It's Ruba from Gaza

Today is January 16th 2025, and it marks day 467 of the genocide in Gaza. Just yesterday, a ceasefire was announced, bringing relief and joy to us all: As Palestinians from Gaza, we have endured unimaginable hardships. I watched the news and social media from Canada where I currently live. The streets of Gaza were filled with celebrations and there was a collective sense of hope and relief. However, this moment of joy is bittersweet, as it follows a long and painful period of suffering that I will never forget like so many people. This genocide has changed my life and everyone’s lives forever at all levels and nothing will ever be the same. I feel like going with the flow and imagining myself walking into the near future in Gaza when the ceasefire begins: the reality is stark and overwhelming. I have just entered the area, and all I see is the remnants of homes lying in ruins. People are returning to the places where their homes once stood, but they are unsure of where to go or what to...

I wrote this today, on my birthday, as I reflected on the past year. I originally wrote it in Arabic but have translated it here to share.   Between October and October I left a home I thought I would never leave except for the grave. I long for a sea I never loved, yet it never left my sight. I lived displaced and learned the value of small blessings, including a drop of water. I love Gaza more than I ever imagined. I migrated once and will migrate again. I moved from house to house in a new land. I met beautiful faces and others ugly, those I didn’t know in myself and others. I lost people and friends. I swallowed patience only to discover that I am better off than many. I learned patience, detachment, and not to worry about tomorrow. I realized that God’s grace is far greater than we can imagine. I learned that family is your first line of defence, and sisters are the greatest blessing. True joy is in letting go of trivial things. No matter what happens, do no...

Today is the 2nd of August and it marks 300 days of the genocide in Gaza. This period has been really intense because there have been so many assassinations and attempts to assassinate local leaders, like Ismail Haniyeh, who is Hamas’ political leader. There is a lot of anger amongst the Palestinians. Although as Palestinians we are separated - for example we have Fatah, Hamas, Gaza and the West Bank - but no one accepts the murder of one of our leaders, no matter who it was. This is because as Palestinians, we only have one enemy. The majority of Palestinians are more angry now than they have ever been.  Since becoming a refugee in Egypt I have been having a lot of discussions about what it means to be a refugee. One of my friends who has lived outside of Palestine her entire life said it very clearly, “I lived in the UAE most of my life and then I moved to the USA. I have never seen my homeland Palestine and it feels really weird because I’m holding the same citizenship of the co...

Today is the 13th of July which marks Day 281 of the annihilation and genocide in Gaza. The Israeli army attacked al-Mawasi in Khan Younis today, carrying out another new horrifying massacre. I can’t start this post without mentioning it. I’ve decided to start writing again because so many of my friends asked me for updates, but from now on it’s different as I’m writing as an immigrant. I also feel I have a duty to speak about the concept of home because I’ve mentioned it in my diary so many times before and for me, home is still the same - it’s the place I want to go back to, the place where I feel comfortable, the place where I belong. Although I feel safe and welcome here in Egypt, I also feel that I belong there, because I’ve spent most of my life there and as I was forced to leave it, it feels bitter. Every moment of my life I feel like I want to go back there.  If I had left because I wanted to, that would have been a very different story, but since we were forced to leave we...

Today is the 3rd of March and I’ve had a very good morning today. I had the chance to go through some YouTube videos like I used to do before October 7th. I came across a video of a boy who was saying goodbye to his father’s body because he was being taken from him to be buried. His father had gone out to get flour from Al-Nabulsi roundabout where more than 170 people were killed as they waited to collect flour. Before he left he said to his son, “I’ll be back soon, wait for me.” In the video his son was sobbing as he tried to wake his father up. He kept saying “May your soul rest in peace” to his father’s body, which reminded me of the movie Braveheart, when at the beginning William Wallace was saying goodbye to his father before he was taken to be buried. That lit a spark in him which created a new hero who would end up liberating Scotland.  There is a lot of criticism of this movie but I consider it one of the best movies I’ve ever seen because it touches my own life and the liv...

Today is the 25th of February and another month has just flown by. Here in Gaza we don’t realize that time is passing us by as things here continue to be the same, and then suddenly we look at the date and get a shock. The clock is still ticking for me and I continue to fight for my right to leave as soon as possible. I’ve done everything I possibly can in order to leave and now I’m leaving it to God, or in the hands of destiny or whatever you want to call it. I’m doing this because I’ve done all the formal procedures and everything within my capacity that I could do. I don’t know what to expect now - there are always delays and we are just waiting. We could be told we can leave at any moment. Meanwhile things are still happening here in Gaza.  The other day I went to visit my sister who now lives in a kindergarten. While I was there I learned that the Israelis had taken her neighbour’s son. I was sitting with my sister and someone outside was calling her in a trembling voice, unab...

Today is the 19th of February. In addition to all the feelings of anger, depression, sadness, agony and worst of all feeling like I’ve had to get used to things I would normally never accept in my daily life, I now also feel the clock constantly ticking. The clock is ticking all the time. We are under pressure to do everything in a hurry in order leave Rafah as quickly as possible before it is attacked. I don’t even know what my reaction is going to be like when they attack because as I mentioned earlier I have a very heavy burden on my shoulders and I need to be prepared to carry it.  I have been putting a lot of effort into getting my car fixed, trying to get it filled up with gas before it’s too late, in case we need to escape. There is so much effort involved in trying to leave Gaza. Even trying to get an explanation of how one can leave is extremely difficult but from all the research we have done and from what I can tell there are three possible ways to do it. I’m not happy t...

A Gofund.me page has been set up to help Ruba and father move to a safer location,away from the daily dangers in Gaza.  Today is the 14th of February and I have been having a hard time here in Rafah. All the conversations here revolve around whether the Israelis are going to get into Rafah or not and if the peace talks and ongoing negotiations in Egypt will result in anything. I know the results of attacks on Rafah will be devastating and so many people are going to die. There is a sense of fear amongst everyone here that if the Israelis enter Rafah they are going to kill so many people, just like they did in Gaza City, in the North, in the Middle and in Khan Younis. Rafah is the only place that was left until recently where the military operations were relatively limited.  Everyone is concerned as things are escalating slowly. And that is a pattern that happened in other locations - they usually start with limited operations which get more and more intense until eventually t...

Today is the 9th of February. Time is flying and yet it feels like I’ve been here for a very long time. In spite of the fact that we are surviving it doesn’t mean we are strong, it doesn’t mean we are ok, it doesn’t mean we are coping well. It just means that in order to remain alive we have to make do with what we have. We could never have survived this far without clinging on to the hope that things will end one day and that we are going to return back to our homes and that this time will pass and will become a memory like the many hard times the Palestinians have been through.  A lot of things have been happening with me, especially as I’ve been trying to leave for a while - it’s no secret anymore. In spite of all the love I carry for my home and my city I’m finding it very hard to stay. People are really suffering and we are hearing their stories every day. I just heard a friend of ours in Rafah was taken out of the rubble alive, so that was good news. I still have to cope with...

Today is the 3rd of February which marks my late mother’s birthday. She passed away in 2011 at the age of 59. Usually I feel a lot of emotions for the loss of my mother at this time of year, but this time it’s different. I woke up knowing it’s my mother’s birthday and I felt nothing because the situation here is so intense that I sometimes find it difficult to even think of myself, where I was in life and where I want to be. This war has forced us to put our feelings into freeze mode and feel nothing because if you feel every single emotion it will destroy you.  I’ve never mentioned this even to my closest friends because I didn’t want them to think I was crazy, but I remember putting my mother’s coffin bands (which were used to secure her clothing before burying her) in a special place in my bedroom. I thought that when I die I’d use the same bands because they were used for my mother, so it gave me a feeling of safety knowing that something of hers was always around. In that jour...

Today is the 30th of January and one month of this year has already passed. One out of twelve. Sometimes I wonder if we are going to spend additional years counting down the days of this war. It’s not easy for me to tell the stories in this blog for two reasons: firstly reliving them is double the heartbreak, and secondly I recently made a decision to try and make the most of every moment and to try and be positive whatever the situation is. I did this for a couple of days but then the reality hit me, as if it was giving me a message that I shouldn’t go too far away from it.  I had been praying that it wouldn't rain this winter, because of all the displaced people living in tents. But when I heard that it was going to rain, I decided that I was going to try and enjoy it, and so I went for a walk that morning - something that I had been doing for a long time before the war and I miss it. After a very nice walk in which I finally felt the cold breeze on a rainy day on my face, I deci...

Today is the 26th of January. It’s been a while since I’ve been able to write an entry for my diary and what I hope to be my recorded memories in the future. I feel absolutely exhausted. I’ve had this feeling for a while now, and I just don’t have the energy to write or speak about the situation here. I also don’t want to remember, so that I don’t have to live through the same thing twice. Everything I’m hearing, saying and going through is really very difficult - not just for me but for everyone going through it. So maybe this is why I’m a bit delayed in posting this. Recently I’ve been living through some sad times for the family hosting us. They have a lot of family members missing and one of their extended family members lost a brother, a husband and a son all at once. In another incident there were 20 people killed together at once, here in Rafah. Everyone became so quiet that people didn’t even talk about those things. I didn’t even know - I was just on the balcony trying to get ...

Today is the 20th of January and I still can’t believe we are in the year 2024 already. It feels like we missed the last quarter of 2023. I usually love that time of year because of the holiday season. I haven’t had the chance to leave Gaza for a long time, but when I did I would always enjoy watching people celebrating different holidays and occasions. Time has passed us by and we are now in 2024 and it’s almost the end of January which is unbelievable.  We are also now more than 100 days into the war and for more than 100 days I’ve been living outside my home. For over 100 days I’ve been hosted by a family.  For over 100 days I’ve been living in a room which is not mine, sleeping in a bed which is not mine, using a cover which is not mine, tasting and eating food which I haven’t cooked, staying indoors most of the time with my father and our in-laws.  For over 100 days I haven’t switched a button on and off in order to use a light or any electrical appliances.  For...

Today is the 13th of January and I know it’s been a while since I last communicated with you. I feel like there is nothing new to say - the same terrible difficult things keep happening over and over again. There are still bombings and explosions around us everywhere. Rafah is becoming extremely crowded. As each day passes more people come here. The ongoing attacks on the middle area of Gaza, on Al Nusairat, Al Maghazi and Al Bureij make it really hard for people to continue living there and they are still fleeing to Rafah. The original population of Rafah was around 280,000 people but now there are about 1.8 million people here . When I first came here it was easy to bump into other people who had come from Gaza City and the middle part of the Gaza Strip, but now since it’s so crowded you hardly ever see anyone you know. Now when I need to go out I keep my head down and just try and quickly finish up whatever I need to do and then head straight back home. This is firstly because of th...

Today is the 7th of January and I’m going to share what I spend my time imagining or daydreaming about. First of all the situation remains the same and that may sound simple but it’s not - it just means that every day we hear of more people being killed. Every day we lose more and more of the people we love in this war - old friends, acquaintances, neighbours, people who we used to say hi to.  Every day more and more people also go missing - missing could mean that they’re missing under the rubble or missing because we don’t have any contact with them.  I know I haven’t written for a while but for the past week it’s been so hard to sleep at night because the explosions are getting closer to us. We wake up every 5-10 minutes during the night, sometimes every 30 minutes, because of the sound of an explosion. We then try to go back to sleep. One thing that is giving me relief in this regard is thinking about my home back in Gaza City. I never expected this but it comforts me to t...