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June 9th, 2021 
Awake Goy 
“I would never have children as long as I am in Gaza.”, those were my friend’s words years ago that keep haunting me every time I think about how bad the situation in the Gaza Strip is. Her words come to me when I realize that life here is all about surviving; waking up, eating, working and then going to sleep. In other words, keeping our heads above water. This is the scenario for the lucky ones, since there are thousands who don’t have the luxury of enjoying the beauty of a mundane day. Her words also occurred to me during the last aggression while bombs were falling over the heads of the children of Gaza, and now when we are dealing with the aftermath of it.
Speaking of children, another friend of mine that I have known since she was single told me that before she had her three daughters, she never felt afraid for her life. “What is the worst thing that could happen to me? Die? Well, it will be the end of another journey. But after I had my children, fear found its way to possess me. I am always terrified for the lives of my children. When they are bombing, I keep moving them from one area of the house to another, I cover them with my body, I pray for them to live and for me to keep protecting them.”
We have no children in my house, but we have a cat. She is the sassiest diva you can meet. This might sound silly to some of you (those who don’t have any pets), but our number one priority during the 11 days of aggression was keeping her safe. Every time she heard a bombing she would run under the bed and stay there for hours. She would give us confused looks asking us about what was happening. Powerless, we would hold her tight and tell her the everything is going to be ok.
Some children experienced this situation for the first time. Ahmad, the five-year-old son of a woman I know begged his mother to “call them and ask them to stop killing us….I am so scared.” I saw a picture on the news of a woman showing how her kids went to sleep that night, with their thumbs in their ears to stop the noise of explosions, and their tiny bodies under the blankets thinking they would save them.
Sadness, fear and surrender are all strong feelings that you sympathize with, and as a Gazan, I definitely empathize with as well. However, nothing shakes my soul and heart harder than hope in the darkest of times. My colleague shared with us that, three hours before the Eid al-Fitr started (the celebration marking the end of Ramadan – which started one day after aggression started) his daughter was wearing her Eid clothes and was ready to celebrate. Before the aggression, she said that despite COVID-19 she will celebrate, and after the bombings she said that despite the aggression she will celebrate. It hurts me to recognize the fact that we, the generation of 30- and 40-year-olds, might have experienced some happy times and occasions. But those children haven’t, and we are not sure if they will ever do.
Having lived through the Intifada, various escalations and four wars, I have realized that what doesn’t kill you does not make you stronger, it makes you more vulnerable. After I heard the first bombing, it all came back to me, years and years of post-traumatic stress disorder and a list of many lost dreams and hopes and goals. It all took me back to my friend’s words about not having children while in Gaza. She did leave, she left her prestigious job, her close friends and all her life behind her to start another one. Years have passed since she left. She recently had her second child, and according to her, she couldn’t be happier.
One terrifying thing I heard was that we, as Gazans, don’t qualify for being people with post-traumatic stress disorder, because simply we are living in a long-term ongoing trauma. For years and years, we have been experiencing unimaginable events without having the chance to grieve, without being able to pour out some of the sadness that fills our hearts, and without being able to have a decent life.
For 11 days, I managed to stay strong, as much as I could. For eleven days, I worked hard on maintaining a solid front. However, when the ceasefire was announced, or to be more accurate, when it started at 2:00 am, I collapsed. People were happy that they were safe, but I was sad…. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to go down to the streets, not to celebrate, but to mourn the loss of the children who died, of the dreams that were stolen, and of the many lost hopes.
It is weird that during the first couple of days of the aggression, over five hundred children were reportedly born. The monthly average of newborns in Gaza is over 3,000. For me, having children is a sign of hope, of a need to last and for memories to be passed over from a generation to another. Is that what is happening? Are people of Gaza full of hope that they keep having children?!
I sit down and think about what the future is holding. What is waiting for us? A full generation of people who did not have the chance of living a normal life, and for the coming generation of young, full of hope, girls and boys who are dreaming of a better one.
What is next?
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