In Gaza’s famine, a forgotten tree planted by Logain’s grandfather in 1998 has become her family’s sweetest link to the past. Photo: Logain Hamdan

Behind the old house between Al-Zawaideh and Deir Al-Balah—my grandfather’s house—stands a forgotten fig tree. It leans unobtrusively against the southern wall, almost hidden (behind an unused water tank and an overgrown patch of weeds). For years, it was nothing but a relic from another time, something planted when life felt slower and sweeter. 

But in the war-torn summer of 2025, it became something else, something sacred; it was our only sweetness in a famine and a world made entirely of dust. When the war came crashing down on Gaza once more, we returned—displaced, disoriented, desperate—to that old house.

My grandfather Abu Ali Hamdan, who planted the tree in 1998, was a peasant before the 1948 Nakba. He had a deep love for watching things grow. Grandpa planted two fig trees—one behind the house, and one beside it. For a decade, he cared for them like family. He watered them, trimmed them and talked to them. 

He made sure to treat them with insecticide so they could produce fruit and not be harmed by small insects that live on trees. First, he would do a simple spray for bumps: cypermethrin pesticide, applied once after mid-May. Then he followed with Rogor (Dimethoate) pesticide, spraying at the end of each week in June, because by July the figs would begin to ripen and the fruit would appear. 

And when they finally bore fruit, he would pick the ripe figs every weekend, carefully counting and dividing them among his sons and daughters. Even when my aunts visited, he’d save their share from the day before, wrapping them gently so they wouldn’t spoil. It was his ritual, his vibe.

Then, in 2005, he died of cardiovascular disease at the age of 80. No one took over the care of the trees. One tree was cut down; they claimed that its roots were too close to the house foundations, a threat to the concrete we’d come to value more than the soil. The other was left to survive on its own, slowly swallowed by neglect. We bought our fruit from the market. No one had time to water the tree. No one thought we’d ever need it again.

My older sister, Saga, remembers sitting beneath the fig tree as a child, the afternoon sun filtering through its broad leaves. Grandpa would sit beside her and tell her stories about his childhood—how he grew up as a peasant, working the land to plant grapes and citrus, and living close to the earth. He told her about the simple life he knew in his youth and young manhood, and she had loved listening to him. 

He’d pluck a ripe fig from the tree, break it open, and offer it to her. “Those figs,” he said softly, “were the sweetest part of those days.” Those moments felt timeless for Saga, as though the tree itself was a keeper of peace and memory.

The sweet fruit from the tree. Photo: Logain Hamdan

But 20 years later, the home we visited only during Eid became our permanent shelter after Oct. 7, 2023. Bombs erased neighborhoods. The city where I grew up no longer existed. So we gathered under one roof, three generations of survivors packed into one house. And outside, in the chaos of famine and grief, stood the last fig tree. Waiting.

By then, the markets had nothing left to offer. Figs, if you could find them, cost 160 shekels per kilo ($47) for a small bag of half-rotten fruit, often riddled with insects. We had no sugar, fruit, or meat. We ate food animals wouldn’t touch. The war stripped us of food and dignity. Every stomach in that house forgot sweetness.

Then, one day in the early summer, my younger brother Mohammed ran in, eyes wide.

“There’s a fig on the tree! A ripe one!”

He dragged us out to see it—yellow-golden, plump, the size of half his palm. 

My other brother Omar said, “Wait! It’s not fully ripe. Let’s leave it a bit longer.”

Mohammed fired back, “What if we’re not alive tomorrow? I’m eating it today.”

After that, Mohammed and Omar felt inspired. They decided to bring some insecticide to treat the tree, determined to care for it just like Grandpa did. They hoped that by protecting it from pests, the tree would reward them with even more fruit in the days to come.

Watering the tree became more than a chore; it was therapy. In those moments, hands that once trembled with fear found steadiness, voices once silenced began to share laughter and stories again. The tree’s slow, stubborn growth mirrored our own, each fig a small victory over despair. It reminded us that while war could steal so much, it could not take away our will to nurture and love.

That became our new ritual: waiting, watching, arguing… over figs. The tree bore only a few at a time, each more precious than gold. One by one the boys, one from each son of my grandfather—Adam, Aboud, Yousuf, and Omar—would take turns climbing that tree with a cane, just like Grandpa had done. Each branch now leaned toward a different window of our building, as if offering its gift to each family. Every week, a small harvest. Just enough for a bite. A moment of sweetness, a reminder.

I started telling the kids, “Like Grandpa used to do—once a week, you climb and each family gets a plate. No fighting.” And so we formed a new tradition. We watered the tree. Treated it. Protected it. It became our only investment, our only hope that something could still grow in this dead place.

It wasn’t enough, of course. One or two figs couldn’t fill an empty stomach. But the idea of them? That did something. That helped. Even the smell of a fresh fig in our hands was a kind of privilege. A flash of memory. A taste of something we thought we had lost forever.

That fig tree became more than just a tree. It became our one-and-only chance. Our small miracle. The link between a man who once planted a fruit tree and the family he unknowingly saved two decades later.

I talk to my Grandpa in my head. I ask him, when you planted it that day, were you really just killing time? Did you ever imagine that one day, your tree would be the only thing standing between your grandchildren and despair?

When a neighbor visits, we give him or her a fig if we can find one ready. We say, “This is from my grandfather, from the tree he left behind.” The guest bites into it, and for a moment, we’re not starving. We’re not broken. We’re simply a family, tasting the past in the middle of an unlivable present.

Now, every time a fig ripens, we say your name, Grandpa. We think of your hands in the soil. We think of the sweetness you gave us. And we pray that one day, we’ll plant something, too—something that will outlive us and bloom exactly when someone else needs it most.

Someday, when peace returns, I want to plant many more trees, ones that will bear witness to our survival and remind generations to come that even after the darkest times, life can flourish again.

This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.