For those who still care, it may be the last letter I write from Gaza City.
We expect Israel officially to make its “evacuation orders” at any time. My beloved city, Gaza, stands on the verge of a complete military occupation by the Israeli army. Their plan is to force us all to leave our homes and to move in tents in the southern part of the band. We do not know what will happen to those who resist. We may be living our last days in Gaza City.
Since the start of the war, we have heard that Israel wanted to occupy our city and take it as a colonization area for its people. At the beginning, we do not believe it; We thought that this kind of news was psychological war. After all, we have already had “evacuation orders” and people were able to return, even if it was to the ruins of their houses.
On October 13, shortly after the genocide start, the Israeli army told everyone in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to move south. The orders were accompanied by an implacable bombardment. Hundreds sometimes died in one day. Hundreds of thousands of people fled south for their lives.
We didn’t do it. My father refused to leave our house, so we all stayed. We have lived with us for months in unbearable pain and fear. We witnessed the destruction of our neighborhood with our eyes.
The Israeli army then cut the north of the south. Help could not reach the north. From January to April 2024, my family and I lived the most suffocating days of the war. We were hungry; We spent our days looking for anything to facilitate our hunger. Sometimes we were forced to eat animal food.
In January of this year, when a cease-fire entered into force, people were allowed to return to the North. It was an emotional moment that reflected how much Palestinians are attached to our land.
This time, the atmosphere is different. He believes that the threat of permanent occupation, of permanent loss, is very real.
“In preparation for the transfer of civilians from the war zone to the south … a large number of shelter tents and equipment will be allowed to enter (Gaza)”, the Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee, published on Facebook.
The people of Gaza read this news with a heavy heart. There are a lot of questions and few answers: where are we going to flee? When will it start? Will anyone intervene and will stop this disaster?
People are overwhelmed – emotionally, mentally, physically, financially; They cannot bear more suffering.
Since my family and I have heard this announcement, we looked at each other with confused and frightening eyes.
When I saw images on the social networks of tents and tarpaulins entering Gaza City, my heart broke in a million pieces. The idea that my future was stuffed in a tent terrified me. My dreams are great; How can I integrate them into a small tent?
I told my father that I didn’t want to live in a tent. Tears sank on my cheeks. He looked at me with helplessness in his eyes and said, “We have no other choice, the tent becomes our new reality.”
We don’t want to leave, but we think we have no choice. We don’t think we can bear the relentless bombing and bombardments again. The Israelis will probably be even more brutal when they invade this time. It will not be a punishment this time; It will be a total erasure.
Feeling that the end of their city is coming, people spend what they fear that it is their last days with their families, having their single meal for the day, together. They walk in their neighborhoods, taking photos of themselves with the places related to their childhood memories, capturing everything that could be erased.
I write these words, sitting in a shared workspace where many students and writers try to fight the fear of what will come by studying and working. They cling to their work routines, hoping for a certain normality in the middle of terrifying chaos.
People in Gaza love life, even when life means surviving the bare minimum. Even in the darkest moments, we always find a way to have hope, joy and happiness.
I want to have hope, but I am also terrified – not only bombs, forced displacement, tents and exiles. I am terrified to be cut off from the world, to be silenced.
I have the impression that what Israel is preparing us in the south is a concentration camp where we will be cut off from the world, our muffled voices, our erased existence.
I do not know how long my words will reach the outside world, so I want to take advantage of this opportunity to make a call.
Do not forget, Sara Awad, a Palestinian student, whose biggest dream is to finish her diploma in English literature and to become a professional journalist.
Do not forget the inhabitants of Gaza and their 2 million stories of love, sorrow and perseverance.
Do not forget my city, Gaza – an ancient metropolis, full of history and culture, full of love.
Do not forget how much we resisted and held on our homes and our land, even when the world has almost abandoned us.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.