This post is also available in: Français (French) العربية (Arabic)
Find all of Rola’s stories here.
Messages from life under bombardment: Saturday October 28… What will Israel still do, what more than it has already done?
It’s the third week of the aggression on Gaza. It’s going into its 21st day, and there is no sign of news that could call for any optimism or hope that we will soon return to some situation of calm.
We catch our news here and there through channels that we can barely get access to, and whenever we do, it’s always for a short time, when broadcast through FM radio transmissions. Imagine that, we now follow satellite channels on radio airwaves, on battery-powered radios. We’ve been deprived of our right to electricity since the beginning of the aggression.
These channels’ sources say that negotiations are ongoing and discussions are underway to reach a ceasefire agreement. But the reality on the ground says otherwise. The sounds of violent raids and massive explosions around us are louder than the voices of the interlocutors.
A new massacre in al-Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza City, specifically in the middle of the densely populated Hamid Street. The occupation planes launched several raids on a residential block in the area and destroyed a large number of homes with their residents still inside, with everyone still inside.
With great difficulty, civil defense crews were able to recover 42 martyrs and dozens of wounded. Many more remained under the rubble… the extent of the destruction there is horrifying, but it’s definitely not the first time we’ve witnessed this kind of destruction since the beginning of the aggression.
We had hoped that this would be a blessed week with some calm and tranquility, but the brutality of the occupation and its insatiable appetite for killing and destruction has made it the polar opposite. Things actually got worse and more complicated when the occupation cut off internet and communications across all governorates of the Gaza Strip.
At first, we didn’t understand what was going on. Our first impression was that it was a temporary disruption in our immediate vicinity, with just our family affected. We kept trying to restart our phones and check if the connection was back. But nothing changed. When it dragged on, we lost hope and started to suspect that the occupation had a hand in this suffocating crisis.
Our suspicions were soon confirmed as the facts reached us: “The occupation has cut off the internet service and communications across the governorates of the Gaza Strip.” A new form of collective punishment the occupying forces were pursuing against residents of Gaza.
For God’s sake, what does the enemy still want to do to us, what more than it has already done?
Are there other ways to kill and bomb that it wants to try out on us without telling the world? While no one hears the sounds of our crying?
“How horrible it is to feel that you could die and leave this world without anyone even knowing about it… without even being able to call out for help”
Messages from life under bombardment: Sunday October 29… “Better some good than none”
Can we say that the continuous terror we’ve felt throughout this entire war is something, but the fear we’ve felt in the last 34 hours or so is something entirely different? Those hours in which the occupation isolated Gaza residents from each other and from the world?
The interruption of the internet and communications network was a very bad experience. It is also a cause for further concern in light of continuing Israeli raids and the intensity of bombing that has not subsided.
It’s true that we’ve had to deal with a poor internet and communications network since the beginning of the aggression because the occupation destroyed the headquarters of the Gaza telecommunications company. But we’d consoled ourselves by saying, “better some good than none.” But now that we’ve been put through a complete communications outage, it means that we have to contend with a new complication in our lives that have already been full of complications and challenges for the past 22 days.
This was one of the most terrifying, scariest nights. I couldn’t sleep all night, any sleep I did get was full of nightmares… feeling like the house was bombed, that I was under the rubble and couldn’t call civil defense or an ambulance to come save us.
This scenario that we’re never not thinking about. It haunts us every single moment. It’s suffocating!
How horrible it is to feel that you could die and leave this world without anyone even knowing about it… without even being able to call out for help… while those around you can’t contact an ambulance or civil defense to recover your body or try to save you if there is any chance you might survive.
What does it mean for us to be deprived of all these basic details?
My mother and I weren’t able to contact and check on my sister who lives in the Jabaliya camp in the north of Gaza, which has been a hotspot for days. Nor were we able to contact my other sister who lives in Khan Younis with her family. I couldn’t get in touch with my friends who stayed in Gaza and did not leave their homes.
Since this all started, we’ve gotten used to starting our mornings with the same short text messages to all our loved ones: Are you alive?/ Are you okay?/ Let us know how you are… This is what communication between Gazans has been reduced to, just messages. There is no room for calls, no time to catch up.
There are families whose morning WhatsApp group routine now consists of one person, who may be living abroad, asking the rest of his or her family in Gaza if they are okay—okay meaning still alive.
All of these small things have become unbearable. And the occupation continues to kill us and destroy our homes. It’s like it wants us to go in silence, without anyone hearing the sounds of the fate we’ve been handed.
