
Wednesday 24 April 2024
Today the temperature was nearly 36 degrees Celsius. Coming home from shopping, I told my family we were going to the beach. They were a bit surprised because the beach is known to be a dangerous place, the Israeli warships often shell it. I knew we wouldn’t be alone in view of the temperature. Many people go to the beach because under the tents, the heat is unbearable.
When we got there, we might have thought it was an ordinary summer day in Gaza: there were lots of people on the beach, just like before the war, children were building sandcastles or making kites in the colours of the Palestinian flag. The only difference was that to see the sea we had to climb down from the corniche, covered with the tents of displaced persons.
We forgot everything
Many women were there to do their laundry because there is no running water. It’s true that sea-water doesn’t wash very well on account of the salt, but they have no choice. There were hawkers selling little cakes for children, others baking hot bread in clay ovens they had brought with them. And they had wood to fire them. Some sold second-hand worn-out clothes for women or children.
The women went bathing in their prayer outfit because it’s all they have left. It’s a kind of veil that covers the whole body. Many no longer have any shoes. Here there are no flip-flops or slippers or else they are damaged, torn. We also saw people with odd shoes. But on the, beach we forget all that. For the first time, Walid was really happy. He used to be afraid of the waves. But now he went bathing with his little friends. We built sandcastles. This was the first time he really became aware of the beach, of the sea, the castles.
It’s lucky that Gaza is by the sea. It’s true we live in an open-air prison. But even when conditions are at their worst, there is this little window. I watched the people happily bathing, the smiles on children’s faces. We forgot everything, the poverty, the humiliation, the tents, the bombardments, the massacres.... And seeing people having fun as if nothing was wrong made me all the happier as I know that doesn’t please Benyamin Netanyahu or the Israelis in general.
Mahmoud will celebrate his wedding on the ruins of his house
Netanyahu told the German Foreign Minister that there was no misery in Gaza since people enjoyed themselves at the beach. The Israelis want the population of Gaza to stay in their misery and suffer the bombs. They can’t understand that in spite of all these years of occupation since 1948, in spite of the blockade, in spite of the military incursions and the bombs, we are a people who love life and who still want to live even if death is the price to pay. They believe we are a people seeking death, but on the contrary we are a people seeking life.
We took a risk going to the beach because we love life. We kept on holding weddings under the makeshift tents because we love life. My wife Sabah’s brother, Mahmoud, was to be married on 3 November. The wedding was postponed. Now, after the death of his dad, he has decided to get married in honour of his father who wanted to see that day. His wedding will be held on the ruins of his house.
We risk our lives because we love life. We go to get bags of flour knowing we run the risk of being bombed. We go to the beach because we love life, even knowing full well that the Israeli warships might shell us, as has happened several times. We want to stay in Gaza, we don’t want to leave this place because we love life.
Mahmoud Darwish put it very well:
We love life if we can find a way to it
Here where we live, we sow luxuriant plants
And reap the slain
We play on the flute the colour of the far, the distant far, and in the dusty passage we draw the neighing of a horse
We write our names in stone. O lightning, illuminate the night for us, illuminate a little
We love life if we can find a way to it
We could see the Israeli ships quite clearly a few nautical miles off the beach at Rafah. We could hear the F-16s dropping their bombs, especially on Nusseirat and Deir el-Balah. But this moment by the sea made us forget those sounds of thunder and death.
The donkey “more faithful than humans”
I wanted to talk about that because everybody thinks Gaza is nothing but death and destruction. In spite of all those years of blockade, we keep on living, we hold parties, we hold weddings, we go to the beach, we have barbecues and parties.
We all come back from the beach on foot or in carts drawn by a horse or a donkey, the kind of conveyance the poorest Gazans use. Sometimes the cart is pulled by a car. There’s also a bus, crowded with people, practically on top of one another. We were lucky enough to find a cart drawn by a donkey. That reminded of the day we left Gaza City: It was the first time Walid and my wife had ridden on a cart, with the humiliation of being driven from one’s home.
But today, on this cart, we were happy. We just spent a lovely time at the beach, reminding us of the happy years when we had fun every day, when we could party without the fear of death, without being afraid of the bombings. The man who drove the cart said we are a people who are not afraid of death and even if everybody is talking about an imminent Israeli invasion into Rafah, people went on living. And he added: “Either we have lost the meaning of fear or we are running away from fear to find a moment of joy.” And it’s true: we run from fear to find joy, to forget everything that’s happening around us. We are a people that has always known how to adapt ourselves to the worst. This isn’t necessarily a good thing, it’s true. Getting used to the worst means not revolting, accepting whatever is done to you.
I asked our driver: “What about you, are you ready if they come into Rafah?” He answered : “I’m a displaced person from the north of the Gaza Strip. My wife and I arrived here in this cart. We were the first to be affected in Beit Hanoun [near the border with Israel]. We were displaced several times, first to Deir al-Balah, then to Khan Younis and we ended up here in Rafah. This time it’s the same story. We’ll settle wherever they tell us to. In Mawassi, by the sea? In Nusseirat, in the centre of the Gaza strip? I don’t know if we’re going to stay alive - at best - or if we’re going to die. We have already faced death several times.”
When he spoke about his donkey, he said :
“He’s more faithful than humans. He transported the wounded and the dead when he could have been killed, especially at the beginning of the offensive, when we were being targeted deliberately. There were no ambulances, no paramedics.”
I liked his irony, the way he talked about that animal, more faithful than humans, that really, really touched me. Despite the violence of the war that donkey had not bolted, on the contrary, he was there when he was needed, like a true friend, to help people. Those words remained etched in my brain: we’ve been abandoned by the whole world who watch us being massacred, and yet that animal has not abandoned us.
Translated by Noël Burch.