of her aunt, one of the first to be displaced from Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza. She left early, knowing transportation would soon be impossible, shortly after her husband was killed.

Now in Deir al-Balah, she lives in a tent on rented land, raising three children alone.

“She is doing her best to manage life,” Aya says. “She is constantly worried about their safety. All the responsibility falls on her now—may God give her strength.”

Her children, aged two and a half to ten, depend entirely on her perseverance. Despite grief and displacement, she works tirelessly to create stability.

Even after the so-called ceasefire, everything remains uncertain. No one truly feels safe. After two years of genocide, trust is unstable, almost impossible.

Here, everyone repeats the same truth:

“The end of the genocide is only the beginning of allowing grief to take its course—grief for those we lost, and for those we never had the time to mourn.”

***

Taqwa Ahmed Alwawi (born 2006) is a Palestinian writer, poet, and editor based in Gaza. She studied English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza. As a dedicated chronicler and custodian of her people’s memory, she amplifies Gaza’s voice, illuminating stories that are often overlooked or silenced. Her work has been featured on more than 30 leading international platforms and prestigious publications and she currently serves as an editor at Baladi Magazine. Her Portfolio: https://tqwaportfolio-project.netlify.app/

Joined by the world-renowned and celebrated artists, Malak Mattar and Khalid Abdalla, Ahmed Alnaouq investigates the role of artists today in this ever-dystopian world amid Israel’s continued onslaught in Lebanon and Palestine.

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They also expose Israel’s systematic and targeted destruction of cultural life in Gaza throughout the genocide and before.

Malak Mattar is a Palestinian artist from Gaza and Khalid Abdalla is an Egyptian-British actor, activist and playwright.

War kills everything.
War kills everything.
War kills everything.

I remember walking home from the gym one night. I felt calm, awake, and full of quiet energy. The moon was bright, the stars were clear, and the sky felt endless. In that moment, I wondered how anyone could feel depressed. Life felt full of reasons to keep going.

I was sixteen.

Just days later, life lost its meaning.

October 7—the day everything changed.

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That morning, I woke up and got ready for school like any other day. Then the silence shattered. The sound of rockets filled the sky. I stood frozen, staring out the window, unable to understand what I was seeing.

Minutes later, the news began to speak about Gaza and Israel.

That was the moment I knew: nothing would ever be the same.

Shattered Life

A few weeks into the war, I saw my father sitting on the ground in the dark, the radio playing softly beside him. I asked, “What are you thinking about? When will it be over?”

He said nothing.

Slowly, the shock turned into understanding. I sat on my bed, listening to explosions around us. I felt helpless and angry. I wanted my old life back—school, friends, the beach, the gym.

I was only sixteen.
Why did I have to go through this?

But as the months passed, my priorities changed.

As the only son, survival became my responsibility. If I didn’t chase the water truck that came once a week, my family would go thirsty. If I didn’t carry heavy containers up four floors, we would have nothing to use. I chopped wood, filled gas cylinders, and searched daily for basic necessities.

Everything I once cared about became meaningless.

Survival replaced dreams.

Survival Mode

After a year and a half, I began to adapt. But evacuation came again and again. Nothing is more terrifying than being forced to leave your home. Each time, the fear grew deeper.

After two years, fear became normal. Safety became a distant memory. What mattered was no longer how I felt—but what I did.

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Then came starvation.

Food stopped entering Gaza. Our supplies ran out faster than expected. Soon, the only option left was going to so-called “humanitarian aid centres”—places that felt anything but humane.

I thought I was prepared for anything. I had seen bodies in the air. I had slept through explosions. I had lost people I loved. I had already given up every dream.

But I had never truly felt hunger.

Worse than hunger was seeing my family hungry.

Lost Humanity

Snipers. Tanks. Burning sun. Dust in the air. Thousands of people waiting.

That was my first image of the aid centre.

When the gates opened, everyone ran.

I ran too.

What happened next is mostly gone from my memory. I wasn’t injured, but only fragments remain: a man falling, gunshots, frozen faces, wide eyes, heavy breathing.

For a moment, everything went silent. It felt like I was watching myself from far away. A quiet voice guided me forward until I found myself holding two kilos of rice and one kilo of sugar.

I didn’t even remember taking them.

I felt ashamed of what we had become—but also amazed at what the human mind can do. It can shut down emotion, shut down thought, and turn a person into a tool for survival.

Nothing is more brutal than that moment.

It raises a question:

What makes us human?
The mind?
The heart?
The spirit?

In those moments, none of it mattered.

Not human

For a brief time, we were not human.
We were driven only by instinct.

After that day, something changed inside me. A war machine replaced the boy I used to be. A part of my humanity disappeared.

The truth of Gaza is this: people don’t just die quickly—they die slowly too. War reduces human lives to numbers.

Now I am nineteen.

After three years, the war has ended.

But at what cost?

I lost ambition.
I lost dreams.
I lost meaning.
I lost parts of myself.

And now the cage is open,
but the bird no longer knows how to fly.

***

Mohammed Abu Qamar is a Palestinian writer based in Gaza, documenting life under siege through stories of resilience, loss, and survival.

I often wonder why people who have never been to Gaza—who may not know its geography or history—feel compelled to march, to chant, and to carry its flag in cities oceans away. What drives them? What meaning does Palestine hold for them personally?

To understand, I reached out to individuals across the world—from Spain to England and the United States—who have joined pro-Palestine demonstrations. I wanted to listen, to ask, and to understand what connects them to a place they have never seen.

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Ester Garcia, a 27-year-old Spanish teacher, recalls her first vivid memory of demonstrations for Palestine: “I remember it was last year when our president, Pedro Sánchez, recognised the State of Palestine in May 2024.”

When asked what motivated her to participate, Ester explains, “Most of my students are from Palestine. They talk a lot about their country. I also watch and read the news regularly, and the situation in Palestine deeply moves me.”

Although Ester has never visited Gaza or the West Bank, she feels a strong personal connection to the Palestinian cause. “My students show me the wounds inflicted by the Israeli army and share videos of their neighbourhoods, whether occupied or destroyed. I feel empathy. I put myself in their shoes, and it breaks my heart,” she says.

Ester follows the news closely: “I get information through my country’s digital newspapers, like El País or El Diario, or on television, and to a lesser extent, social media.” She trusts firsthand accounts from her students and their families the most, then balances that with official news, carefully considering the ideologies behind each source.

Looking forward, she hopes to visit Palestine one day. “I would like to visit the cities of my students, Ramallah and Nablus, because they have spoken to me with so much love for their country. I would also love to try authentic Palestinian falafel and learn to dance dabke,” she says.

When asked about her long-term plans for activism, Ester concludes, “I hope I don’t have to keep going to protests. That would mean Palestine is free.”

Moral Responsibility

Jackie is a 41-year-old activist from the United States. Her connection to the Palestinian cause is rooted in human empathy and personal conviction. “I feel connected to Palestine because we are all humans, and our safety and survival are ultimately linked. We have a responsibility to protect and care for each other,” Jackie says.

She adds that her connection is also shaped by accountability: “I don’t want this harm done in my name, with my tax dollars, or enabled by my representatives.”

Jackie recalls first learning about Palestine after Rachel Corrie, an activist from her country, was killed by the Israeli army. “I knew I had to go there to learn the truth because our government and media would never willingly share it. That’s why I went in 2011,” she explains.

Fourteen years ago, she lived in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, with five Palestinian women and volunteered with students in a summer program. These experiences shaped her understanding and deepened her commitment.

“I have good friends from Palestine from my time there. One of my dearest friends was actually from Gaza. Mohammed and I met online many years ago and kept in touch for a decade. He passed away in the summer of 2022 while working as a doctor in Chile, and I miss him every day. Supporting Palestine feels like one way I can honour his memory and his life,” she says.

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Patricia, a 33-year-old activist from New York, has participated in demonstrations for Palestine since childhood. Her motivation stems from a lifelong commitment to resisting human rights abuses, colonisation, genocide, imperialism, and war.

Her personal connection to Palestine is deeply rooted in family stories and heritage. “I have extended family who are Palestinian by marriage. Growing up, I heard my cousin explain how Jewish settlers stole their homes, forcing her family to leave the region entirely and come to the United States,” she says.

Additionally, as a descendant of Armenian genocide survivors, Patricia feels a profound kinship with those experiencing displacement and atrocities. “It’s impossible for me to witness acts of genocide without feeling sickened in my spirit and motivated to act, even if what I can do is insufficient,” she notes.

Patricia would love to visit Palestine and meet those she has connected with virtually, to explore the Armenian Quarter, to enjoy Palestinian food, listen to music, and experience the natural beauty of the land. Most importantly, she wants to support people however she can.

Identity Dissent

Eva, a 30-year-old activist from the United States, began participating in demonstrations for Palestine in early 2024, following the recent wave of Israeli violence.

Eva’s motivation is deeply tied to her Jewish identity and upbringing. “I come from a Jewish family, but I am not Israeli. Many of the first protests I joined were organised by Jewish anti-Zionist groups who oppose violence carried out in our name,” she explains.

Working as a mentor with writers from the We Are Not Numbers initiative for several years strengthened her connection to the Palestinian cause.

Growing up in an anti-Zionist household, Eva later became aware of how most Jewish Americans are educated about Palestine and Israel, which she describes as “eye-opening and horrifying.” She also gathers information from social media platforms, progressive news outlets, international news in Spanish and British media, and the work of Palestinian writers and organisations.

Eva would love to travel to Palestine to meet her mentees and see their environment firsthand. “I would want to go through a checkpoint to understand what that experience means. I would want to witness both the harsh realities and the beautiful aspects of Palestine,” she says.

As a professor of writing in the US, she integrates education about Palestine into her teaching, despite increasing crackdowns on pro-Palestine speech in universities. “I will continue teaching about Palestine, educating my students, and speaking out without backing down. This is a lifelong commitment for me,” she concludes.

Outsider

Sylvia, a long-time activist based in London, recalls that demonstrations for Palestine in the UK date back to at least the 1990s, though her own involvement began in 2004.

Her motivation stems from a deep sense of anger at injustice and moral responsibility. As a Jewish woman, she rejects Zionism and emphasises that Israeli actions are not carried out in her name.

She connects her political awakening to witnessing the situation firsthand: during her visit to Israel in 1966, she was struck by the reality that “the country was populated by Arabs who clearly belonged there,” while many Jewish newcomers “felt like outsiders.” That early encounter shaped her lifelong disapproval of the occupation.

Sylvia has visited Palestine several times, though never Gaza, and has built close friendships with Palestinian families, including one from Gaza whose members have suffered immense loss in recent years. These relationships have strengthened her emotional and ethical commitment to the cause.

Her solidarity developed through personal experience—meeting people, attending lectures, reading extensively, and engaging with Palestinian friends—rather than through social media. She rarely reads Western mainstream news, preferring trusted writers and solidarity networks, though occasionally checks major outlets to understand dominant narratives.

Sylvia stresses that many activists in the UK go beyond protest—boycotting Israeli goods, cutting ties with Israeli institutions, and disrupting arms manufacturing and trade.

If she could visit Palestine freely, she dreams of arriving by sea or plane through normal passport control, meeting her friends, attending cultural events, eating makloubeh, and painting with children again.

Her commitment is lifelong: “It will be until Palestinians can live in their own land in peace and with the same rights as others—or until I die, whichever comes sooner.”

***

Taqwa Ahmed Alwawi (born 2006) is a Palestinian writer, poet, and editor based in Gaza. She studied English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza. As a dedicated chronicler and custodian of her people’s memory, she amplifies Gaza’s voice, illuminating stories that are often overlooked or silenced. Her work has been featured on more than 30 leading international platforms and prestigious publications, and she currently serves as an editor at Baladi Magazine. Her Portfolio: https://tqwaportfolio-project.netlify.app/

By Ohood Nassar

Since the outbreak of war in Gaza on October 7, 2023, the education system has been devastated on an unprecedented scale. Nearly 97% of schools have been either completely or partially destroyed, leaving more than 700,000 students without consistent access to education for three consecutive years.

Schools have not been spared from bombardment. Many have been damaged or burned, while others have been turned into overcrowded shelters for displaced families who have lost their homes.

According to UNICEF, around 60% of school-age children in Gaza currently receive no in-person education, as the system has nearly collapsed.

Broken Schools

The destruction of infrastructure has erased the foundation of formal education. What once functioned as a structured system of schools, teachers, and classrooms has been replaced by chaos and displacement.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights notes that while Palestinians have long faced restrictions on education, the scale of destruction in Gaza today is unprecedented.

For many children, school is no longer a place of learning—it no longer exists at all.

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In response, local volunteers and international organisations such as UNRWA and UNICEF have created temporary learning spaces in tents.

These initiatives now reach approximately 625,000 students. However, this still leaves nearly two-thirds of Gaza’s students without access to any regular form of education.

Conditions inside these tents are far from ideal. Overcrowding, lack of materials, and constant instability make sustained learning extremely difficult. Still, for many children, these tents are the only remaining connection to education.

Digital Barriers

Online learning has been introduced as an alternative, particularly by UNRWA, but it faces major challenges.

Electricity in Gaza is almost entirely unavailable. Internet connections are weak and unreliable. To cope, families rely on solar-powered charging stations, where charging a single phone costs about $0.50 and often requires hours of waiting.

Some students pay for access to spaces with electricity and internet, but the cost—around $1.50 per hour—is too high for many families, especially those with multiple children. Even when accessible, limited time online is not enough to keep up with lessons.

As a result, thousands of students are effectively excluded from online education.

Contested Schools

Amid this crisis, a new initiative has emerged: the “Academy of Hope,” established in Gaza with coordination from the Israeli army.

According to its organisers, the academy is funded by Israeli sources and Jewish donors from Israel and the United States. It offers modified curricula, removing content considered “inciting” and emphasising what it describes as coexistence and peaceful engagement.

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The project’s founder, David, says the goal is not to change politics but to “change minds,” arguing that teaching hatred only prolongs conflict. Surveillance cameras have reportedly been installed in classrooms to ensure teachers follow the revised curriculum.

The initiative has sparked deep division within Gaza.

Some families see it as a rare opportunity for children to return to structured learning after years of disruption. Others view it as an attempt to reshape education under external control, without approval from Palestinian authorities.

Critics question the legitimacy of the project, asking how education can be rebuilt by those associated with the destruction of the existing system. They argue that the priority should be rebuilding schools, restoring the Palestinian curriculum, and protecting educational institutions—not introducing new systems that may deepen social and political divisions.

As war continues and infrastructure remains in ruins, one question remains unanswered for hundreds of thousands of children:

When will education return to real classrooms - instead of tents and fragile screens?

Ohood Nassar is a journalist and teacher from Gaza. She has written for We Are Not Numbers, New Arab, Al Jazeera, Institute for Palestine Studies, Electronic Intifada, and Prism.

Welcome to the world’s first Palestinian chat show! Palestinian journalists from Gaza Ahmed Alnaouq and Hala Hanina are joined by Palestinian author, academic and physician Dr Ghada Karmi and investigative journalist Matt Kennard.

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They’ll be discussing the latest news from Palestine and the wider region, including the now viral of image from L’Espresso magazine showing an Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank terrorising a Palestinian woman, the ongoing genocide in Gaza despite six months of so-called “ceasefire” and the significance of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day on 17th April.

In the quietest corner of my room in Gaza City, a small object stands as a silent witness to a decade of my life. It is a bronze-toned carved map of Palestine, its surface marked by an embossed silhouette of al-Aqsa Mosque at its heart. It was a gift from my Arabic teacher, Husam Thabet, eleven years ago, a reward for a boy who found refuge in the rhythm of words.

Today, as an English literature student, I keep this map perched atop Adele Geras’s Lizzie’s Wish, Holly Webb’s Izzy’s River, and David Colbert’s The Magical Worlds of Narnia. It is more than a souvenir; it is the physical bridge between the Western canon I study and the Eastern soul I inhabit.

During the heavy bombardment on Gaza City, the very foundations of the small house my family rented after our return from the south in March 2025 shook with a violence that words struggle to capture. The low, guttural hum of missiles caused the bronze-toned map to plunge from its shelf, shattering into jagged shards on the dusty floor. I remember gathering those pieces with a trembling hand, feeling as though I were picking up the broken limbs of my own identity.

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I spent weeks painstakingly glueing it back together, piece by piece. The cracks remain—visible white seams running through the northern side of the map, but the Dome in the centre stands intact. For a Gazan, al-Aqsa is exactly like that broken map: scarred by occupation, but yet stubbornly held together by the glue of our collective yearning.

The world consumes news of al-Aqsa through sanitised, clinical headlines of “security restrictions.” But for us, the total closure of the Mosque throughout this past Ramadan was more than a restriction; it was a form of spiritual suffocation that defined our existence.

Geometry Exile

As the iron chains tighten on the gates of Jerusalem’s Old City during the last forty days, I felt them tightening around my own wrists. This is why I call it the “geometry of exile” — a deliberate strategy to prove that we are mere numbers without a geographical or spiritual centre. It is an attempt to convince a people that their holy sites can be turned into silent museums while the indigenous owners are caged behind concrete walls and drone-filled skies.

​This is a war of erasure. While the Israeli occupation forces prevented us from reaching our heart in Jerusalem, they were systematically levelling our spiritual landmarks in Gaza. To date, over 1,160 mosques in the Strip—approximately 95% of our worship of places—have been bombed.

I find myself constantly returning to this specific loss. In a previous report on the systematic destruction of our places of worship, I described the soul-reviving sight of residents praying in the ruins of a destroyed mosque, their foreheads touching the rubble.

But a haunting question remains: How do you restore a connection to a place you are forbidden to touch? How do you heal a wound that is kept open by a military order?

Fading Light

This year, as we entered the second week of Ramadan and began preparing our hearts for the final ten days, the skyline of Gaza was crowded with the weary silhouettes of tents: their frayed fabric flapping like broken wings in the wind.

I went to great lengths to secure a stable internet connection for my 66-year-old grandmother, Hanan. In a city where connectivity is a luxury and a target, I wanted to give her a window to al-Aqsa courtyards. I wanted her to hear the Taraweeh prayers from her scarred living room, to find a moment of peace amidst the genocide.

But on the 11th of Ramadan, that window was slammed shut. The total closure of the mosque hit us like a physical blow. I watched the light fade from my grandmother’s eyes, a reflection of the darkness that had fallen over the Holy Sanctuary.

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That night, I retreated to the thin mattress I sleep on every night amidst the chaos. I lay there, consumed by a heavy-hearted dejection, staring into the dark until my eyes finally closed in exhaustion. For over a month, we lived in this state of enforced spiritual starvation.

“I used to go with my father,” my grandmother whispered to me recently, her fingers tracing the air as if she could still feel the cool, ancient limestone of the Old City. To her, the Mosque is a vivid, sensory memory. To me, it is a myth—a celestial city I can only visit through a screen that often goes black.

It is a soul-crushing realisation that a tourist from London or New York can walk the ancient stones of the Old City, while I, whose ancestors’ bones are buried in this soil, am kept in a cage.

Final Wish

This sense of being shut out from life itself reached its peak when I spoke with my cousin, Dunia. We chose to stay in Gaza City, refusing the IOF orders to head south in October 2025, clinging to the ruins of our neighbourhood. “Ali,” she asked, “If we are destined to be killed by an air strike in the coming hours, what is the one thing you want to do before you die?” I didn’t hesitate: “I want to spend one day in al-Aqsa. I want to see the Green of the Dome not on a digital pixel, but as a sun-drenched reality.” It is a simple wish that, in the logic of the occupation, is treated as a security threat.

In those long, dark nights, I began to write my will. Not a list of possessions, for we have little left, but a will in the form of a poem titled “If I Don’t Make It to Jerusalem”. I wrote it because I know that our love for the Mosque is what they fear most; it is the thread they cannot cut, the memory they cannot bomb.

As news reached us yesterday of the gates finally reopening, the irony was not lost on us in Gaza. A physical gate may swing open in Jerusalem, but the road remains blocked by more than just iron bars. For those of us living amidst the rubble of 1,160 destroyed mosques, the opening of a door we cannot reach is a cruel reminder of our immobilisation.

The occupation tries to distract the world with new horrors every day—laws to execute the Palestinian prisoners or the expansion of the Yellow Line—hoping we will be too busy mourning our children to remember our sanctuary. But they fail to understand that for a Palestinian, al-Aqsa Mosque and family are the same. Both are sacred, both are besieged.

Sense of Place

My study in English literature has taught me about the sense of place, in the works of the greats, but no novel could prepare me for the loss of place we experience daily. When I read Dickens’ descriptions of London’s fog, I think of the white phosphorus clouds over Gaza. When I study Hardy’s tragic characters tied to their land, I think of my grandmother, Hanan, and her invisible tether to Jerusalem.

Our tragedy is that we are forced to live as ghosts in our own geography, watching through a glass wall as our history is rewritten by those who hold the keys to the gates.

Every morning, the first light of Gaza’s sun hits the repaired carved map in my room. I look at the cracks I mended with my own hands and I see the map of my people’s history. We have been shattered by the vibrations of war, yes. We have been kept from our holy sites for over a month of enforced silence, yes. But we are people who refuse to stay broken. The act of glueing that map back together was not just a hobby; it was an act of resistance. It was a statement that even if they shatter our homes and lock our mosques, the internal map remains unchanged.

The closure of al-Aqsa and the levelling of Gaza’s mosques are two sides of the same coin: a systematic attempt to make us feel like numbers floating in a void, disconnected from our past and our God. But as I look at that carved map, I am reminded that even a shattered piece of stone still dictates the shape of the land. They can chain the gates and level the minarets, but they cannot stop the sunrise from hitting the green and golden domes.

​I will continue to write until the distance between my room and the Mosque is measured in footsteps, not in shards of memory. We are not just numbers; we are the keepers of the gate, even when the gate is closed. Our prayers, though forbidden in the courtyards of Jerusalem, rise from the rubble of Gaza, solid and loud. In the end, it is not the gates that define the sanctuary, but the hearts of those who wait outside them.

Fronts + Fault Lines, is a new podcast on Palestine Deep Dive developed by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), an organisation of Palestinian and Arab youth in diaspora struggling for the liberation of our land and people.

Hosted by, Jeanine and Nihal, organisers with PYM in Britain - this new podcast series in collaboration with the Palestinian Youth Movement, offering sharp analysis on the Arab and Iranian region and what it means for us in Britain.

Support us by becoming a paid subscriber from as little as £1 a month. Your support helps us build independent Palestinian-led media in a world which has never needed it more urgently:

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In this episode, they are joined by Nathaniel George, lecturer in Politics and the Middle East at SOAS, University of London, whose work focuses on Lebanese politics, Hezbollah, and the regional dimensions of the Palestinian struggle. They’ll be discussing the escalating destruction in Lebanon — how the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is unfolding in the context of a wider regional war, what it tells us about the limits and possibilities of armed resistance, and what the future of Lebanon looks like inside an order that is being remade by force.

This content is provided for educational and journalistic purposes only. References to proscribed organisations are made solely within the scope of analysis and reporting.

At the end of February 2026, World Central Kitchen announced it would suspend its services in the Gaza Strip “until further notice.” The reason was simple but devastating: it had completely run out of food supplies and could no longer bring in new stock in sufficient quantities.

This was not just an administrative decision. It sent shockwaves through hundreds of thousands of families who had come to depend on the organisation’s meals since the war began in October 2023.

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Lifeline Lost

For more than two years, World Central Kitchen had been a daily lifeline in Gaza. As livelihoods collapsed, entire sectors shut down, and poverty reached extreme levels, a single hot meal often meant the difference between hunger and survival.

Estimates suggest that around 60 percent of families relied, at least partially, on these meals—especially those living in displacement camps.

The organisation operated six major field kitchens and about 70 community kitchens. Together, they produced hundreds of thousands of meals every day, reaching people in tents, overcrowded shelters, and damaged homes.

For many, these meals were not just aid—they replaced the ability to cook entirely.

Impossible Living

In displacement camps, safe cooking is nearly impossible.

Cooking gas is heavily restricted and often unavailable. Families are forced to burn wood or improvised materials, exposing themselves to health risks and fire hazards. Clean water is scarce, and even basic food preparation becomes a daily struggle.

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For mothers trying to feed their children, ready-made meals were often the only reliable option.

However, growing restrictions made the situation worse. The number of aid trucks entering Gaza dropped from 25 per day to just five. Supplies were used up faster than they could be replaced, until operations could no longer continue.

Repeated Shutdowns

This is not the first time World Central Kitchen has halted operations.

On April 2, 2024, the organisation suspended its work after seven staff members were killed in a strike in Deir al-Balah. The incident sparked global outrage and highlighted the risks faced by humanitarian workers.

In May 2025, operations stopped again due to supply shortages, with the closure lasting about 12 weeks. During that time, malnutrition—especially among children—rose sharply.

Another disruption occurred in November 2024 due to administrative pressures related to staff verification.

But the current shutdown is the most dangerous yet. It comes after years of crisis, at a time when families have already exhausted their savings, sold their belongings, and lost their ability to cope.

Hunger Rising

Today, the greatest fear is famine.

Food prices have soared, and basic items are out of reach for many families. Without aid meals, households may be forced to reduce both the number and size of daily meals.

Children are the most vulnerable. Their bodies cannot endure prolonged hunger, and even small reductions in nutrition quickly affect their health and development.

Mothers in displacement camps face an impossible question: how can they feed their children now?

Even when small amounts of food are available, the lack of fuel and clean water makes cooking extremely difficult. Many families had relied on a single daily meal from aid kitchens. Now, even that is gone.

The closure also affects workers. More than 400 people—cooks, drivers, and staff—have lost their income. In an economy already devastated by war, this deepens the crisis further.

Aid Trucks

Calls are growing louder to open crossings and allow more aid trucks into Gaza, so humanitarian organisations can resume their work.

For many in Gaza, World Central Kitchen was more than an aid provider. It was a symbol of support in a time of extreme hardship.

Now, with its kitchens closed, fear is spreading.

Will the suspension last? Can children endure weeks more without proper food?

In a place already worn down by war, displacement, and loss, food is no longer just a basic need. It is survival. It is dignity.

And without it, hundreds of thousands now face an uncertain and dangerous future.

Ohood Nassar is a journalist and teacher from Gaza. She has written for We Are Not Numbers, New Arab, Al Jazeera, Institute for Palestine Studies, Electronic Intifada, and Prism.

Palestinian journalists from Gaza Ahmed Alnaouq and Hala Hanina are joined by Palestinian activist Lujane Hamzeh and the legendary anti-establishment punk-rap artist Bobby Vylan.

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They’ll be discussing the latest news from Palestine and the wider region, including Trump’s genocidal statements towards Iran, Israel’s ongoing onslaught in Lebanon and its genocide in Palestine.

Join us on YouTube for the first episode of our brand new weekly live show starting in 10 minutes, with Palestinian activist Lujane Hamzeh @luj.abd and punk musician @bobbyvylan.

Ahmed Alnaouq and Hala Hanina will be delivering you the latest news, views and analysis from Palestine – always centring Palestinian voices, alongside some very special guests.

Don’t forget to submit your questions for the panel in the comments. We want to hear from you!

ANNOUNCEMENT 📣: Palestine Deep Dive is going LIVE, every Wednesday at 7pm UK time for the world’s first Palestinian chat show!

Join us on YouTube for the first episode of our brand new weekly live show starting tonight.

Ahmed Alnaouq and Hala Hanina will be delivering you the latest news, views and analysis from Palestine – always centring Palestinian voices, alongside some very special guests.

For our first show, we’re delighted to announce we’ll be joined by Palestinian activist Lujane Hamzeh @luj.abd and punk musician @bobbyvylan.

Set your alert now on Palestine Deep Dive’s YouTube channel and don’t forget to submit your questions for the panel in the comments. We want to hear from you!

What is Gaza’s most irreplaceable capital?

It is the people it has lost: doctors, academics, scholars, engineers, journalists, imams, physicians, artists, writers, literary figures, and teachers.

In Gaza, devastation is often measured in concrete—the number of homes flattened, hospitals crippled, universities reduced to rubble. Satellites document the destruction with clinical precision, while reconstruction is discussed in the language of costs, timelines, and materials. Plans for rebuilding revolve around cement, steel, and budgets.

Yet the deepest loss unfolding in Gaza cannot be rebuilt through architecture.

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What is being erased is human in its fullest sense, and that loss will last far longer than the genocide itself.

When Gaza bleeds, it is not only stone that cracks. It is minds, skills, memory, and moral infrastructure that are struck. A gradual draining is taking place: the loss of those who carried generations of accumulated knowledge. This includes doctors shaped by siege, professors teaching under impossible conditions, journalists documenting devastation while living inside it, and artists insisting on beauty amid ruin.

This is a destruction that does not end with a ceasefire. It strikes at the very capacities that allow a society to recover and endure.

Knowledge erased

At the entrance of the Islamic University of Gaza—now bombed, charred, and surrounded by tents sheltering displaced families—a haunting question emerges: what does it mean to obliterate a university in a place already deprived of opportunity?

Universities are not merely structures of concrete and steel; they are living ecosystems of thought. When lecture halls, laboratories, and libraries are destroyed, it is not simply infrastructure that disappears. It is the future intellectual capacity of an entire population.

Gaza has lost academics who cannot easily be replaced, including specialists in medicine, engineering, literature, and law who studied abroad and chose to return despite the blockade. They came back to build rather than flee.

Some were killed in airstrikes. Others were forced into displacement, exile, or silence.

Their absence creates a vacuum that no one can easily fill. Knowledge, like trust, takes years—often decades—to grow.

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According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, more than 193 scientists, academics, and researchers have been killed since October 2023, along with more than 830 teachers and educational staff. The destruction of Gaza’s intellectual class has created an atmosphere of fear that pushes scholars and professionals toward exile while hollowing out the institutions meant to sustain society.

Among those killed was Professor Sufian Tayeh, a physicist and president of the Islamic University of Gaza. So too was Dr. Refaat Alareer, an academic, writer, and English-language poet whose work connected Gaza to the world beyond it. Through his teaching, Alareer helped generations of students learn how to narrate their own lives.

Others were engineers and builders of Gaza’s urban landscape, such as Ahmed Shamiya, whose quiet technical expertise sustained daily life under blockade.

Their deaths are not just individual tragedies. They are ruptures in the chain of knowledge that binds generations together.

Healers lost

The same devastation has struck Gaza’s medical community.

The war has not only overwhelmed hospitals; it has decimated the people who kept them alive. Surgeons operating without anaesthesia, paediatricians confronting malnutrition that erases years of progress, nurses sleeping in hospitals while their families are displaced or killed—many of these professionals are now dead, injured, detained, or psychologically shattered.

More than 1,700 healthcare workers—including doctors, nurses, paramedics, and technicians—have been killed. That is an average of more than two medical workers every day.

Among them was Dr. Adnan Al-Bursh, a Palestinian orthopaedic surgeon and former head of orthopaedics at Al-Shifa Medical Complex. He was killed while detained in Israeli prisons, marking the loss of one of Gaza’s most experienced surgeons.

Dr. Marwan Al-Sultan, an internal medicine and cardiology consultant and director of the Indonesian Hospital, was another pillar of Gaza’s collapsing health system. Dr. Omar Farwana, a gynaecologist and assistant professor at the Faculty of Medicine at the Islamic University of Gaza who later became its dean, was also killed.

Dr. Medhat Saidam, one of Gaza’s most prominent surgeons and a founding figure of the burns unit at Al-Shifa Medical Complex, was another loss. Young Dr. Maysara Al-Rayyes, who completed his medical degree at King’s College London at the age of 30 before returning to Gaza, was also killed.

Even survival has become unbearable for some of those who remain.

Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, a paediatrician, lost nine of her children and her husband when an airstrike hit her family home in southern Khan Younis.

At least 350 medical personnel have been detained, with approximately 120 still held in Israeli custody—including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who refused to abandon his patients during a military assault on Kamal Adwan Hospital.

A doctor is not simply someone with a degree.

A good doctor carries experience: thousands of cases, mistakes learned from, instincts sharpened under pressure. When Gaza loses a senior surgeon or an experienced paediatrician, it loses decades of accumulated human knowledge.

Training a replacement is not a matter of months.

It takes generations.

Voices silenced

Journalists and photojournalists in Gaza have also been deliberately targeted, and their loss carries consequences far beyond individual lives.

These reporters were not transient outsiders. They were deeply rooted witnesses who understood the unspoken realities behind the headlines. They knew the families behind the statistics and the streets behind the destruction.

When a journalist dies, more than a voice is silenced. An archive disappears.

No foreign correspondent can fully replace a local reporter who has spent years documenting the rhythms and wounds of a community.

Without these voices, Gaza risks becoming a place that is discussed but not truly seen.

From Samer Abu Daqqa, Hamza Al-Dahdouh, and Roshdi Sarraj at the beginning of the genocide to Fadi Alwhidi—left paralysed by a bullet to his spine—Gaza’s journalists have faced relentless danger.

Ismail Al-Ghoul was killed while reporting, leaving his daughter Zina fatherless. Rami Al-Rifi suffered a similar fate. Hossam Shabat was killed for documenting the war, while Ahmad Mansour burned alive outside Nasser Hospital. Hassan Eslieh was killed by a direct airstrike while sleeping in a tent near the hospital grounds in Khan Younis.

Yahya Sobeih had celebrated his newborn daughter only hours earlier.

Names such as Anas Al-Sharif, Mohammed Qraiqea, Maryam Abu Daqqa, Saleh Al-Jafarawi, and many others—around 228 journalists in total—have been killed while carrying out their work.

With every journalist lost, a part of Gaza’s memory disappears.

Human ruins

The war has carved a quieter, less visible wound: the loss of teachers, writers, artists, and community leaders—the people who help a society make sense of suffering.

They are the ones who explain trauma to children, who reconstruct language amid rubble, who remind a wounded society that it is more than a humanitarian statistic.

This is why the language of “reconstruction” often feels hollow.

Homes can be rebuilt. People cannot.

Rebuilding buildings without rebuilding the people who give them meaning is not recovery. Even if every structure in Gaza were restored tomorrow, the society inside them would still bear the absence of those who are no longer there.

The damage is not only quantitative; it is qualitative.

Gaza is losing its experienced guides. Young people are growing up without professors to mentor them, without doctors to inspire them, without journalists to teach them how to speak truth under impossible conditions.

This absence will echo forward, shaping the kind of society Gaza is forced to become.

The systematic targeting of civilian professionals—medical workers, academics, journalists—creates a strategy of social collapse. It ensures that even if Gaza survives physically, it will struggle to survive intellectually.

It transforms survival into a prolonged emergency.

What remains is a society forced to mourn not only its dead, but also its unrealised futures.

This is the reconstruction Gaza truly needs: the rebuilding of the human being after the loss of an entire generation of elites.

But rebuilding human capital is not like rebuilding a road or a building. It takes decades, sometimes generations. Some losses cannot be replaced at all.

No reconstruction plan can recreate the people who should still be teaching, healing, building, writing, and guiding.

The deepest wound of this genocide is not only what it has destroyed.

It is what it has made impossible.

And that—more than rubble—is what the world must be forced to see.

Since I was a child at school, Land Day was a date on the calendar that we always celebrated—a moment of commemoration, a lesson in Palestinian history, a reminder of resistance rooted in soil and in Palestinians’ hearts and minds. It marked the 1976 uprising of Palestinians inside Israel against land confiscation. We spoke of it as inheritance, as memory, as principle.

After more than two years of genocide and displacement in Gaza, I now understand what land truly means. For Palestinians, land is never just geography; it is memory made visible, heritage that breathes, and identity that cannot be rewritten. It is the first story we hear and the last truth we hold onto when everything else collapses.

Mahmoud Darwish once wrote, “We have on this earth what makes life worth living.” For years, those words were quoted as poetry. Today, they read like defiance carved into stone. What makes life worth living is not comfort, nor certainty—it is belonging. It is the stubborn insistence that we are of this land and that it is of us, no matter how violently that bond is tested.

Over these past years, displacement has taught us that land is not something you simply own—it is something you live through and within. When homes are erased, land becomes the last witness. When borders close, land becomes the only constant. When people are forced into tents, it is the land that absorbs grief, hunger, and endurance. It holds the weight of footsteps that refuse to disappear. It listens when the world turns away.

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Land Day is not about olive trees alone. It is about the refusal to be uprooted. It is about the quiet, unbreakable decision to remain, even when remaining seems impossible.

Ghassan Kanafani warned that the Palestinian cause is not merely a story of loss, but a struggle against erasure. In his vision, land was never nostalgia—it was responsibility. Something you either defend or lose entirely. After the genocide, that lesson is no longer philosophical. It is immediate, brutal, and undeniable.

What we are living through has made one truth unmistakably clear: the attempt has never been only to control land, but to sever people from it—emotionally, historically, and physically. To make us forget. To make the land feel distant, foreign, unreachable. Genocide accelerates this severance: displacement without return, destruction without rebuilding, death without mourning.

And yet, despite everything, Palestinians remain tethered.

There is something almost sacred in this tethering. It is not fragile. It does not weaken under pressure. It hardens. It sharpens. It becomes clearer with every attempt to erase it. The more destruction unfolds, the more the connection deepens—not as an abstract idea, but as a lived truth that pulses through daily survival.

Land Day now feels less like remembrance and more like testimony. We are no longer only remembering what was taken—we are bearing witness to what is still being taken, and to those who refuse to let go. We testify that land remembers us even when the world does not. That rubble still carries names. That streets flattened into dust still echo with laughter, footsteps, and life.

We testify that displacement does not dissolve attachment—it intensifies it.

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If the lions do not have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunters. It will celebrate those who conquer, who occupy, who erase, while silencing those who endure. This is why storytelling becomes an act of resistance. Not a luxury, not a choice—but a necessity, as Dr. Refaat Alareer said.

Because when we tell the story of our homeland, we are not only preserving memory—we are asserting existence.

We love the story because it is about our homeland. And we love our homeland even more because of the story. The two are inseparable. One feeds the other. One protects the other. In every retelling, we rebuild what has been destroyed. In every word, we return—if not physically, then spiritually, emotionally, collectively.

And this is what frightens those who seek erasure the most: that even in exile, even in displacement, even under unimaginable destruction, the story does not end.

It multiplies.

It passes from one voice to another, from one generation to the next, refusing silence. It lives in the details—the names of villages, the taste of bread, the smell of the sea, the shape of streets that may no longer exist but are still mapped in memory with painful precision.

This is the new meaning of Land Day.

It is no longer confined to a single historical moment. It is not just 1976. It is now. It is every day that a person refuses to forget where they come from. Every day that someone speaks the name of a place that others try to erase. Every day that survival itself becomes a form of resistance.

Land Day has become a language.

A language spoken in resilience, in memory, in refusal. A language that does not require translation because it is understood through experience, through loss, through the unyielding will to remain connected.

After the genocide, Land Day is no longer about land taken in the past. It is about land still being taken—and people still refusing to be uprooted.

It is about the certainty that no matter how much is destroyed, something remains. And that something is enough to begin again.

Because as long as there are those who remember, who speak, who insist, the land is not lost.

It is waiting.

And we are still here.

On the morning of 13 February 2026, more than 30 masked settlers, brandishing machetes and throwing stones, stormed the village of Talfit in the occupied West Bank.

They fired live ammunition at residents, their homes, vehicles, and even the town mosque. Several villagers were beaten and stabbed, and a 19-year-old man was shot in the shoulder.

“It’s the first time such a large attack has happened in the village,” said Yousef Abu Aisheh. During the assault, he sheltered in the centre of his home with his wife and seven young children, who screamed in fear as settlers pelted their windows with rocks.

The Israeli army was called to halt the rampage, but when soldiers arrived, they deployed tear gas at the community instead.

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Such attacks have become increasingly common in the West Bank, particularly in Israeli military-controlled Area C, where settlers have established more than 120 outposts and displaced 78 Palestinian communities. Talfit, however, lies in Area B, under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction and once considered off-limits to Israelis. The assault reflects a broader pattern of settlers expanding their foothold across the West Bank, encouraged by a government moving steadily toward full annexation of the territory.

A new foothold

The settlers who attacked Talfit came from an outpost established on 21 January 2026 on Ras Ein Einiya, a hilltop overlooking Talfit and the Palestinian town of Qusra. Initially consisting of only a few settlers, the camp has tripled in size in less than a month.

The Israeli army dismantled the outpost at first, but settlers soon returned and rebuilt it just 100 meters away. While outposts are illegal under Israeli law, many receive state funding and military protection. Both settlements and outposts are considered illegal under international law.

Under the Oslo Accords, the interim peace agreement signed in the 1990s between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B, and C. Area A, the most densely populated section, falls under Palestinian civil and security control. Area B is under Palestinian civil authority with shared Israeli-Palestinian security control. Area C, comprising 61% of the territory, remains under full Israeli military control. These divisions were intended to last five years, after which authority would transfer fully to the Palestinian Authority. That transition never occurred.

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According to Dror Etkes, founder of Kerem Navot, an Israeli civil society organisation monitoring land policy and settlement expansion, settlers have established one outpost in Area A and 20 in Area B over the past two years.

“This stems from a decades-long campaign aimed at undermining the Oslo Accords. That’s what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu sought from the start of his first term,” Etkes said. “What we’re seeing on the ground is a continuation of Netanyahu and settler policies from 30 years ago — Palestinians under Israeli control, without political representation.”

Expansion into Area B

Etkes emphasised that outposts represent only part of the broader expansion into Area B.

“Even when outposts are built in Area C along the border of Area B, violence and restrictions on access often spill into Areas A and B,” he said.

Suha Khteep has experienced this firsthand. Settlers who established an outpost in Area C, about one kilometre from the home her family is building between the villages of Jurish and Aqraba in Area B, have repeatedly blocked the family from reaching their property.

Tensions escalated to the point that on 13 February 2026, the Israeli army declared her home a closed military zone, barring the family from entering to complete construction. Meanwhile, settlers continue to raise the Israeli flag on the Khteep property.

“The settlers told us, ‘This is our land. This is our place. None of these houses belong to you. God gave us this land 3,000 years ago,’” Khteep said.

More than half of the new Area B outposts are located in the so-called “Agreed-Upon Reserve,” where the Palestinian Authority is responsible for planning and construction. In recent years, Israel has increasingly altered Oslo-era arrangements, expanding its authority in the West Bank to assert greater civilian control — steps critics say amount to formal annexation.

Legal shifts

In 2024, the Israeli military granted civilian officials the power to demolish Palestinian construction in the Agreed-Upon Reserve. Last month, the Israeli Cabinet approved measures easing real estate transactions for settlers in the West Bank, including allowing individuals to purchase property directly rather than through registered companies. Another measure makes West Bank land registries — previously classified — publicly accessible, enabling anyone to view land ownership records.

The decision also broadens the military’s authority to carry out demolitions not only in Area C but in Areas A and B if construction is deemed harmful to heritage sites, archaeology, or environmental resources.

These moves have prompted Talfit residents — at least 500 of whom own land at Ras Ein Einiya — to gather their deeds to demonstrate that the outpost stands on their property.

“The presence of this outpost in Area B is a clear, physical sign of the government’s latest efforts,” said Qutabeh Msallam, a Ras Ein Einiya landowner and Talfit resident.

Since the outpost was established, landowners have been unable to access their groves or the spring at Ras Ein Einiya. Water continues to flow to the village, but residents fear settlers may eventually cut off the supply.

“I have fond memories of hiking and climbing the summit as a child,” said Aysar Shaheen, another landowner from Talfit, gesturing toward the hilltop.

Already barred from tending his olive orchards near another settlement, he now worries he could permanently lose ownership of his land at Ras Ein Einiya as well.

“We’re completely surrounded by settlements,” Shaheen said, pointing to colonies on hilltops north, south, east, and west of Talfit that are tightening around the cluster of Area B villages south of Nablus. “Many farmers depend on this land. When you cut off their livelihoods, you’re starving them.”

***

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist covering West Asia, primarily reporting on Palestine, Israel, the Syrian Golan Heights, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.

This story begins not with missiles or explosions—memories that have haunted my days since I finally fled the war in Gaza for Cairo. Instead, it begins with something entirely mundane: the reluctant decision that it was finally time to get a haircut.

I had delayed it for weeks. Partly because I’ve always dreaded the tedious wait, but also because ordinary moments often carry memories beneath them, waiting quietly until something stirs them. Eventually, avoidance runs out of room, and distance stops protecting you.

Around me, men chat about weekend plans, inflation, and football—conversations that feel trivial to me. For them, this is just what people do while waiting for a haircut. But for me, the wait fills with memories of sitting in frozen silence, unsure if I would make it out alive. I remember stepping into the thick smoke of an airstrike and struggling to lift the lifeless body of a man whose skull had cracked open.

Staying behind

I never wanted to leave Gaza. Even when I had the chance early in the war, when an Egyptian friend offered to help, I refused. I told myself I would stay no matter what.

I was used to the reality that even simple acts—like going to the barber—could be difficult at best and life-threatening at worst. Finding a barber with enough battery power to operate an electric shaver was no small feat. The absence of electricity made haircuts a rare luxury, something that required both luck and patience.

Fortunately, I had both.

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Unlike many who were displaced to the southern reaches of the Gaza Strip, I remained in Deir Al Balah and managed to secure an appointment with my barber, Abu Salma. He was a man of quiet dedication who took his craft seriously, insisting on spending two full hours to ensure a perfect cut. It was an excruciating wait made bearable by his undeniable skill.

His devotion impressed me, though the cigarette smoke that filled the shop felt like a frontal assault on my already fragile commitment to quitting. Still, the memory of that day became something we shared.

At least, for a while.

I used to think he carried that memory too. Now he is gone, and I carry it alone.

The explosion

The haircut had just begun when a rocket struck nearby.

The explosion was close—150 meters away, maybe less. The blast rattled the shop, collapsing parts of the ceiling and sending dust pluming into the air. For a moment, life seemed to pause.

Then Abu Salma and I looked at each other.

We were alive.

When we stepped outside, we immediately sensed something was wrong. Normally in Gaza, when a bombing happens, people run toward the site to help. This time, people were running away. A rumour spread quickly: quadcopters were targeting civilians.

It later proved false. But in that moment, it felt real.

Still, Abu Salma and I ran toward the wreckage.

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Through smoke and debris, we searched for survivors. The first thing I lifted was a couch. Beneath it lay a lifeless body. The man’s skull had cracked open.

As we tried to lift him onto a nearby mattress, his pants slipped down, revealing threadbare boxers. Absurdly, I found myself wondering whether, if he had known that today would be his last day, he might have chosen a different pair. I pushed the thought away in shame. Had I become numb to grief and horror?

Another passerby joined us, and together we carried the man toward an ambulance, shouting for paramedics.

Then a voice cut sharply through the chaos.

“Can’t you see he’s obviously dead? Drop him and find someone still breathing.”

I froze.

I hadn’t been helping. I had simply been refusing to accept death—even while holding it.

We moved on.

Soon we found her: a young girl, maybe five or six years old, standing alone in the smoke. She didn’t cry or call for help. She simply stood there, trembling.

Was it fear? Cold? Shock?

I didn’t know.

She was alive, untouched by the blast except for the soot covering her face. Lucky, I thought at first. But what does luck mean if you lose everything? If the memory of this moment stays with you forever?

By the end of that day, more than twenty people were dead. Most of them were children.

Paramedics worked desperately to resuscitate a young boy whose tongue hung unnaturally from his mouth. Watching them, I realised something: no matter how many times I witnessed scenes like this, I would never become desensitised.

Some horrors refuse to become normal.

Finishing the cut

Eventually, more rescuers arrived, and Abu Salma and I understood that our role was over.

We stepped back, covered in blood that wasn’t ours—a silent reminder of what had just happened.

For a moment we simply stood there, looking at each other, locked in an unspoken contest: who would break the silence first?

He lost.

“So… should we finish the haircut?” he asked.

What else was there to do?

I nodded.

Two hours later, I walked home with neatly trimmed hair and blood still on my hands—an irony only war can produce.

My uncles had already assumed I was dead. They had called friends and checked hospitals. My cousin had confirmed I was near the bombing site when he called around to ask if the barbershop was open.

By the time I walked through the door, they were already mourning me.

I expected relief—maybe even an embrace. Instead, I was scolded.

They weren’t angry that I had nearly died.

They were angry about the stress it had caused my mother.

This bombing took place on February 23, 2024. It targeted a member of the Abu Zaaiter family on Yafa Street in Deir Al Balah. Who knows why the Israelis were after him.

Even then, I still resisted the idea of leaving Gaza.

But two months later, my brother needed emergency surgery, and no ambulance could reach us because so many others needed help. Suddenly, it was no longer just about me.

We scraped together the astronomical “fee” required to cross the border—$5,000 per person. My two younger siblings and I eventually made it out.

Lingering Echoes

Now, two years later, I am back in a barber chair.

The memories return the moment the razor hums near my ear.

But it isn’t just haircuts that trigger them. The sound of a plane overhead, the rumble of cars, even cheers from friends during a football game can send panic through me.

I once believed nothing could scare me anymore.

But horror lingers in the mind long after the bombs stop falling.

Some time ago, I asked a friend to visit Abu Salma’s shop and take photographs so I could include them in this article.

That’s when I learned he had died.

His house was bombed shortly after I left Gaza. He survived the initial strike but later succumbed to his injuries.

I sometimes wonder what passed through his mind in those final moments. Did he think back to that night in the barbershop, when we believed surviving meant we might still have a future after the war? Did he feel that same brief relief—the feeling that he had made it—before realising that he hadn’t?

In the end, it was only me who survived to remember.

May God have mercy on Abu Salma’s soul.

I had hoped only to revisit his shop through a photograph, to preserve a small piece of our shared story. Instead, I was left with the finality of his absence.

Now I wonder whether a simple haircut will ever again be just that. Or whether it will always be tied to the image of a shattered body and the memory of a barber who never lived to see peace.

And if such echoes persist in me—an adult who understands where they come from—what resonance will they leave in the minds of children who are only beginning to form their earliest memories?

What kind of future can grow from foundations of fear and smoke?

Three years suspended in the same place. While everything and everyone around me seems to move forward, I remain here, unable to take even a single step ahead. That is what it feels like, despite all the effort I pour into my studies and into trying to salvage what remains of myself amid chaos and a war that has spared no one.

For years, I dreamed of studying in Europe after graduating from high school. That dream drove me to work relentlessly throughout those years. I longed for a dignified and expansive education, one unconstrained by the limitations of a besieged land, deprived of the resources needed to satisfy my scientific curiosity.

When I graduated from high school with a 92.1 percent average in the scientific stream, my family celebrated with immense pride. I still remember the joy in their faces and my own excitement as I imagined the path ahead.

But that moment also became my first harsh lesson: not everything we strive for comes to us in the way we imagine.

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The circumstances at the time did not allow me to leave Gaza. I fell into deep disappointment. Yet I refused to abandon the dream entirely. Instead, I decided to work as hard as I could at home until an opportunity to study abroad might appear.

I enrolled at Al-Israa University in Gaza, majoring in Artificial Intelligence Engineering.

I attended university for only two weeks before something happened that had never crossed my mind—even in my worst imaginings.

War.

Dreams delayed

October 7, 2023 marked a turning point in the life of every person in Gaza. Each of us carries a different story.

Mine is simple: I believed that all my postponed dreams had slipped through my fingers.

My name is Rawan Marwan Shaat, and during those months I felt as though I had lost myself. My dreams were pushed aside as survival became the only immediate concern. In truth, survival itself was never fully in our hands. There was no choice but luck—or perhaps fate.

My mind was consumed with questions instead.

Why did all of this happen?
Why now, just as I had begun to accept a new and unexpected direction in my life?
Why did everything collapse so suddenly?

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Even surrender was not something I chose. It was imposed upon me.

In the early months of the war, I lived among people who had become my friends during displacement. We stayed together in what we believed was a relatively safer house. Eventually, we were forced to flee as bombardment intensified and residents were ordered to evacuate.

We scattered.

I was displaced eight times. Each time the same scenes repeated themselves: shelling, death, displacement, hunger. I lived through the very scenario I had feared most during the first week of the war—losing my home and living in a tent that showed no mercy, neither in the suffocating heat of summer nor in the bitter cold of winter.

War interrupted

At first, these were simply attempts to survive.

But after some time, I became painfully aware that time itself was slipping away. My life felt as though it were being consumed without purpose. I feared the war might never end, and that I would disappear inside it.

I knew I had to try to reclaim some fragment of myself.

During the war, diseases spread across Gaza, while many patients with genetic illnesses—such as cancer—died because treatment was unavailable and travel for medical care was impossible, while border crossings remained closed. Watching this unfold revived an old dream within me.

Before the war, I had once imagined becoming a researcher in science and medicine. Life’s changing currents had gradually pushed me toward artificial intelligence, but my fascination with genetic engineering had never truly disappeared. That field, however, was impossible to study in Gaza because of the siege and the severe shortage of equipment and resources.

When my desire to search again for the life I wanted returned, I decided to pursue science once more.

I began applying for scholarships.

At first, rejection was all I encountered. I accepted it quietly, knowing I was still inexperienced and had no one to guide me through the process. My applications carried very little hope—pessimism had become my default outlook after months of war and trauma.

During this time, some universities began offering online study programmes.

I refused.

I could not accept that my bachelor’s journey would exist only through a screen. How could I extinguish the passion for a university experience I had not even had the chance to live? My family and many others urged me not to waste my life waiting for what they called “illusory dreams.”

But for me, this was not a matter of fantasy.

It felt like life or death.

Holding on

Refusing an online degree did not mean I stopped learning.

Throughout this time, I continued taking online courses in artificial intelligence, programming, and design. I worked to strengthen my technological background so that one day I could combine it with scientific research.

Eventually, not all the doors remained closed.

I received an unconditional offer from the University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom to study Cellular and Molecular Biology with Biotechnology, along with a partial scholarship. I also received conditional offers from the University of Bristol and the University of Manchester, each with partial scholarships.

Yet the war in Gaza has created another obstacle.

Because of the devastating economic conditions here, I cannot cover the remaining tuition and living costs. What should have been the beginning of a new chapter has instead become another struggle: searching for organisations, scholarships, or individuals willing to help students like me continue our education.

Despite everything, I keep trying.

Whenever circumstances allow, I go to a small workspace created for students and remote workers. There, electricity and internet sometimes exist, if luck is on our side and the sky is clear. Electricity now often depends on solar panels.

Every day, I search for new opportunities that might help me escape this senseless chaos.

I write about this unfinished journey to remind myself—and perhaps others—that reality is not always kind, and that we are not always responsible for the paths our lives take.

I do not accept this bitter reality. I also do not know whether clinging to my desire to grow amid ruins is the right choice.

But a dear friend once told me something I still hold onto: that my refusal to accept this reality might one day be what saves me.

So I choose to believe him.

Our attempts to hold on to the dreams of the past are not illusions, as some say. They are a lifeline, reminding us of who we are beyond the boundaries of suffering.

There are questions the mind asks that the soul cannot answer. What kind of life continues after everyone is gone? What does tomorrow look like when yesterday erased an entire family? Noor Al-Din Habib lives inside those questions.

At 21, Noor Al-Din was the middle son — the peacemaker. If he upset his mother, he was always the first to return, sitting beside her until she smiled. She would tell him, “You are the kindest among your brothers.”

On Wednesday night at 10 p.m., their home was struck. His mother was wounded and remained alive until 3 a.m. Noor Al-Din was injured too, unable to move, though he could hear her calling out each of her children’s names: Riwaa, Obaida, Abdullah, Noor Al-Din, Malik, Sajed.

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When relatives tried to comfort her, telling her Noor was beside her, she called again, “Where is Noor Al-Din?” Then she said, “Noor, my love…I swear I love you. Forgive me. Be patient, my son.”

He heard everything. He tried to reach her, but his injuries pinned him in place.

The night they all left

His eldest sister, Israa — a second mother to her siblings — had already been killed a year earlier, on December 17, 2023, along with her husband and three children. Noor Al-Din dug through the rubble alone to find and bury them.

Riwaa was his confidante. He studied with her, teased her cooking, and loved her pizza most of all. She once said she dreamed of being “the sister of a groom one day.”

Obaida, who earned a master’s degree in management while working at an ice cream shop, was deeply attached to their father. He was killed on June 19, 2024.

Abdullah, 23, worked as a nurse at Al-Shifa and Al-Maamadani hospitals. He came home each week covered in blood, describing the wounded he treated. He was saving to get engaged.

Malik, 17, was Noor’s closest companion — more friend than brother. Sajed, 15, the youngest, was spoiled and adored.

Their final night together was December 19, 2024. They sat at home. Abdullah showed photos on Obaida’s laptop. Their mother asked to see Obaida’s pictures because she missed him. “God willing, we will see him soon, up there,” Abdullah said quietly before closing the computer.

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She told Noor to intend to fast the next day and pray. He performed ablution. He remembers nothing after that.

He woke up in Al-Maamadani Hospital, disoriented. “Where is my mother? Where are my siblings?”

“They’re fine,” relatives told him at first.

By morning, his friend Ahmed gave him the truth. “May God have mercy on them.”

“Who?” Noor asked.

“All of them.”

He begged to see their bodies. They refused. “Remember them as you knew them,” they said.

Losing everyone

After leaving the hospital, Noor visited the Eastern Cemetery to say goodbye. Then he moved into his grandfather’s house.

Each morning, he returned to the hospital to clean and disinfect his wounds. His cousin Ismail stayed close, sleeping beside him at night. “You are not alone,” Ismail told him. “Consider me Malik.” Noor replied, “I want to.”

One winter night, doctors discovered Noor had two leg fractures. Surgery was unavailable; he was placed on a waiting list.

The next morning, Ismail left after promising to return every night. Hours later, a call came: Ismail had been killed.

Noor ran to the hospital, ignoring the pain in his broken leg. “How? He was with me… he said he wouldn’t leave me.”

After that, even ordinary things broke him — siblings walking together, someone saying “my mother.” He wondered whether it would have been easier to die with them.

His best friend Ishaq became his final anchor. “Why talk like this? I am here,” Ishaq would tell him. Noor once said, “I lost four siblings, but life compensated me with you.”

On May 28, 2025, Ishaq was killed too.

“I lost everyone I love,” Noor says. “I told myself I would never get attached again.”

Beginning again

In December 2025, relatives encouraged him to get engaged. He refused until his father said, “I want to see you happy.”

On the day of his engagement, January 2, 2026, he woke up wondering who would stand beside him. There was no one from his family left to attend. His fiancée, who had also lost her father, brother, and sister, understood his silence.

Now Noor says he no longer knows what stability feels like. He sleeps in different places, eats mostly canned food, and longs for Riwaa’s cooking and his mother’s sweets.

What can someone build when the people who made the house a home are gone?

For Noor Al-Din, that question does not fade. It is the life he now carries.

***

Sara Serria is a Gaza-based Palestinian writer, translator, and speaker, and a recent graduate of the Islamic University of Gaza. As a human before anything else, her work is rooted in empathy and lived experience. She focuses on documenting the human impact of war, loss, and survival—preserving personal histories and amplifying the voices of those shaped by displacement and grief.

Ramadan has never been simply a date on the calendar. It rearranges time. Nights grow longer and fuller. Homes open to neighbours. Tables stretch with shared meals. Mosques fill as life bends toward prayer and reflection.

But this is not how Ramadan arrives in Gaza this year.

Genocide and violent occupation have erased homes, torn apart gathering places, and turned familiar streets into fields of rubble. The landmarks that once organised daily life are gone. Even memory has changed shape. What once offered comfort now feels heavy, a reminder of everything that has vanished.

Months after a so-called ceasefire that never truly held, Gaza remains suspended in conditions that cannot be described as peace. The patterns of bombing may shift, but their consequences remain permanent. Entire neighbourhoods lie flattened. Roads are fractured. Water systems barely function. Communication cuts out for hours or days at a time.

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What little infrastructure remains stands in a fragile state: damaged, unreliable, yet stubbornly refusing to disappear.

Broken city

Daily life has become a struggle defined by scarcity.

Poverty and unemployment have soared, leaving most families without stable sources of income. Aid arrives irregularly and in limited quantities, forcing Palestinians into endless cycles of waiting, rationing, and improvisation. Planning for the future has become almost impossible. Survival replaces planning; endurance replaces recovery.

Even now, airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire punctuate daily life. Local authorities have documented hundreds of ceasefire violations since the truce took effect, many resulting in civilian casualties.

Movement remains tightly restricted, particularly at border crossings such as Rafah. Fuel, construction materials, and humanitarian supplies are frequently delayed or blocked. Caravans and prefabricated housing units are prevented from entering Gaza. Essential rebuilding materials are labelled “banned.”

Even food and medicine arrive as controlled quantities rather than necessities.

Since the genocide began in 2023, more than a thousand mosques have been destroyed or severely damaged. Entire neighbourhoods no longer contain a single functioning place of worship. Communities do not know where—or whether—they will gather for prayer this Ramadan.

Many congregational prayers will take place in tents, among the ruins of what once stood.

Empty tables

Ramadan usually arrives with sound.

The call to prayer echoes through neighbourhoods. Qur’anic recitation hums late into the night. After sunset, laughter and conversation spill from open windows as families gather for iftar.

This year, much of Gaza stands in silence.

At a time traditionally defined by family gatherings, almost every household has someone missing—a brother, sister, parent, uncle, aunt, or grandparent killed during the genocide. The empty seats around the table speak more loudly than words.

And often, the tables themselves are nearly empty.

Fasting during Ramadan is meant to cultivate empathy with the hungry. In Gaza, hunger is no longer symbolic. It is constant. With supply chains broken and incomes erased, many families approach the holy month unsure whether they will have enough food for iftar at sunset—or even for suhoor before dawn.

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Abstention is no longer a spiritual exercise. It is a daily condition. People no longer prepare for Ramadan. They brace for it.

Difficult questions echo through overcrowded shelters and bombed streets: How long will this continue? Where is the Arab and Islamic world—not in statements, but in action? Where is the international community?

Where, simply, is humanity?

Gaza does not need seasonal gestures or symbolic relief. It needs sustained humanitarian access, accountability for violations of international humanitarian law, the rebuilding of its healthcare system, the rescue of its collapsing education sector, and an economic recovery that restores dignity and self-sufficiency.

Anything less is not recovery. It is managed collapse.

Stubborn light

Yet even amid devastation, Ramadan still finds ways to appear.

Lanterns hang from broken walls and tent poles. Small shops decorate their doors with strands of colored lights that spill softly onto damaged streets. Many people cannot afford to buy anything, but they still walk through these markets simply to look.

Children press their faces against shop windows. Families stroll slowly through the streets, sharing brief smiles and moments of laughter.

The city, though scarred, refuses to surrender entirely to grief.

In one ravaged neighbourhood, where skeletal buildings rise like ghosts from piles of debris, a single white tent glows in the darkness. Strings of golden LEDs hang across its canvas walls, shining like defiant stars against the night.

The lights do not hide the surrounding ruins. Instead, they illuminate them.

There is no roof from which to hang decorations, so the tent itself becomes the lantern. Somewhere nearby, a small generator or salvaged battery hums softly—the fragile heartbeat of a family refusing to let displacement erase the spirit of the month.

Across Gaza, the geography of Ramadan is being redrawn.

Where mosques once stood, strings of LED lights zigzag between wooden poles and palm trees, forming glowing paths over dirt roads lined with tents. Lanterns are no longer purchased in markets. They are created from what remains.

Empty soda cans are carefully cut and shaped into metallic lamps that sway gently in the evening breeze. During the day they catch sunlight; at night they glow faintly in the dark.

These objects are more than decoration. They are declarations of existence—small flames of perseverance that refuse to let darkness claim the final word.

When Ramadan arrives in a city without homes, without mosques, without enough food to break its fast, the question is no longer how its people pray.

The question is how the world continues to watch. Because a holy month meant to embody mercy arriving beneath rubble is not a natural disaster. It is the result of human decisions—policies maintained, suffering prolonged, starvation regulated. And a tragedy not only witnessed by the world, but tolerated by it.

***

Taqwa Ahmed Alwawi, a Palestinian writer, poet, and editor living in Gaza (born 2006), studied English Literature at the Islamic University of Gaza. She is a chronicler and guardian of her community’s memory through her writing, dedicated to amplifying Gaza’s voice and sharing stories often left untold. Her work has appeared in over 30 international platforms. She is an editor at Baladi Magazine.

Taqwa’s Portfolio: https://tqwaportfolio-project.netlify.app/

By Esraa Abo Qamar

For two consecutive years, Ramadan arrived in Gaza under the devastating shadow of genocide. Both times, it felt nothing like the Ramadan we once knew.

I used to love Ramadan more than any other month. Before the war, it transformed the atmosphere of our home. My mother, especially, seemed softer. I would see her calmly reciting the Qur’an, moving peacefully through the kitchen. Even when we cooked, we did so with ease and joy. There was no tension — only anticipation for sunset.

During the genocide, that version of her disappeared.

She became anxious and exhausted, carrying the heavy burden of feeding us when there was almost nothing left to cook. We were living through famine, fasting nearly 15 hours a day. When sunset finally came, there was often little waiting on the table. The long iftar meals we once prepared — rice, chicken, soups, sambosk, pickles, sweets — were replaced by a small pot of thin soup or canned beans cooked over firewood.

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We had no cooking gas. Electricity was cut across the entire strip. We stepped outside in darkness to light wood fires, smoke filling our lungs as we cooked. We broke our fast coughing, sitting in the dark, listening to distant bombing.

My father’s sadness was unmistakable. His favourite part of Ramadan had always been taraweeh prayers at the mosque. But during those two years, he and my brothers could not go. The streets were unsafe at night. Some mosques did not even call the adhan, out of fear. Ramadan felt stripped of its soul.

My little sister insisted on fasting with us, but she missed the sweets the most — especially qatayef, the dessert that made Ramadan magical for her. We missed inviting my grandmother and aunts to share meals. Ramadan is meant to be a month of gathering and laughter. Instead, we were isolated and terrified. Every detail that once made the month special seemed stolen from us.

Market filled with light

This year is different — even if only slightly. After the ceasefire, we are still grieving. The loved ones we lost will not return. The homes that were destroyed are no longer homes. The pain remains. But this Ramadan, we chose to celebrate.

A few days ago, my family and I went to the market to prepare. In Nuseirat, there is a large shopping centre called Al Hyper Mall. I did not expect what I felt when we arrived: excitement.

At the entrance stood a massive glowing lantern, shining brightly as children gathered around it to take photos. Inside, the shelves were full again — meats, fruits, vegetables, dairy products — items we had been deprived of for so long. There were dried fruits, Qamar al-Din, and dates essential for Ramadan. Pickles, sambosk, and qatayef were back in abundance.

The mall was decorated with “Ramadan Kareem” signs, crescent moons, stars, and lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Even the traditional Ramadan drummer — the musaharati who wakes people for suhoor — was displayed. Walking through those aisles felt like stepping briefly into the life we had before the war. I was surprised, and overwhelmingly happy.

Children decorating

The next day, I heard laughter outside — children shouting with joy. When I looked out, I saw our neighbourhood children decorating the street. They had cut colourful plastic bags and tied them to ropes, stretching them from one side of the road to the other. Their decorations were simple, but their excitement was immense.

Nearly every house, even damaged ones, hung lights, lanterns, or crescent moons. We have lost so much — people, homes, safety, stability. But we are desperate for joy. We want any reason to feel alive again, any reason to celebrate this sacred month.

Inside our home, we decorated too. We hung lights. We replaced sofa covers and tablecloths with ones printed with Ramadan phrases, crescents, and lanterns. We bought new plates with Ramadan designs. These small details help us reclaim what we missed.

Perhaps the most beautiful return of all is the adhan. The call to prayer now fills the air again. My father can attend taraweeh prayers and stay late for tahajjud. People walk the streets at night. Roads remain busy until ten in the evening. For so long, simply being outside without fear felt impossible.

Not every area is safe. Some neighbourhoods remain dangerous. The pain has not disappeared. But in many places, mosques are open again. The adhan is loud again. We can walk to taraweeh with a fragile but precious sense of safety.

After two Ramadans of darkness, famine, and fear, this one carries something new: determination.

We are still grieving. We are still rebuilding. But we are choosing joy wherever we can find it. Ramadan was taken from us twice.

This year, we refuse to let it be taken again.

***

Esraa Abo Qamar is a Palestinian writer and English Literature student based in Gaza.