As I wake up this weekend, I will be in an unfamiliar place: sheltering with dozens of other people in a relative’s home. Hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza find themselves in a similar position.
My siblings and I have moved four times already since the war started three long weeks ago – first, from our home in the north of Gaza to go and stay with our grandparents because the airstrikes were too close. We had to move again after a few days because the bombing got closer still. Entire families were being wiped out every night. We were then told to move to the south. Yet when we did, we were attacked and bombed on the very road we were told to take to safety. It’s fair to say that nowhere is really safe from the bombs. Not even the hospitals and schools.
This weekend, I will look outside to see smoke rising from the latest bombings. There will be people on the street injured and maimed. And the sounds of families mourning their dead will only be interrupted by the buzzing of military drones and fighter jets overhead. There are no olives on the trees – only burnt branches. There are no birds in the sky. For they, too, have been driven away.
We are used to living under a military siege. I would go so far as to say we’ve become used to the misery of war. But this time it feels different. This time the sheer terror being unleashed upon us feels more savage than ever before. This is confirmed in the death toll. Everybody has lost somebody they know and love. In my case, it was my beloved friends Mimana Jarada and Abraham Saidam. It is at times like this that we feel helpless and hopeless, as if our cries cannot be heard and our resilience is in vain. The weight of the cruelty of the world becomes too much.
However, there is one thing that has recently given me hope in the face of the tragedy that has become our lives here in Gaza. It is the pictures of hundreds of thousands of people standing up for us and protesting in our name – demonstrations held in the streets of cities across the world, from Algiers and Istanbul to London and Washington DC. The kindness of strangers, often thousands of miles away: this pulls us out of that feeling of hopelessness. Seeing this, I cannot help my eyes filling with tears. It shows people care and our suffering is felt.
These scenes of support and solidarity really restore our hope. Seeing people of all ages and from all communities descend on the streets of London last weekend proved that our cries were not in vain. We are heard. The world is watching. And our fellow humans are standing up for us by opposing this war.
We are in dire need of hope right now. I cannot stress this enough. The situation is so difficult and we need a portion of hope every day. This is what your support gives us: enough hope to get through the long, painful and difficult day that will come tomorrow. So my message to those people of Britain – who will stand up for us yet again today by attending peaceful demonstrations held in London and other cities– is a simple word of thanks. You restore my faith in humanity – each time you march in our name and call for peace, each time you chant for a free Palestine and a better world, and with every sign, banner and flag that you wave in our support.
We are together. We march with you in our hearts and hopes. The people of Gaza are watching. We see this and we feel less alone. You give us hope for a better, fairer world.
Nowar Diab is a student from Gaza City. She is part of the We Are Not Numbers collective, which works with young Gazans to help improve their English language skills and tell their stories to the world
