By Yasmin Abu Shammala
Yesterday, my brother called me by my grandmother’s name after I had gone through all my siblings’ names before finally realizing his and addressing him correctly. My eyes widened in surprise for a moment before I burst into laughter. At just twenty-three, I had already become a grandmother–if only in name. My focus had begun to wane under the overwhelming weight of keeping pace with the relentless tide of my life. My ceaseless rambling was not the only sign… It was merely another stage in my gradual decline—one of the many inevitable scars war leaves upon you as long as you remain fully immersed in its reality.
I have started to ramble and forget… I do not deny it. What human being, when subjected to the sight of unrelenting horror, could keep their mind intact? I live through every moment of the terror that engulfs us in Gaza. Here, if someone’s mind remains unshaken, it is, to us Gazans, a cause for suspicion. How does a mind endure without faltering—without the silence of night or the steady rhythm of day? This is the question that slips from our lips whenever we encounter such an anomaly—if such a thing even exists in Gaza.
Here, while the rest of the world drifts into slumber, enveloped in the silence of the night and seeking solace in their beds, I fall asleep—if sleep ever finds me—only after taking headache medication, lulled by the symphony of Israeli drones that never loosen their grip on Gaza. And because the world has surrendered all its time to Israel’s whims and its genocide machines, Israeli aircraft never depart from our skies. They tarnish its blue serenity, grow agitated by its vast stillness, then decide to relieve their turmoil by raining destruction upon us. Their distress fades at the sight of our blood—thirsting for it just as their creators do.
After fifteen months of the Israeli genocide in Gaza since October 2023, I thought the war would come to an end with the signing of an agreement titled “Ceasefire Agreement” on its cover. I thought we would be granted even one day from our past lives—a day to release all the sorrow that had consumed us, to let it flow in tears we never had the luxury of shedding throughout the genocide. But we did not. At least, I did not. I longed to begin searching for the self that had shattered amid this devastation.
I began by attempting to regain my stability, returning to the home I had once been forced to flee, and then striving to acclimate my two children to a life under the shadow of their stolen rights, which I continue to struggle to reclaim from Israel’s grip. I sought inner peace to soothe my weary soul. Only then could I embark on the journey of healing my body, which had somehow evaded Israel’s relentless wrath for fifteen months—by one means or another.
But the ceasefire, which was supposed to mark a new beginning—a reset to zero, as we Gazans have done so many times before—brought no change to my life, except for laying the foundation of a semblance of stability for my children.
Only two months passed before Israel discarded the agreement—and Gaza—like mere scraps of paper. Two months were not enough for me to savor the joy of returning home, as I soon found myself displaced once again when the genocide resumed. Two months were not enough to heal my fractured psyche, of which I have yet to find even the first thread to pull myself back together.
Two months were not enough to treat the pain in my back, inflicted when an Israeli airstrike hit our neighbor’s house, causing the ceiling of our displacement shelter to collapse on me. Two months were not enough to treat the eczema that spread across my fingers after I resorted to washing clothes by hand, as Israel had cut off our electricity from the very first days of the genocide. Two months were not enough to find an eye doctor who could explain the cause of my persistent headaches and the pain in my eyes from the dim light we have lived under for over a year and a half.
Two months were not enough to treat the heartburn in my stomach, caused by my unrelenting psychological torment. I found no remedy for my psychological pain, nor did I find the time to seek out a doctor who could ease my physical pain.
And now, as the genocide resumes, Israel takes pleasure in eroding our existence gradually, rather than all at once. I, who had longed for a fresh start, found myself sinking below zero—unable to even pinpoint a new beginning to anchor myself to.
Here in Gaza, if an airstrike does not kill you outright, it ensures you suffer a fate worse than death, leaving you to bleed until your soul, weary of clinging to a broken body, finally surrenders. In the end, you become a bird, gathering the remnants of your dreams, rewriting them into a life where there is no repetition of zero—only a singular zero, and from it, an infinite peace.
27 March 2025
Source: countercurrents.org