‘I worried I might start finding it normal. But I never did’ – what I learned as the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent

McKernan … ‘You could feel the pressure building.’ Photograph: Marcus Yam

Three days before Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel, I was helping friends who live in Gaza City gather armfuls of guava in their orchard in Beit Hanoun, in the north of the Strip, when something strange happened.

Hamid and Rania* had bought the small plot the year before. It was overgrown, but over the changing seasons they’d worked hard on their expensive acquisition. I called it the secret garden, a tiny oasis in the midst of the dry, dirty misery of Gaza.