Yousef M. Al JamalI remember the day Israel killed my sister Somaiya, her husband Anas, and their two little girls, Hoor and Sham - a day etched into me forever.
The world seems fixated on one date, as if it all began that day.
But in reality, it all began long before October 7, 2023, the day Hamas conducted attacks in southern Israel, which killed 1,139 people and took more than 200 people captive. Forty-eight of them remain in Gaza.
Israeli bombardments and ground invasion across the enclave since then have killed over 65,000 people.
Thousands more are believed to be buried under the rubble.
For my family and millions of Palestinians, the days even before October 7 happened are deeply etched in our memories, days when we lost our loved ones to Israeli brutality.
One of the most painful memories is the day when the British colonised Palestine and eventually handed control over to the Zionist movement, which then established the state of Israel on the ruins of more than 530 Palestinian villages and towns, including my family's.
It was the Balfour Declaration in 1917 that marked a turning point for Palestinians, bringing upheaval to their lives as Britain pledged support for creating ‘a national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, transforming the Zionist aspiration into a political reality.
And since then, our losses began.
My niece Noor, 14, is the only survivor of the air strike that killed my sister and her family. She survived with fractures in one hand and shrapnel in the other.
I still have not processed the shock of losing my sister and most of her family.
And world governments continue to refuse to recognise the suffering of the Palestinian people, which has lasted more than a century.
Are the lives of Palestinians less valuable than those of Israelis?
At this stage, even writing to the world in the hope that it will contribute to some meaningful change feels emotionally and mentally overwhelming.
Describing to the world how my sister and her family were burned and torn into pieces is nothing like witnessing it.
Noor had to watch her siblings burn, including Hoor, her younger sister and closest friend.
Endless funerals
Gaza feels like an endless, massive funeral.
It feels like a graveyard stretching from the northern border to the southern one.
Seventy to eighty percent of Palestinians in Gaza are refugees who have never accepted the colonial borders drawn to confine and control their lives.
They were expelled or fled in 1948 from what is now Israel, in what Palestinians call the Nakba.
They have always referred to the borders established in 1948 with the creation of Israel simply as ‘the fence.’
Palestinians from Gaza living abroad wake up every day wondering if their remaining family members have become the next victims of Israel’s ongoing genocide.
We wake up multiple times a night to check the news, and often we discover the murder of our families and loved ones by reading their names in the news.
Two days ago, I read about the killing of Ibrahim Al-Ghafari, a boy I went to school with in Gaza.
He was killed while waiting to receive aid from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) near the Netzarim Corridor.
The GHF, supported by the US and Israel, was created amid growing international pressure on Israel to ease its months-long blockade on humanitarian aid to Gaza, resulting in a famine.
According to the UN Office for Human Rights, between May 27 and August 13, at least 1,760 Palestinians were killed while trying to access aid, 994 near GHF sites and 766 along supply convoy routes.
Most of these deaths were attributed to Israeli forces. The figure marks an increase from the 1,373 deaths reported on August 1.
Mourning the losses
This morning, I woke up to the news that Muhammad Abujarad, my friend Mamoun’s brother, his wife, and two children were murdered in an Israeli air strike on a tent in Khan Younis.
I called my friend Mamoun to offer my condolences. During our call, he learned about the murder of my sister and her family twenty days earlier.
He apologised for not offering his condolences. The phone call felt like an endless funeral again.
We not only feel helpless as we lose our family and friends, but we mourn the loss of a city that itself feels like family.
Gaza is more than just a city. It’s the place where we grew up, made memories, and formed lifelong friendships.
It boasts one of the most beautiful golden beaches of the Mediterranean, where we spent summers eating melting ice cream and playing soccer under the hot sun.
Now, the beach feels like a graveyard.
There are no words to describe the destruction of our hometown, the priceless city and home for our families, friends, and memories.
Don’t believe the claims that airdrops will put an end to the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.
Airdrops cost hundreds of times more than sending an aid truck.
They kill Palestinians, destroy their makeshift homes, and contribute to their humiliation.
Don’t believe the claims that chickens made it to Gaza; only a small amount did over the past few days, and much of it was spoiled.
Additionally, a kilogram of chicken costs 140 NIS ($42) in Gaza, a price no one can afford anymore.
Also, don’t believe the claims that aid trucks enter Gaza and that people rely on them to survive the genocide.
Most of the food on the pitifully small number of aid trucks that make it in gets stolen.
Commercial trucks are limited in number and require protection by armed security to ensure their safety.
Therefore, food and other supplies are sold at the market for high prices.
These days, flour is cheaper than it was a few months ago, but it is still sold at 12 NIS ($3) per kilogram, which is 10 times the original price.
Starvation is only getting worse, and political statements are not enough to bring an end to it.
Painful displacement
As I write this article, Israel has published a map showing the “vast empty areas” in southern Gaza in an attempt to encourage Palestinians to move there again.
However, the southwestern part of Gaza is already overcrowded with about a million Palestinians.
The Israeli government, which engineered the Gaza genocide, seems to live in a different world. The Israeli government's policies make it impossible for most families to move even further south.
It costs around $3,000-$4,000 to rent a car or donkey, buy a tent, and relocate. This is not surprising, given the Israeli government's aim of ethnically cleansing Gaza.
This is the same government that said targeting 20 Palestinians, including five Palestinian journalists at Nasser Medical Complex, by a double-tap air strike on August 26 was “a tragic mistake.”
Murders like that one have happened thousands of times in Gaza; the only difference this time is that there were cameras to document it.
The slain journalists, paramedics, and other people at the hospital are our family, too. Our hearts broke when they, too, were murdered.
Once again, Gaza felt like a massive, ongoing, and endless funeral.
Each person killed in Gaza is my family, every house destroyed in Gaza is my home, and every tree uprooted in Gaza carries the breath of my homeland.
The question is: what could be the turning point that would end this massive funeral in Gaza? Will it ever come?
