ESSAY
My daughter asks me if the war has started again. I tell him it never stopped. Our lives, our dreams and our hopes do not matter to the world.
Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip — After a temporary one-week truce, Israeli airstrikes have unfortunately resumed.
The last seven days of relative calm have ended and the familiar sounds of bombings, explosions, planes, artillery, naval boats and live ammunition have returned.
These were our daily experiences for seven weeks before the truce, and we had become adept at distinguishing them, including the distinctive sounds of rockets from Gaza and Israeli bombardments.
This morning, at exactly 7 a.m., the violent noises began again from the land, air and sea, evoking new memories of sadness on the faces of my family.
My brother, opening the window to see what was happening, said: “The bombings are coming from everywhere. »
The hardest question came from my eight-year-old daughter, Banias, who asked if it was still war. My husband explained to me that the last few “calm” days were only a temporary truce and that the war was not over.
Banias found it difficult to understand this strange cycle of war, pause, then war again.
Reflecting on Banias’s confusion, I wondered how a young mind grappled with the illogical nature of war: pauses followed by restarts.
Fifty-six days of conflict were apparently not enough to secure a ceasefire.
Yesterday, displaced people living in tents in dire conditions near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central Gaza Strip expressed their distress, fear and despair, not wishing for a temporary truce but a lasting ceasefire to be able to return to their homes, even if they were damaged.
Their fear – that a renewed outbreak of war means Israel is preparing to bomb the south. Early in the day, their expectations were realized when Israeli troops dropped leaflets asking residents of eastern Khan Younis to move to Rafah, on the southern edge of Gaza.
As airstrikes persist from north to south, I reflect on the multitude of wars facing the people of Gaza: displacement, destruction, humiliation, tent life, thirst, hunger and the anguish of temporary pauses followed by renewed bombardments.
What should the people of Gaza do to make the world sympathize with them? How can the world allow genocide to continue? How will we return to the bloodshed and worry about the loss of our loved ones? How, how and how?
I know these questions will remain unanswered. The last 56 days have taught me, as they have shown all residents of Gaza, that our fears, our lives, our suffering, our hopes and dreams are not included in the calculations of this world.