The window ledge of my grandfather’s house, our first shelter, was covered in dust and rubble after the house across the street was bombed. I wrote the message on it. Photo: Samah Zaqout

They’ve stopped. For now. No bombs for 10 minutes. Fifteen maybe? My ears are still ringing, my heart is still beating fast and my mind is dizzied with questions—Is it over, or is this just the pause before the next strike? Did it hit someone I know? Should I move now or wait? How many more nights like this can we survive? And on and on.

I’ve lived in Gaza all my life. I’ve heard more explosions than Palestinian songs. But no matter how many times it happens, nothing prepares you for the pause that follows. It’s not a peaceful silence. It’s not a relief. It’s a question: Is it over? Or is the next one on the way? You wait. You count. You try to guess how close it was. You try to guess what—or who—is now gone.

In Gaza, even children learn how to pretend to be okay. They are scared but they can recognize what this silence means. It means a mix of visible and invisible things: dust, smoke, prayers, the hiss of gas leaking, the distant hum of a drone still circling above, and the ache of waiting for news that might shatter you.

Shattered and exhausted children in northern Gaza cling to fragments of childhood, pretending to be okay. Photo: Samah Zaqout

We sit like shadows. No one dares to cry. Not yet.

Then boom! It is two streets over.

Ambulances are racing, dust is everywhere. Then the news breaks—a man along with his family has been killed!

A silence heavy as grief

The worst, heaviest silence I’ve ever known was the one that settled over us that final night in mid-November 2023, in my uncle’s home in the Beit Lahia compound. Seven hours of nonstop airstrikes, bombings, missiles crashing, debris raining from every direction. The neighbors screamed through the walls, “You’re still alive?” It was a night that felt like death. We truly believed it was the end.

But then, just after 6 a.m., a silence prevailed. A silence heavy as grief. A silence that carried a thousand shells.

Should we move now?
Could we make it out?
Could we all come out of this unharmed?
Could we even make it to Jabalia camp alive?

I sat in the middle of the living room, the space we all thought was safest. I was gazing at the sky—waiting for the sun to rise, for light to break the night. I was whispering prayers in the silence, praying for dawn to come. I stared not through a window but through a giant hole a shell had blown through the wall.

We got out. Later, the news confirmed the whole Beit Lahia compound had been targeted. So many were killed. So many were injured. That’s the thing about the silence—it hides what’s already been taken. We, somehow, were spared.

And then came another silence—when we made it to my aunt’s in Jabalia. A silence laced with exhaustion, unbearable fatigue, and a thick weariness. We sat in it, saying nothing. Maybe in shock. Maybe unable to process it all. Or maybe wondering: Will we survive another night like that?

When the silence ends, it’s not with peace. It’s with another scream. And we go back to waiting for silence again until a new strike breaks it and then leaves you again spinning endlessly in this vicious circle.

My 11-year-old sister, Alaa, keeps asking my mother, “Did they finish?” My mother’s answer was always, “They are already finished.” It seems that my little sister no longer knows what silence in Gaza means.

One day, my father went to buy falafel from a place just down the street. Soon after he left, a powerful airstrike hit the area. I kept calling him, frantic, trying to reach him, but he wouldn’t answer. Each time I called, it went straight to voicemail, and I kept calling over and over, unable to stop.

Finally, he answered, saying, “Yes, my dear.” I asked him where he was and why he hadn’t answered. He said, “I’m on my way back. I got falafel for you all.” I burst into tears, overwhelmed with relief, and asked him, “Why didn’t you reply? I thought the strike was close to you.”

The same thing happened to my brother when he went to the market. A nearby bombing hit, and we were all at home, terrified, hoping he wasn’t too close to it. We kept thinking of our fears until he returned.

When fear seeps in

And that same week, the thunderous boom shook Asma’a, a school-turned-shelter. My cousin, along with her six children, had sought refuge there. The rocket struck the roof above them, tearing through the classroom and crashing down, hitting the targeted class below.

“My eyes just opened,” my cousin said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t hear the blast—I only saw my two daughters, bloodied and broken. You should’ve heard it. It should’ve been louder. Your fear seemed louder than ours.”

The news came soon—Asma’a had been targeted. So many we know, relatives and friends, were sheltering there, or just a street away, caught in the same trembling neighborhood. The fear that gripped us in that moment felt more suffocating, more insidious, than the blast itself. When silence takes over, fear seeps in, colder and more paralyzing than any bomb.

This is the reality for every Gazan. People prefer to stay in their homes and shelters together because if someone has gone out when a bomb strikes, the waiting and worrying will suffocate you until the person outside comes back. Because when a strike hits, so many civilians are lost simply because they were near the blast.

People outside Gaza ask me what it’s like during the war. They imagine fire, chaos, and screaming. That’s true, sometimes. But also it is about waiting. Waiting in kitchens. In shelters. In cars that won’t start. In tents. In schools turned into refugee centers. In your own home, which no longer feels like home. It’s waiting while the silence grows longer.

I’ve learned to live in that silence. I’ve written poems inside it, whispered names into it. I’ve even begged it to stay longer because, as terrifying as it is, it’s still better than the sound that comes after.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to hear silence that isn’t made of fear. Just quiet—real quiet. The kind where you can hear the sea. Or the laugh of a neighbor through an open window. The clink of tea glasses. A lullaby.

That’s my dream now. Just a silence that doesn’t hurt.