From their homes in Paris, Palestinians Sarah, Saïd and Yasser* are anxiously following the dramatic situation in Gaza, where their relatives are caught up in the massive bombardment and dire humanitarian crisis triggered by the latest war between Israel and Hamas. They lament French bans on pro-Palestinian protests, which prevents them from rallying in public to support their loved ones and to call for an immediate ceasefire.
Like other Gazans, Sarah, Saïd and Yasser have become accustomed to worrying about their families in the Palestinian enclave, an impoverished and chronically overcrowded sliver of land that has endured multiple conflicts in recent years and has lived under an Israeli blockade since the militant group Hamas took control in 2007.
Their fears turned to anguish on October 7, when Hamas militants operating from the Gaza Strip slaughtered more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and abducted hundreds more during a murderous rampage in southern Israel – setting the stage for an Israeli riposte they knew would be unforgiving.
Israel’s “Operation Iron Swords” has since flattened large parts of Gaza, killing at least 3,785 people and injuring more than 12,500, health authorities in the Hamas-run territory said on Thursday. More than 1 million people, roughly half of Gaza’s population, have fled their homes in the northern part of the enclave after Israel told them to evacuate ahead of an expected ground offensive aimed at crushing Hamas.
The plight of Gaza’s civilians – caught up in the relentless bombardment, driven from their homes, and deprived of power, food and clean water – has sparked fury across the Arab world and triggered protests in many Western cities.
In France, however, hardline Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin instructed police on October 12 to ban pro-Palestinian rallies, arguing that they were “susceptible to disrupting public order”. Despite the ban, some 3,000 people gathered that day at Place de la République in central Paris to call for an end to the bombing and for the right of Gazans to live in dignity.
Among them were Saïd and Sarah, who quickly slipped away when police used teargas and water cannon to break up the rally, arresting 10 participants.
Several rights groups have condemned the French ban on protests, which Amnesty International branded “a serious and disproportionate attack on the right to demonstrate”. The issue made it all the way to France’s top administrative court, the Conseil d’État, which ruled on Wednesday that protest bans could not be imposed “systematically” and must be decided on a case-by-case basis.
The next day a Paris court lifted the ban on a rally that went ahead peacefully in central Paris.
Sarah, Saïd and Yasser spoke to FRANCE 24 about their fears for their loved ones, their refusal to be associated with Hamas and their frustration at being unable to rally in public to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
Sarah: ‘My heart aches when I see that people conflate Hamas and the Palestinians’
“Ordinary life stopped on October 7 and now I’m on permanent alert. I’m glued to the news because there are days when I cannot hear from my family in Gaza, since the internet is down. I go on Arab media sites that list the dead to see whether my family name comes up. On Saturday it did … it was my father’s uncle, whose entire family was wiped out by a bomb as they tried to flee south.
Part of my family fled to Rafah (at the southern end of the Strip near Egypt), because there are 70 of them in the family building in the Asqula neighbourhood. But not everyone can leave. My grandmother is disabled, she cannot walk through the ruins. I feel there is nowhere in Gaza where they can be safe, especially with the lack of water.
Whenever the neighbourhood is bombarded, my family tell me they can hear people screaming. My cousins go out and help pull the bodies from the rubble. A few days ago, some neighbours I’d known as a child were killed while trying to help others, because a second strike followed the first.
I’m a French national and I was born in France. I’ve worked as a legal counsellor for French institutions. Both my parents are also French. My father moved here with a scholarship when he was 17 and my mother joined him later. I was 10 years old when I last went to Gaza, in 2006. Just two weeks into our stay we were urgently repatriated, via Jerusalem and Jordan. Hamas had just taken power (in legislative elections) in the Gaza Strip and Israel was bombing the enclave. I haven’t returned since.
I know people who have nothing to do with Hamas whose homes have been bombed. I remember my uncles and cousins saying back in 2006 that nobody wanted Hamas. My heart aches when I see that people conflate Hamas and the Palestinians.
Since October 7, I’ve felt as if everything around me is suspended in time. The images coming from both sides of the conflict are horrific. I’m pregnant, and to see that children are being hurt makes it all the more difficult to bear. I’m even more distressed because it is so hard to express our support for the Palestinian cause when people associate us with Hamas.
Pro-Palestinian protests have been banned in France and yet I reject all anti-Semitic remarks. I wouldn't let anyone use that kind of language; I can't stand people attacking Jews. I paid close attention to this at two Paris rallies I attended last week. Fortunately, I didn't hear any anti-Semitic comments. But police still charged at demonstrators and I found that very disturbing.
Given the context, we are scared to express our support for Palestine. My husband, who is a foreigner, chose not to accompany me to the demonstration because he was afraid he would be ordered to leave the country. (Editor’s note: In his missive to police chiefs instructing them to ban all pro-Palestinian demonstrations, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin said that foreign perpetrators of anti-Semitic offences “must systematically have their residence permits withdrawn and be expelled without delay”).
I deplore the killing of Israelis and Palestinians with equal force, and I absolutely condemn the atrocities committed by Hamas. But why don’t we also condemn the Israeli government’s insane policy of vengeance? I feel we are not given the same consideration. All we want is to live in peace. The objective must be to achieve a ceasefire.”
Saïd: ‘I have to work, cook, and smile at people – knowing my parents have no access to water’
“I arrived in France just over five years ago with a scholarship to study at a university in Paris. Most of my Gazan friends here are either doctoral students or teachers. You need to excel as a student to obtain a scholarship and leave Gaza by legal means, as we did.
All my family lives there (in Gaza), my parents as well as my brothers and sisters. We live in the Al-Nasr neighbourhood, normally a quiet area in central Gaza City. Usually, when there are wars, we are the ones who give shelter to displaced relatives, like our aunts who live close to the border fence (with Israel). For three decades, we’d never left our home.
Yesterday I was able to speak to my mother on the phone. They left home a few days ago and are now in a training centre run by UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees) in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip. The centre is supposed to accommodate some 300 people but is currently home to 100 times more.
There is no drinking water, no running water and just 40 toilets for 30,000 people ... The sanitary situation is dire. Children, the elderly and entire families have taken refuge in classrooms. But that’s no longer enough: some are starting to sleep outside, around the centre, or in cars to escape the overcrowding.
With them at the UNRWA centre are several foreigners: Europeans and US nationals who work for NGOs and are trapped there. That’s why so many people went to the centre. When foreigners are present, you’re usually protected from the bombs.
When I speak to my parents the first thing I ask is whether the foreign nationals are still there. I’m afraid the centre will become an easy target once they are gone, exchanged for humanitarian aid from Egypt or Israel.
Both my parents have chronic illnesses, diabetes and heart problems. They take medication. I can’t imagine what they are going through. The lack of drinking water means they have to manage their water intake so that they can swallow their medication. I’m scared for them, my father is old and weak, and with all these bombings...
They also no longer have internet access and there are network problems too. It’s becoming very difficult to reach them. I have to try up to 12 times and then the line drops in the middle of the conversation. My parents are totally disconnected. They don’t know how many people have been killed, whether the Israelis are nearby or not, and what stage negotiations are at. They don't even know if their house has been destroyed.
When I spoke to my mother on the phone last Saturday, it was the day of the big demonstration in London. She asked me what the world was doing to support them. I told her about this big demonstration and I could hear her repeating it immediately to the other evacuees around her.
My sister, whose house was bombed, has also fled. She’s in Deir al-Balah, in the south of Gaza. Sometimes I get text messages from her saying, ‘We’re alive’. But with the network down, they could just as well be text messages sent the day before.
Here in Paris I feel like I’m leading a double life. I have to go to work, smile at people in the metro, do the shopping, cook and eat – all the while knowing that my parents have no water.
Last week we decided to go to the protest on Place de la République with my group of friends from Gaza, but it was dangerous. I was among the first to walk away, as soon as I saw a police officer. If I get stopped I risk a lot more than a fine, because I’m a foreigner. Darmanin’s statements on the matter are not entirely clear. In any case, they are vague enough to make me feel unsafe.
As my friends and I turned back, none of us felt like going home to stare once again at our television screens or computers, following the grisly news while feeling powerless. I came to France looking for freedom of expression. To see my family, my people in such dire straits, without being able to speak out in public and call for all this to end, is profoundly unfair.
I’m not pro-Hamas. I have never backed them and neither has my family. If I say ‘Free Palestine’ it doesn’t mean I want to kill Israelis. I refuse to be associated with Hamas, with Islamists, extremists, anti-Semites or Nazis.
I think the first time I heard people talk about anti-Semitism was in France. When my university organised a trip to the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris, my teacher came over to me saying she would understand if I chose not to come. I couldn’t understand why she would say that; it is not an issue for me. In my grandmother’s youth, my family’s village and Jewish villages lived side by side, there was no problem.
My partner is French and her family are very supportive. I also have a lot of French friends who would like to express their support but are also reluctant. They find it difficult to go beyond saying that they think about my family in Gaza. Palestinians face very serious accusations, they are suspected of anti-Semitism. I would like people around me to also talk about the plight of Gaza, the repeated human rights violations that are documented by NGOs, and that they actively call for an end to the fighting.
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My family are alive, for now, and I hope they will go on living for many years. But if something happens to them, I don’t know how I will cope with the knowledge that people knew what was going on, that the international community knew, and yet they did nothing.”
Yasser: ‘The dream of going home has vanished’
“I try not to show my family how I feel, but the truth is I’m terrified. My mother has kidney stones and they’ve turned off the water. She’s going to die. Under normal circumstances, we would pay to buy her special water for her condition. Every time I take a sip of water, I think of her.
Two days ago, bombs fell near our house (in the Tel al-Hawa district of Gaza City). I was on the phone with my parents at the time. My father shouted: ‘They're bombing us, they’re bombing us!’ And my mother prayed: ‘Oh, God. Dear God’. Then, all of a sudden, the line went dead. It felt like the world had stopped turning.
Our home was badly damaged and my parents are now staying with my sister. There are about 120 people crammed into a single apartment and they sleep standing up. When I’m able to speak to them on the phone and hear their voices I feel reassured. They are the ones comforting me. I’m incapable of comforting them. I record all our conversations thinking they might be the last.
I watch the news all day long and stay awake at night. When I finally catch a little sleep the nightmares wake me up.
Before October 7, I was planning to return to Gaza (Editor’s note: Yasser last travelled there 12 years ago). I wanted to surprise my family. I bought a plane ticket and drew up a list of all the restaurants I wanted to try. I was planning to meet up with my former professors. Now they are dead and the restaurants are reduced to rubble. The home I grew up in is no longer the same. The dream of going home has vanished.
We’ve lost 12 close relatives already, my aunt’s entire family: her husband, children and four grandchildren, the oldest age 6. My aunt is the only survivor and she’s now in intensive care. They were ordered to evacuate their home and head south but they chose to stay behind. There are no cars or petrol anyway. Most people cannot afford to move south.
I consider myself a French national of Palestinian origin. I came to France because it represented everything I love, a free and vibrant people that has always shown interest in the conflict in the Middle East. I see the French as politically aware.
One of my main motivations in coming here was the ability to express my opinions. Freedom of expression is sacrosanct in France. But today I feel saddened and discouraged by events. I am hugely disappointed with the French government, though not the French people.
All I want to do is raise the Palestinian flag – not the Hamas flag or that of another organisation. The Palestinian people are not Hamas.”
* Names have been changed to safeguard privacy and protect families
This article has been adapted from the original in French.
