In this prison that is Gaza, when we hear a bomb falling, we ask ourselves: “Is it my turn this time?”
I live in the North Gaza city of Beit Lahia, just about two miles away from the border. Here is the scene shortly before 7 a.m. on Saturday, when normal — normal for Gaza, anyway — turned to something else.
I’m heading off to the school where I teach. The car arrives to pick me up. My 7-year-old daughter, Yaffa, is leaving to wait for her school bus. Suddenly, a rocket shoots across the sky.
My wife tries to reassure me: “It’s just a test. They’re firing toward the sea”. She could be right. That sometimes happens even during “peaceful” times. But then another rocket takes off, this time definitely heading for Israel. Then more rockets, flying from all directions.
What we don’t know is that dozens of militants from Gaza have infiltrated Israeli towns near the border. Only around two hours later do we begin to see a flood of photos and videos of Gaza militants killing soldiers and civilians and taking others as prisoners. No one can believe their eyes.
My brother-in-law, Mohammed, drives by. “Does anyone want to go to the market?”
At times like these, our first thoughts immediately turn to essential supplies. Bread is at the top of the list. Even if there’s flour, electricity is likely to be cut for long hours, so it will be hard to bake at home.
We set out for a shopping center. I manage to buy some chicken and cucumbers and avocados, but dozens of people are queuing for bread, pushing and fighting. The owner shuts the doors. We decide to try somewhere else.
We see a crowd marching down the street, raising the Palestinian flag and praising the fighters. As we approach the Jabalia Refugee Camp, one of the world’s most densely populated areas, the bakeries and shops are jammed. Suddenly. an Israeli military jeep comes racing down the street. It’s been captured. The jeep is swarmed by jubilant boys. I can see that the left front tire is blown out.
We can’t find any bread, so we return home with only the chicken and avocados and cucumbers.
The images of dozens of Israeli casualties and prisoners haunt me. How did the militants cross such a closely monitored border? How could they kill all these soldiers and take so many others as prisoners? You can only assume that Israel will kill hundreds, even thousands, of civilians in Gaza. I’ve never felt so terrified.
We hear Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement that the people of Gaza should “leave now”. I find myself asking: “Where are we supposed to go? Didn’t our grandparents leave their houses in 1948?”
We have no shelters, no system of air raid warnings. There is no army.
Now it’s the fourth day, and at least 900 people in Gaza have been killed, about half of them children and women. That’s not anything new to us. On Monday, my aunt called to inform us that our pregnant cousin had been killed in an airstrike on a mosque bordering their house. Doaa was 33. Her father was also killed by Israel in 2004, when she was 14.
In the past 90 hours, we’ve had electricity for only seven hours, water for six. I’m afraid to leave my house to buy food for my family. I’m scared even to go to the roof to check how much water we have left in the barrels. We could run out at any time.
“Don’t flush the toilet until five people have used it”, my father keeps reminding us. “Use wet wipes to clean your hands. Try not to take showers. Use as little water as possible to wash the dishes”.
Even getting bread is dangerous. Yesterday, on Monday, I spent more than an hour standing in line at the bakery. A friend joined me and told us about an airstrike opposite a shopping center in the Jabalia Camp. I’d been planning to go to that area to buy food and exchange money. I arrived home half an hour later to the news that more than 50 people had been killed in the strike. I saw bodies without limbs, faces unrecognizable. Should we still call them bodies?
I saw avocados, too, splashed with blood, on the ground next to a damaged cart amid the rubble and bodies. Should we still call them avocados? Will I ever eat avocados again?
In the days ahead, I know that we will hear more bombs falling. We will wait in dread and think: “Is it my turn this time?”
When we see the flash of the explosion, we know that we’ve been spared, because if you’re hit you only see death. It was someone else’s turn.
And then we remember to mourn.
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, short story writer and essayist from Gaza.