By Taghreed Saadeh
Thousands of people in Gaza are dying, their faces disappearing beneath the cries of pain, hunger, thirst, and the loss of shelter and safety. Smiles have become a distant memory, and all meaning in life, as Gaza knows it, and as I know it, has vanished. Life itself feels like a body without a soul, a heavy routine with no place for rest, no opportunity to feel safe.
I do not live in Gaza, yet Gaza lives within me. I see it in every neighborhood, every street I walk, even at the sea where I share a long-standing friendship since childhood. Whenever I try to take a deep breath, I smell the scent of destruction and gunpowder, and I see the faces of death, bombs, and demolition. Images of bodies among the rubble, the shock on children’s faces who have lost everything, and the echoes of the living trapped under debris follow me everywhere I go. The pain of Gaza refuses to leave me.
I have withdrawn from everything, even my friends. Most blame me for my political positions; I’m no longer wish to talk to them or justify my stance and how Hamas dragged the Palestinian people in Gaza into a war far beyond their capacity, without providing them protection from the occupation, leaving civilians to face their fate alone. Every comment has become heavy on me. My heart is full of burdens I cannot bear. I live in a heavy silence, clinging solely to Gaza, where I find meaning in existence, even if it is painful.
Most of the time, I tremble while writing a news story about Gaza, tears flowing uncontrollably. I sit alone in my office, hiding from everyone, yet the sounds of explosions echo in my mind as if present with me, accompanying every word I write. I am powerless. Whenever I speak with a friend in Gaza to follow up on the situation, I involuntarily feel every detail, and the sound of gunfire, which I hear constantly in the background, surrounds me as well, inescapable. A feeling of helplessness coils around my heart, the inability to help, or even to express the problems I cannot bear.
The lives of the people there are filled with details that compound their burdens, death, the loss of loved ones, the destruction of homes and memories, and the shattering of hopes and dreams. All this suffering infiltrates me; I live it as though I am part of it, sinking between my own pain from helplessness and their pain, between the harsh reality and the awareness that I am powerless to change it.
Despite all this pain, I sleep by chance and wake up after two hours at most to follow Gaza’s news, as if it has become a habit I cannot abandon for nearly two years. It is as if I sleep on gravel in a displacement tent, hearing all the noise from the tents around me. Then sleep overcomes me again, allowing me an hour or more, just enough to continue my workday.
Gaza has become my entire life, everything I have left, and for its sake, I feel that I am still alive.
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