This post is also available in: Français (French) العربية (Arabic)
Written by Rola Abu Hashem – Journalist and correspondent for Radio Nisaa FM in Gaza
Monday, January 29, 2024… This grief is too much for me to bear or comprehend
There are some trials in life that make you feel like you’re about to lose your mind the longer you look at their details and repercussions… only faith in God and submitting to fate, the good and evil of it, keeps us resolute. It is the only balm for our hearts. For God’s sake, how has it been 115 days of aggression against Gaza, how has the entire world not revolted?
How have we lost everything we lost, all the people, all the destruction—of stone and nature—while people around us continue to live their lives without any consideration for the magnitude of the disaster that’s being waged against us? How can I tell you how it feels to be on the brink of losing my mind whenever I really give thought to the aftermath of the fact that the occupation, brutally and with the criminal push of a button, reduced my home and everything in it to a pile of stones? And this did not only happen to my house, but to those of eighty families, my neighbors in National Housing Tower 3, which consists of two adjacent buildings of nine floors each. There are eight apartments on each floor. They are nothing but rubble now… And it is not news to you that this tower is one of thousands of buildings destroyed by the occupation since the beginning of the aggression.
Every building has its own story, its own pain, its own suffering, feelings that can only be understood by those the pain has been inflicted on, those who are suffering through the destruction of their own homes and who cannot do anything to distance the injustice from their property. I fly into a rage whenever I remember a glimpse of the details of my new house in which I was receiving well-wishers less than a year and a half ago… Some friends of mine hadn’t even had the time to come visit me there yet. I was supposed to still be expecting them for a cup of coffee—we give ourselves at least a year to celebrate!
But how did the house just fall like that!? Just like that, without any preamble, no warning! How did two separate apartments end up one, and one with the ground, when they’d just been standing tall all the way up on the seventh floor with a beautiful view of the sea north of Gaza?!
How did our living room, the one we received guests in, the kids’ rooms, my bedroom, my kitchen—my favorite corner that alone cost me as much as the rest of the house—how did it all just disappear?
Every detail in these rooms, in these corners, everything felt like a victory, an overwhelming joy that made my heart dance. That’s what it felt like every time I came back home with a new piece of furniture. Now, the occupation has turned all those little victories into a tent of condolences that’s perched on my chest and is close to killing me.
How was every last trace of eighty apartments obliterated in one moment? How did all that furniture, all those facilities just melt?
I feel like I’m suffocating every time I miss any of my personal belongings or those of my four children. Every time it dawns on me that I won’t see them, use them again, every time I remember the gifts I received for the house, most of which are still in their wrappers, unused, my children’s clothes, their toys, everything we left back home, back when we still had hope that we’d return in a few days.
How I regret leaving my home in the early morning hours of October 7 in such a hurry. I was consumed by fear and the uncertainty of the situation and left behind everything I owned…
I wish I could have taken every room of the house and everything in them! I wish I’d—at least—taken a bit more time to leave, taken what might have helped me deal with the harshness of these difficult days. Everything I am missing now was abundantly present in those hallways. I never for a moment imagined it was possible that I’d be leaving my home forever…
How can I tell you how it feels to be on the brink of losing my mind whenever I really give thought to the aftermath of the fact that the occupation, brutally and with the criminal push of a button, reduced my home and everything in it to a pile of stones?
I swear, if I knew I would never return, I never would have left!
Those around me console me by saying that “money can be compensated for,” but the disaster is that the price of my home isn’t just monetary… its price is my health, my struggle, my children’s patience, my husband’s hard work and toil, our joint struggle in this life. It was the beautiful harvest of ten years of patience and suffering in rental apartments! It cost us hours of waiting to complete disgusting transactions at the bank, government ministries, and some private institutions; we had to endure weeks of procrastination by the parties in charge of constructing the tower. It cost us arduous trips to the shops in the finishing phase, trips that stole my well-being and consumed my thoughts for months on end… it cost us all our savings, the effort of the days I spent finishing every last corner of the house, the furniture, all the details… As for its financial price, it will be paid in installments over the next ten years. Of which we’ve only paid for one, so far…
Only my mother and my work friends know and understand the true cost of my house, and what it means to me to lose it to an unjust war.
I don’t know why I’m writing this, why I’m rambling through all these details, knowing that I didn’t even post about moving into my new home once on social media. I was taking my friends’ advice—keeping things private to keep them safe!
I was private, I was patient, and now everything is burning and burning my heart with it, leaving me with the embers of my most precious memories. I know that the war has burdened many people with loss and misfortune that certainly exceed my own, but the loss of my home feels to me like I’ve lost part of my heart and soul.
I write because there is a heaviness that has settled deep inside me, and if I remain silent, I might die of grief and heartache… this is too much to bear, too much to comprehend!