In Gaza, a mass grave on the Mediterranean basin where I once had friends

This is a scathing elegy for Gaza.

One where there is no room left to re-narrate the extermination of my people. One that exposes the deceit hidden behind the mask of integrity. One where we no longer speak of the ‘conflict’.

It does not mourn the world's lost humanity or steer its compass towards a more ethical path, to reclaim our bodies and names with the cloak of pretence built upon language, eye colour, and smooth skin.

Even here, we do not spit in the face of Washington as it strives to ensure it is not left alone in the annals of history, so as not to be solely memorialised as a country built on the mass ethnic cleansing of indigenous populations.

We set Paris and London aside, for we cannot blame them for defending the last remaining colonial outpost that consoles and justifies their own colonial legacy in plundering the resources of the peoples of Africa and Asia.

This an elegy where we mourn the language and we weep the blood of those who departed involuntarily. We curse the world in our harshest Palestinian expressions, bowing down to the reality tainted with the scent of corpses and their remains.

"We have had to innovate with the ways in which we die - individually or collectively, from live ammunition, airstrikes or genocide, under torture or with chemicals, near the beds of our frightened children, or in front of television screens - so that the world would not forget us"

We search for the laughter of our passed loved ones in the ashes of memory, the suppressed screams slipping like slaughtered autumn leaves. We mourn the dreams devoured by the jaws of oppression and darkness, the tender hearts slain by the hands of tyranny.

We record their dreams, words, and stories, so they don't become mere numbers.

Let us spread the smell of death that seeped through the shirts of those killed like a wandering shadow. As we gather the limbs of our once-crying children, whose bodies must now “be sold" to the world, an existential question eats at our conscience and devours what remains of our children's souls in the eternal coffin.

Why?

Why do we have to defend our humanity? Why do we have to prove that we are worthy of compassion? Why do we have to shout at the sky, questioning the existence of gods?

Born and raised in Gaza, @MohammRafik dreamt of travelling abroad to amplify the struggle and voices of his people internationally. But the outside world was not all he had hoped for, as aspiration turned into disillusionment.https://t.co/ms7fREZDGa

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) September 21, 2023

For seven decades, the neck of the Palestinian, be it a woman or a man, has been slaughtered. For seven decades, Palestinian blood has turned into water, spilled all over the ground of our homeland.

For seven decades, Israel’s colonial apparatus and military occupation have stripped the Palestinians of our humanity and emotions, and imposed an enormous gap between us and the rest of the world.

The world has become so accustomed to our death, that it is routine, or boring. Every time, our death has to be renewed, to be more boisterous and more fierce.

We have had to innovate with the ways in which we die - individually or collectively, from live ammunition, airstrikes or genocide, under torture or with chemicals, near the beds of our frightened children, or in front of television screens - so that the world would not forget us. And to remain in breaking news, we had to die more and more each time.

My mouth is nothing but an entry to the realms of misery, a mouth of the people living behind the veil of the crematorium. It expresses suppressed revelations from the womb of the inferno of ethnic cleansing and of collective punishment. It echoes their sighs, weeps for them, and declares their pains in the depths of the dark heavens.

It narrates the agony of not only those who have been killed by indiscriminate bombardments and prohibited weapons, but also those who die discreetly without cameras capturing their death, those who become mere statistics in the international reports of the tragedy.

Between the deadly hunger and the hell of thirst, small children are experiencing the most horrific kinds of death that tear through their bellies, gnaw at their features, and bubble up on their faces.

In a desperate attempt to appease their burning needs, they consume spoiled food and water that is unfit for human consumption. Children not guilty of anything but having been born in Gaza.

Amid the collapsing darkness of tents, one and a half million displaced persons, of which many are wounded, share the biting cold without blankets. Everything around them fades away, perhaps except for the sliver of hope they exhaustedly hang on to.

Between the walls of school corridors and classrooms, entire families pile up without beds to sleep on, nor clean or adequate facilities. In this desperate world where Palestinians have lost even their most basic rights, women are forced to resort to pills to delay their menstrual cycles.

In Gaza, the scattered remains of the dead are left, lonely and out of sight, to decompose because even the mass graves are too full.

In Gaza, the people are hungry and deprived, their calories long controlled by the colonial state of Israel. It has deprived an entire society from the most basic needs - food, water, electricity, fuel - and cut off communication with the outside world. 

With a heart consumed by anxiety, I wonder about the critically ill, the cancer patients who can no longer receive treatment because the hospitals have been bombed, the babies in intensive care whose incubators will run out, the wounded forced to endure operations without anaesthesia.

Oh, filthy world, I mourn for you the blood that persevered for love and life, for sitting in front of a clean beach, or securing a job, or travelling by plane for once, or experiencing the meaning of a "weekend" while lying with loved ones on the grounds of your fascinating gardens, ascending the ranks of freedom and justice.

A life story swinging between the illusion of freedom and the constraints of bitter reality narrated to the world by truth and experience. Yet, you, oh world, did not care for it, as if their souls were clay shaping your eerie reality and adorning your base paths.

"I once had friends in Gaza whom the barbaric Israeli war machine killed in the cruellest, most despicable, and most inhumane ways, turning them into pieces and limbs"

"I once had friends"

I once had friends in Gaza whom the barbaric Israeli war machine killed in the cruellest, most despicable, and most inhumane ways, turning them into pieces and limbs.

Among them was my friend Yasser Raafat Tawfiq Barbakh, killed while laughing as he always did. Yasser was the strongest, bravest, and most prideful of us all, known and loved by everyone.

Yasser had a loving family that was proud of him: a tender mother who waited for him to finish his search for his "exceptional" girl, which had captivated our minds. He used to sketch her features as if painting a masterpiece.

Growing up, we marvelled at how he would arrive late to school every day and still manage to get the highest marks among us. He grew up, went to university, and emerged in politics. I once witnessed him expelled from a conference hall by a prominent politician for his affiliation with an opposing political faction.

Yasser grew older and started coming to me to complain about his sweetheart, his features faded and disfigured by love. At the same time, he refused to admit his weakness, for love alone was the hope, the only way to liberate us from the clutches of confusion and pain.

"For years to come, volumes will be written about this shameless performance of Western media, and how it worked to manufacture consent for a genocide."

Khaled Al Hroub on how Israel's war on Gaza exposes the moral bankruptcy of Western values 👇 https://t.co/anvKBADV07

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 7, 2023

Our only dream was to wave as soon as we reached Akka, Haifa, and Shefa Amr, to find his exceptional girl there, lying under the grapevines, savouring the ecstasy of victory.

When we gathered, we listened to songs by Umm Kulthum and sipped Shawqi coffee in Najma Square. Just like when we were kids, Yasser always arrived late. 

In his final minutes, he was searching for a cigarette. He told me, laughing and comforting me in my alienation, how to embrace indifference to ease my anxiety. He told me he would come back, and I continued to wait for him as usual. Yet he still came late.

In my life, I have suffered greatly. When, in a moment of weakness, I was about to choose a path that would crush everything I once believed in, to reap a little money to help me in my exile, Yasser was the tree I leaned on.

We knew Yasser as we knew bread and water: clear and bold. Whenever we talked about the comfort of fighting life and struggling with it, he would shout his famous saying, "Sleep is for the cowards."

I once had friends in Gaza whom the barbaric Israeli war machine killed in the cruellest, most despicable, and most inhumane ways, turning them into pieces and limbs.

Among them was Alaa Arafat Al-Tarturi’s family: Yasser, Mohammed, Abdullah, and his father Arafat.

Alaa is the Zamalek football club’s most passionate and loyal fan, preferring it over anything else because he was raised in a family that knew no entertainment other than the language of football.

Alaa never missed a single match of the Zamalek Club. These were the only times that we would not meet, and he would send me a message to apologise, explaining that he simply couldn't miss watching the game with his father.

Sometimes I would search for the match result just to see if I should celebrate with him or console him. Then, he would come back to analyse the match and occasionally express his frustration with the referee, for being the cause of his father's sadness.

He would then take a breath to narrate to me a book he had recently read and how it could be connected to what we were experiencing in Gaza. Alaa does not possess bourgeois aspirations but dreams of a routine job that would help him bear the weight of life and keep him away from its clamour.

Two years ago, Alaa lost his mother to cancer after the inhumane blockade on both border crossings prevented her from travelling for treatment. This plunged him into severe depression from which he has not yet recovered. For more than a year, I lost my best friend to the darkness.

Alaa lost his family last week. He lost his father and his siblings, and the living room and the television where they watched Zamalek together. He lost everything. I know my friend well, better than he knows himself, and I know that I will lose him too. I fear I will no longer be able to reach him soon.

When we talked about migrating or travelling, Alaa always refused to leave his family. Now I wonder who will watch the upcoming Zamalek matches with Alaa. Who will open the door to him and provide the warm sounds of home? How will Alaa, who almost never left the comfort of his home, face the world now?

"As the people of Gaza continue to face the brutality of the Israeli war machine, easy targets for the forces of oppression and the forces of the dollar, and their lives and what remains of their dreams and hopes fade away, we stand questioning: when will this massacre come to an end?"

I once had friends in Gaza whom the barbaric Israeli war machine killed in the cruellest, most despicable, and most inhumane ways, turning them into pieces and limbs.

Among them was Hamza Al-Jazzar, one of those noble souls torn apart with utmost brutality. Hamza had a small family; he had a young son named Ahmed, who is a little over a year old, and a wife, both of whom are left crying for him forever.

Hamza had green eyes and blond hair, and spoke English with elegance and proficiency. Still, they killed him. He secured a part-time job as a teacher recently. He was among the most capable of overcoming challenges, determined to break free from a reality where he couldn't even afford a cigarette.

Hamza had an amazing capacity for learning, a curiosity about everything. We loved him, and we will continue to do so. We would have long conversations, and I learned most from him.

In his final days, Hamza left me a message to reassure me about Alaa: "Don't worry about Alaa, you are my friend and my brother, and Alaa is my friend and my brother." With his final words, we can identify the brutality that consumed him.

In his journey through the labyrinths of conflict and destruction, Hamza was a true victim  of injustice and discrimination. In his life, he was subjected not only to random and deliberate killings but also to the woes of the blockade and the long-drawn-out war, leaving behind only shattered hopes and memories.

The prophets of Gaza

This is a collection of stories of prophets who ascended with muted cries, their loved ones' tears spilling in every corner of cramped houses and city streets, those who bore the weight of the harshness of time and the brutality of circumstances.

As Mahmoud Darwish put it: “O flesh of the Palestinian, O bread of the crucified Christ, O sacrifice of the White Mediterranean basin.”

As the people of Gaza continue to face the brutality of the Israeli war machine, easy targets for the forces of oppression and the forces of the dollar, and their lives and what remains of their dreams and hopes fade away, we stand questioning: when will this massacre come to an end?

This is a desperate attempt to comprehend the incomprehensible. Reaching for the voice of the dead within me, we recite the words that capture the resilience of the Palestinian spirit:

"We will never forget, we will never forgive."

Ahmed Saleh is a writer, poet and a human rights defender from Gaza, Palestine. He is currently based in Brussels.

Follow him on Instagram: @ahmed.m.salleh

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Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff, or the author's employer.