My friend Shahed, whom I have known for five years and with whom I have lived through three wars (one of which was when we were waiting for our final school exams), tells me that despite endless talk about efforts to end this nightmare, she cannot feel any sense of relief. Shahed’s words make me ponder over shattered hopes and suppressed tears, waiting for an end to this seemingly endless pain!

From the first moment the war was declared against the distressed Gaza Strip on Oct.  7, we have been waiting for the announcement of when this ongoing death would end. We knew there were challenging days ahead of us, but I never imagined we would reach a point where we would lose everything, even our emotions.

In every war Shahed and I have lived through, we always saw an end in sight and we assumed the roles of political analysts, evaluating events. But now, Shahed and I stand helpless before what’s happening, with no hope left, especially after the end of the first humanitarian ceasefire in late November.

A false hope

When the temporary ceasefire started, back in November 2023, there was a glimmer of hope. Shahed thought it would extend to a permanent ceasefire and we would be able to peacefully celebrate our birthdays, both in December, without a barrage of rockets. We hoped to close this painful chapter and enter a new year with renewed anticipation, trying to piece together the remnants of our shattered dreams.

But on the first morning of December this ceasefire ended. The Israeli army launched intense and brutal bombings near our home while my sisters and I were anxiously sitting in the living room having breakfast, hoping to hear news of the ceasefire extension.

The weather was cold. My sister Raghd was sitting by the window, putting a blanket over herself to keep warm. Suddenly, we heard an explosion and things began falling. My sisters and I screamed, and we gathered in a corner away from the window, which had shattered into pieces; if not for the blanket that covered Raghd, she would have been injured. We stood there, silent in fear, looking at each other, with our eyes saying, “The nightmare has returned, with no end to this pain.”

This crushed our dreams of peaceful birthday celebrations.

We missed all the happy occasions, or those that should have been happy, always saying, “It’s impossible to celebrate during a war.”

But we lived on hope, enduring this relentless assault with tired souls, thinking that maybe we could escape the extra misery that came with each day. Nevertheless, birthdays came, Eid came, Ramadan came, and New Year’s came, and we were deprived of all these occasions and denied the chance to prepare for them, as well as any anticipation of the atmosphere for each one.

Yet another false hope

A few days ago, we experienced a mix of hope and disappointment when news came of the Palestinian resistance movement’s approval of a ceasefire. It was a moment from a dream; the sky was beautiful, serene, and comforting, filled with the joyful voices of children, youth, and women echoing everywhere.

Every place was happy, making us feel like this nightmare was finally ending. The cycle of death would end, allowing us to rest.

But after a few hours, all our hopes were dashed. The sound of aircraft woke us from the dream we had been waiting for, and the news began reporting the “invasion of Rafah, beginning with the closure of the Crossing.”

Rafah! The city housed a million displaced people who fled the horrors of death and who were now living in harsh conditions. Now they would be forced to flee again, and the people of Rafah would embark on a journey of displacement.

The Rafah Crossing, which was the only relief valve in this deathly situation, was closed. No food, medicine, or fuel can enter, and the critically wounded, who are on the brink of death, are not allowed to leave to receive treatment.

Our souls are exhausted and drained, clinging to hope and then waking up to disappointment.

Lord, give us real hope!

Oh Lord, write an ending for this; Gaza is exhausted, death-worn, and wanting to weep for its torment.

We are a simple people who want nothing but to live safely in our homeland with our families and loved ones, without fearing that all lives and dreams could end tomorrow and that we would lose our right to joy, sorrow, tears, and complaints. We have lost our right to emotions to the extent that now we cannot even feel anything!

Will we spend our lives waiting for this nightmare to end, knowing that even if it does, its consequences will be excruciating? Will we wake up to pain, tears, and feelings we cannot live with? Will we ever return to a life of normal emotions without dread of loss of everything around us? Will we heal from this pain?

In every previous war, it would end and, although our hearts were broken, we would return to our places, to our universities, and to our beloved streets. Having that sense of normalcy was something that eased our agony and helped us recover.

But now, what will we return to? Where will we go? All the universities in Gaza have been destroyed, all our beloved places demolished, and all the streets swept away. There is no place for us to return to! There is no place that connects us to our previous lives, and Gaza is no longer there. Our beloved Gaza has been completely obliterated; all its streets are sad, emitting the smell of death, and our streets have become graves for the souls of people we loved!

I always used to say that a person cannot live without having a place to belong to, a sanctuary from the storms of life. And now all Gazans have been robbed of their own safe places, which have been turned into rubble! All that remains for us are the pictures; pictures alone remind us that once we had a life. What scares me the most is forgetting. The fear of the loss of memories haunts me.

I fear being unable to recall my life before Oct. 7. I shudder to think that my beautiful memories of my days and my life will vanish. Much has passed in my life since that day. I fear that memories of these times will take up space in our lives, making us adapt to pain, death, and sorrow and forget our lives, laughter, and dreams!

Will we ever find peace again? Will our wounds ever heal, allowing us to embrace life with open hearts?

A list of hopes for Gazans

And I, too, Shahed, cannot feel anything, but now I want this to stop. I want us to cry all the tears we’ve held back. I want this death to end.

I hope that all the Gazans
will live the life we choose,
eat the food we crave,
walk for hours in a place we feel at home,
wear the clothes we like, sleep when we want to sleep, not just in between the bombings,
open our windows when we want to rather than to avoid them shattering over us,
talk, cry, laugh, shout, dream, travel, fall in love, and fight whenever we want, according to our own needs,
I hope one day all Gazans will belong, as we long to love and care
I hope that one day our lives will not disappear in a blink of an eye!
We deserve life, we don’t have to teach life!
We can go through ups and downs, normal ups and downs, trying to find our path in life, trying to know ourselves more.
We long to live and love!
We deserve this.