I’m currently walking on Broadway Street in New York City, heading back to my dorm around Union Square Park. I wish I was walking through the streets in wich my father grew up in Gaza City. I hear the sounds of cars and buses driving by, but what really rings in my ears are the sounds of gunshots I’ve heard in Facebook videos of snipers injuring thousands of protesters during the Great March of Return, a protest that began March 30 along its border with Israel and is continuing—at least for now—every Friday.

Every day, I read an article in the news about the march, wondering if I will see the name “Abukwaik,” wondering if one of my family members is the next to be killed. I wish I was with you, instead of reading articles and watching videos. It wasn’t until I was 19 years old that I began to learn details of my father’s childhood in Gaza, like the name of his best friend (Suhail) and a girl who is my cousin (Bodour). My dad told me how to find Bodour’s Instagram account, so I could contact her, but I haven’t received a reply. Bodour, if you are reading this, is that because you have no WiFi right now? (I’ve heard you only get about four hours of electricity per day.) Maybe you don’t want to accept the follow request of a family member you’ve never known, someone who’s never reached out before, someone who’s never visited you, someone who’s never asked, “Hey, are you alive?” I don’t know if I should blame myself for never asking before or if I should blame my dad for never telling me about my relatives in Gaza until so late in my life. Either way, I’m sorry.

I’m writing to this for my family and anyone who’s willing to read my words because I want to express my love for Palestine and the Palestinian people. In addition, I want to share a portion of the Palestinian story from the perspective of a Palestinian in the diaspora, in the hope that people will better understand why we have never stopped fighting for our homeland.

My dad recently showed me photos of his family taken before he left Gaza at the age of 18. He didn’t want to go, but his father told him believed going abroad would improve his chances for a better future, so he came to the United States on a student visa. I’ve also gotten to know my Uncle Yousef, who is a journalist and has been covering the Great Return March in Gaza, from his Facebook account. Seeing his photos reminded me of Yasser Murtaja, a video journalist shot and killed during the protests by Israeli snipers. (He was wearing a “press” vest and taking photos yet was shot regardless.)

Originally, my father’s family lived in the village of Lyd; they were forced out in 1948 by Yitzhak Rabin, then a general in the Israeli army. There are no Abukwaiks left in Lyd now.  I asked my father for pictures of Lyd during the days when our relatives lived there, but he said it would be tough to find them. I’m still waiting for him to find some. All of the pictures I find online of Lyd are of its current state, occupied by Jewish replacements, not the indigenous people.

After the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe,” my relatives became refugees and moved to Gaza and the West Bank. My father and his siblings grew up in Gaza City.

Gaza is called an “open-air prison” because its borders are controlled by Israel and Egypt, which means mostly closed. No one can get in or out without a permit. I cannot visit my newfound relatives. My father cannot return to where he was raised.

Gaza may be a “prison,” but there was a Palestine before the Nakba. There was a time when movement was free. Agriculture was flourishing. We had employees working in our farm and harvesting plants.

The Zionist narrative tells the world, especially Americans, that when Jewish settlers moved to Palestine, there was no one there (or certainly no one “civilized”). That is false. We know the truth; we remember the rows of olive trees before they were uprooted or burned to ash; our ancestors passed on their memories and they live in us today. We remember fleeing our homes behind with our belongings on our backs to find a new place to live. 

Many Israelis may think they are winning because they have settled in the land and attained governmental power in Palestine, but we win every day through our steadfastness. My relatives have protested for six weeks. Six weeks! I watch my people on TV, some simply standing alongside others at the border, existing. Our resistance bothers the Israeli government, which is why its soldiers are ordered shoot at the media. This is why Israeli soldiers shoot tear gas cannisters at ambulances trying to save demonstrators, including children. Soldiers cheers when my people are shot. Israel would rather shoot every protester’s leg than to allow my people to rise against its military occupation. However, they continue to protest. They never stop taking to the streets in all different fashions, whether by chanting, dancing or just living.

Palestinians have eyes that see walls, but hearts that only know how to soar over them—not over the fence to leave their country but over it to take back the rest of Palestine. I wasn’t born in Palestine. I am not with my people now.

I am in a country governed by leaders who dismiss you or see you as the enemy. They have tried to train me to think the same. However, I know the United States funds your oppression. I know that there would be no Israel without the U.S. support—to the tune of $3.9 billion a year. My own tax dollars fund the government that ethnically cleanses my people!

I hope and pray I am still alive when I finally can join you. Then I will put a face on the hearts with which mine has been beating. I will finally embrace a part of me that has never been embraced in this country.

I will always view Palestine as home. I will never possess the sumud (steadfastness) you all must have to survive, but I am Palestinian nonetheless. I am destined to be “unselfconsciously enjoying the touch of the hard land under my feet, the smell of thyme and the hills and trees around me,” just like Palestinian poet, activist and novelist Raja Shehadeh wrote in 1992. Shehadeh goes to describe the olive tree he sees. I want to see the olive trees and smell their richness.

The olive tree is a symbol of Palestinian sumud. Some of you remain on the ancestral land. And some have been uprooted and must return. I will return to my homeland. I will return to my family.

Love and solidarity,

Mariam Abu Kwaik