Nadera Raied Mushtha is a poet and writer who was born and raised in the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. Her family is originally from Gaza. In the fall of 2023, she started her third year in the English Language Education Department at Islamic University where she was a student of Dr. Refaat Alareer. Since most schools in Gaza have been destroyed during the current war, she has been organizing English classes for children in her neighborhood.
Current as of July 2024
Before, Ramadan was lovely in all its details. Now, it is layered in sadness.
Yesterday, I was young / my little sister, also young.
Enemies / eating the fruit of our trees / wearing our clothes.
Nearly a month after our return, I still haven’t gone to see the ruins of our house in Al-Shuja’iyya. I cannot bear it.
He and she spoke by phone / the night before their wedding / certain their heartbeats/ could end the war/ the endless bombardment, the screams.
Now they have decided to occupy all of Gaza. And the world does what? The world is still silent.
Falafel, za’atar and zaytoon / sat in dishes on tables above the golden sand.
‘Inside me, it felt like someone had shut off all the light,’ Abeer told me. ‘That was when I met Fidaa Hijazi.’
When the war ends / I will paint the city’s walls / With all the colors we forgot.
The war has taken away the audio rhythm of our lives.
Instead we have a month of absence, of remembering voices that will never speak again and faces that will never smile again.
Returning after the ceasefire was like returning to the place of the ghosts.
