It's Ruba from Gaza

Today is the 29th of November and the truce is still ongoing so hopefully we’ll enjoy another day. The people staying with us in this building are all continuing to have their morning coffee together and discussions are ongoing about politics and what to expect for the future. And it keeps coming up again and again - all we want is to go back home. Everyone wants to go back home, not just me. One of the things everyone says here is, “I’d rather stay in a tent by myself on top of my (destroyed) home rather than staying in other people’s houses.” I still don’t understand how anyone could have the soul, the capacity or the psyche to take over somebody else’s home. It’s unfathomable to me that anyone would want to do this.  Yesterday I learnt that a friend of mine and her husband were both killed. She’s a doctor and he’s a very well known consultant here in Gaza. I know her because she’s the mother of one of the young people I used to work with in the past who was studying in the veter...

Today is the 28th of November and the truce has continued for another day.  I’ve chosen the title of my blog today because when the Israelis declared they were going to attack Gaza they promised to take us back 50 years. At the start of the war Israeli officials came on live TV and said that Gazan people are human animals and should be treated as such. They also said they would deprive us of any kind of modern civilization, including electricity, water and the internet. Hearing such arrogant statements was really difficult and dehumanizing to everyone here in Gaza. It was dehumanizing to humanity itself.  Everyone is speaking about Israel’s right to defend itself but no one is speaking about the Palestinians’ right to resistance. We have this right and it was guaranteed by international law. We as Palestinians, have the right to defend ourselves from the Israeli occupation - yes, we have to stick to our borders. But then again, tell me where the Israeli border is - we don’t ev...

Today is the 27th of November and it’s supposedly the last day of the truce. We still don’t have confirmed news on whether it’ll be extended or not and so we’re waiting to hear. I still don’t know what happened to my friend that I mentioned earlier. I only know that she she's still alive but I’m not sure about her husband. She has also lost her three children which is an unimaginable loss, especially as it wasn’t easy for her to get pregnant in the first place and she was only able to have children 7 years after marriage. Today I’m struggling with so many conflicting thoughts and how to manage them. I feel like my thoughts are so mixed up. For example I really want to go back home, to fix it up and to sit there - that is, if my home is still there. But at the same time I feel like I want to emigrate to somewhere else and leave this place forever. Sometimes I wake up in a very good and positive mood and sometimes in a very difficult mood. I have to hold all these feelings inside so ...

Today is the 26th of November and the third day of the truce. It seems like a calm day but the quiet gives our minds the time and space to process things that have happened. Quiet time after the traumatic situations that we have been through means that we’ve had many many ideas flowing through our minds and we’re also discussing them together. I want to explain why I want these diaries out. Firstly my friends outside Gaza ask me so many questions like what is it like, how are you doing, what is happening, what is it like not to have electricity or water? Seemingly simple questions but a short answer cannot explain what we’re experiencing. So I am explaining it here for everyone who has never been through a situation like this.  I’m also writing because I want to preserve these memories as a Palestinian who never wanted to leave their land in Gaza and go abroad at all. Because people and history judge us and will judge us in the future. Our grandparents went through a similar situat...

I took this picture from my balcony in Rafah on a cold winter's day. Today is the 25th of November and it’s the second day of the truce. The night before it started there was a huge bombing next to the building I’m staying in and all the children were terrified and were screaming. It was really chaotic that night. Yesterday when the truce began at 7am the plan was to hopefully start the day afresh but it didn’t turn out to be that way at all.  The moment I learnt that one of the conditions of the truce was that we could not return to our homes in Gaza city, tears started to roll down my face. All I had hoped and dreamed about was to go home. I was yearning for it and desperate to do it but we can’t go; we have to stay here in Rafah.  So yesterday, as my sister has been displaced to Rafah as well, we decided to meet. She’s just a taxi ride away but obviously during the conflict we couldn’t meet unless it was extremely important. We spent the whole day together and we were plann...

Today is November 22 which marks day 46 of the war. The title of this post sounds sad, and I have to warn you that it is. For the last couple of days in Rafah, the drones, also known in Gaza as the zanana have been flying over our heads. The sound is so close that it feels like they’ll end up in your lap. Finally yesterday I started to feel a little positive about the news that a truce will start soon. I started thinking about every corner of my home and how damaged it could be and what I can do about it. Last night before I went to sleep I had finalized the plan in my head. I would have to wait for a couple of hours so that the drivers on the road could let us know which roads to use. My 79-year-old father cannot climb up the piles of sand blocking the road and we need to take that into account. My brother is young and if we come across any soldiers we should be able to protect him.  The doorman who looks after our building has not been responding to phone calls and messages and w...

Today is the 21st of November and it’s Day 46 of the war. Since it started we have heard different types of weapons and bombs once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, ten, eleven or one hundred times a day. On some days we only hear one or two types of weapons but these have a much stronger impact than the other types which we hear more often.  In spite of this people continue to live their daily lives in Gaza. They wake up hearing the sound of bombs but they also wake up with the same thoughts that any normal person would have on their mind – things like ‘How are we going to get milk for our babies? How are we going to cook for our children? How are we going to make sure they have at least one proper meal today?’ If they manage to secure their basic needs then there is a sense of relief. This is what I want to discuss in my blog today.  Empty shelves in the supermarket in Rafah Even before discussing how we get our basic services I want to explain what I mean by basic services o...

Today is the 19th of November which marks day 44 of the war. I’d like to express the different conflicting emotions that I’ve been having during all these days since the start of this conflict. When we first had to flee from our home in Gaza City we went to stay at my sister’s house and I didn’t feel so impacted by the displacement because my sister and I are so close and we understand each other so well - we know the things we like and don’t like. I also had my privacy…but now that we’ve all had to flee from Gaza City to Rafah it’s so different. We now feel like refugees as we are living in an environment with different social traditions and we have had to adapt to new customs. Since the war on Gaza started, we cannot sleep with the doors and windows closed simply because if you do the air pressure from the bombardment will smash the glass and will take the doors out from their place. So we sleep with them all open. Since it’s winter now it’s really cold, especially at night. We are f...

Today is the 17th of November - the 42nd day of the war on Gaza. I’ve decided to start writing a diary about what we face on a daily basis in our lives as people who have been forced to flee from our homes. A lot of people don’t understand what it means not to have electricity, water or access to the internet. Today I’m going to talk about what it’s like not having access to running water. I have to warn you though that there are some details that are disgusting and are hard to speak about because they’re so dehumanizing.  Imagine waking up in the morning and you want to start your day with the normal routine of any human being on earth - by washing your face, brushing your teeth, going to the toilet and washing your hands. Here in Gaza in order to do that we have to make sure we have collected water the day before for all of that. This is what we do.  In Rafah, where I’m now staying as I had to flee from my home in Gaza city, we have a mosque near us which has a well. The mos...