Do We Ever Truly Return? The Long Road from Loss in Gaza

Date:

Yasmin Abu Shammala 

I once believed that a person could adapt to any environment forced upon them, whether it was leaving their home, their family, or part of their life. I believed that a person could start anew from zero each time they reached a point of loss. I thought that if someone lost their home, they could build another as if the first never existed. If they lost a part of their family, they could find solace in the ones left behind.  And if they lost a dream they had been striving for, they could change the course of their aspirations and find themselves in a new life that suited them.

Here in Gaza, the scales of everything shift with each thought and principle. Since a year and three months, and a few days—since the beginning of the Israeli genocide—every person in Gaza has stood at zero, unable to take a step forward. Here, everything is different. Everything here is different. Those who lost their homes have had their spirits ripped from them, leaving them hollow, unable to find stability. Here, it wasn’t just losing part of the family; here, entire families have been lost, leaving only one person from each family to mourn. And mourning here is not healing; it’s like pouring salt into an open wound. Here, dreams were lost at the threshold of the beginning of the genocide, and the entire compass of hope was lost.

Gaza, besieged throughout its life, how can its people find solace anywhere else? How can they find stability in any place but Gaza, the land that gave them life?

Here in Gaza, the people believe that it is forbidden to find their sense of belonging anywhere other than the homes they have known.As a Palestinian who has been displaced during the Israeli genocide, I now realize the difference between trying to adapt to the shelter imposed by the genocide and finding true stability. Over the past year and three months, I have only been trying to adapt. And once the ceasefire between the Israeli occupation and the resistance in Gaza was finalized, I realized that I had not truly adapted.

I was displaced from Al-Bureij, just a fence away from the occupied Palestinian territories to its east. I moved to Al-Nuseirat, separated from Gaza only by the Gaza Valley, a boundary the occupation used to divide Gaza into north and south. I found myself in the southern part of the strip.

When I decided to leave my home, I left my memories behind, trapped within its walls, not knowing if I would return to find them intact, or if they would be lost along with everything else. I fled, carrying only a bag with clothes for my son (we thought the displacement would last just two days, and that we’d return, but those two days have stretched into a year and three months). Along with the clothes, I carried important documents—documents I later lost in the bombing that struck the area where I was displaced.

Since the ceasefire was announced, I haven’t been able to stop crying. My tears ran down my cheek as I began gathering the fragments of myself. Can a person ever find stability after being forcibly driven from their home? Does loss erase the memory of the home they once lived in, or the loved ones they once had? Do we ever truly return?

I packed my bag, ready to return to my home, even though the ceasefire had not yet taken effect. But I couldn’t help eagerly waiting for the clock to hurry its hands.

Time stained with blood. This thought stopped me, halting the flow of my reflections. The ceasefire hasn’t yet been implemented yet, so I am still at risk of never seeing my home again if an Israeli missile decides to end my life and my musings.

In Gaza, even contemplation is subject to the occupation’s whims. Even if I survive with my thoughts, will the north Gaza’ people, who were forced to displace to the south, survive with their hopes of returning?

The people of the north Gaza, who paid the price for their resilience with death, loss, and hunger,  who did not survive on their way south. Israeli planes bombed them on the way they were fleeing. Even in the south, they were not safe—the occupation bombed areas it had designated as “safe zones” for them.

When the ceasefire officially begins, it will not apply to the people of the north who were displaced south. They will wait 22 days before they can return to their homes in the north. This is what the Israeli occupation has forced upon them. Therefore, for them, the true ceasefire begins only when they return home.

I think about them. How will they spend those 22 days? I, who will return to my home on the first day of the ceasefire, feel as if each minute is a complete destruction. I cannot bear the few hours that separate me from my home. How will they endure?

But here, the days will pass, and even after 22 days, they will continue to pass. We will return to our homes. If we find them as they were, we will reclaim our memories and revive them, restoring them to their former state. If we find only ruins, we will live among the rubble, searching for ourselves within it.

The painful truth is that we will not return as the complete family we once were. No family in Gaza is whole anymore. All of Gaza is wounded. But we will search for the lost in memories and among the ruins, hoping to revive their memories.

Only the homes whose families have disappeared from the civil registry will remain cold, waiting for warmth that they once drew from the presence of their inhabitants. Only those homes will wish they had disappeared with them, to home them once more in their other life.

C. QNN

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