Listening to my students, I feel as though I am standing between their childhoods and the war, trying to help them build a bridge towards hope.

Before, Ramadan was lovely in all its details. Now, it is layered in sadness.

I live between the silence of the present and the noise of the recent past.

Behind every completed task is a story of a struggle, persistence, and pain.  

In Turkey and Belgium, it’s a day like any other. Not so in the Gaza of my memories.

With Gaza’s Enforcement Department no longer functioning, men can avoid paying support and even take sons and daughters from their mothers.

Even though the bombs stopped on paper, life in Gaza remains a struggle for the basics of survival.

Playing guitar for and with others became my therapy and my form of resistance.

My time spent teaching children in a tent added valuable information to my research on wartime schooling alternatives.

Medicines in Gaza are still in short supply and expensive, due to ongoing restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation on the entry of essential drugs.

During the war, the day of communal worship became just like any other day. No mosque, no lunch, no gathering, not even a sense of time.

In the rest of the world, marrying means beginning a happy and secure new chapter. For Gazans, every month is a continuation of grief and instability.