My brother sitting above the rubble of our home. Photo: Raied Mushtha

Since the day I was born, I have grown up in the embrace of Gaza City. I visited it from end to end along the beautiful seashore, from my grandfather’s old house in the far east to our land in the far west.

I used to believe that when I grew older, I would continue visiting my grandfather’s house with my children, telling them our stories and showing them where my cousins and I used to play between the alleys and among the olive trees.

I thought my children would play the way we once did together, but sadly, nothing remains of my grandfather’s home and garden except the memories. The neighborhood was so beautiful, nestled among olive and orange trees. The people living there were of all ages. My grandfather was the respected elder among them. But he passed away during the war after the shock of learning about his bulldozed land. 

And then there was our house, my father’s warm home, where I always imagined my parent’s grandchildren playing, scribbling on the walls. This was the house where my mother stored the blanket she had wrapped me when I was born, saving it for my children; where I also kept my tiny clothes in a drawer beside my bed. I also kept my notebooks there, the ones I wrote my stories and poems in, along with notes from school friends, even my old exams, saved as keepsakes.

As for my little bookshelf, filled with books I bought with my school and university allowance, I always imagined it growing and growing until it became a large library like the ones I saw in movies and pictures. Now, my bookshelf lies beneath the rubble. Our home is gone. It was bombed a few days before the start of the third ceasefire.

My sister, who studied for her high school exams during the war, had dreamed of waiting for her results at home, just as I did four years ago. She had hoped our relatives and friends would gather to celebrate. Who could have imagined she studied at home for months, then moved to our relatives’ for six months, then sat for her exams in the south, and had her results announced after we returned to the north to an apartment that we rented? No one could’ve foreseen that.

Shock and chills

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. How am I supposed to look at the house where I built my dreams, where we lived since childhood … and see nothing but rubble? Only my father, my brother, and my youngest sisters, Mayiam and Marah, went to see what was left of our home.  When they came back, Marah was carrying some of her toys that she had found amid the destruction.

Even my school, the place where I hoped my friends and I would take pictures after we graduated from university, was destroyed. My university, from which I’m about to graduate, was also flattened. Nothing is left but huge piles of rubble.

When my family and I returned to the north after more than a month of displacement, I was struck with shock and chills as we drove along the coastal road. All the buildings and towers in Al-Zahra, Al-Mughraqa, and other areas were gone. It was an open land, like a barren desert. Even someone passing through Salah Al-Din Street, which is on the eastern side, could clearly see the sea. We used to see the sea only when we were on the shore or from a tall building; now you can see it just by standing on Salah Al-Din Street, just as our great-great-grandparents once did.

As for getting lost in the city, now everyone wanders in confusion, even the long-time residents walking through the neighborhoods they’ve lived in for decades. Once, I was walking along a road I didn’t recognize; everything around me was rubble stretching out as far as the eye could see. When I asked where we were, I was stunned. This was a street I had walked down countless times on my way to the market.

The war has distorted the city’s features. We no longer recognize it even though we never left it. It is a small city, and commuting used to be easy and quick. Crossing from the east to the far west used to take less than half an hour. When we went to the beach, we’d arrive quickly, with no obstacles except the usual traffic in Gaza’s main streets. But now, after the war, most people aren’t interested in going to the sea at all.

For example, after a normal day at the beach, I used to return home with my family tired from walking on the sand and swimming in the waves. We would bathe, then collapse onto our warm beds and fall into a deep sleep. Now, I don’t want to go there. Going to the sea is tied to going back home afterward. I’m afraid to go and have the truth hit me brutally: Where will you return to? The house is gone.

If only our house had not died

The sea once brought families and friends together; now most people avoid going, because the people they once gathered with are no longer there.

And as for the roads, anyone trying to walk west towards the sea may need half a day just to navigate the hills of rubble, trying to figure out where they’re going, reflecting on what has happened to the city, and traveling back in memory to the beloved years that have passed. And then they must hope to find transportation, if any exists.

And as I wrote elsewhere: “A house has wings; a house can fly.” Now I say: If only every house here truly had wings — if only the city had flown away and returned after the war, everything would still be as it was. No one would have died. If only our house had not died. If only the city, our greater home, had not died.

I long for every image my eyes capture in the city. I want it all back. I cannot bear the sight of rubble and destruction everywhere I look. We are exhausted, exhausted beyond exhaustion, until even exhaustion grows tired with us. My heart roars with chaos, just like the city.

Our war is not over. Now we face an even harsher one, the moment of realizing everything we endured over the past two years. We are only now beginning to feel the weight of losing the loved ones the war stole from us. We have discovered the immense space they filled and left behind. Our hearts and minds have awakened to the hell that may have ended. We find ourselves asking: How insane. How did we endure all of this? Where were we? How did we stay alive?

And now, we yearn for flowers and colors, not ashes. Because we deserve life.