I don’t know how we’ve continued to find the strength to wake up to constant horrors and losses. I believe that no human should be tested by such cruelty. But this burden shouldn’t be ours alone to carry, writes Shahd Abusalama. [GETTY]
On 7 January 2025, Donald Trump threatened in a press conference that “all hell will break out” if Israeli hostages are not returned before his inauguration. If our victims or even the survivors of the televised genocide unleased on Gaza for 16 months could respond, they’d likely ask: if this is not hell, what is?
As the world celebrated the new year, Gaza’s only hope was an end to the ethnic cleansing. But the Israeli army quickly crushed this simple wish, claiming four of my family members’ lives.
Around midday on 2 January, Israel’s army targeted a house where 30 members of my family sought refuge. They killed my uncle Marwan, his wife Haniyya, their son Wasim and nephew Ismail, and injured the rest.
After over a year of displacement, starvation, grief and torture, they joined their son Yousef in martyrdom.
It was a miracle that uncle Marwan’s other son Kamal survived and managed to rush his youngest brother Mohammed to hospital with 3 pieces of shrapnel in his chest and another in his leg.
Like thousands, their lives could have been saved if enough political will existed to stop Israel sooner. Since October, when Israel waged its third military campaign against northern Gaza, the occupation forces razed most civilian infrastructure to the ground, rendered all its hospitals out of service, displaced most of its population and besieged the rest, killing more than 5000, and maiming 10,000, with casualties constantly rising.
Instead, the US and its allies insisted on arming Israel and offering lip service to their joint crimes with impunity.
No escaping the horror & loss
Hardly a day before I learned of their brutal murder, I was blessed to have a video call with my beloved uncle, aunt and cousin – a luxury made near impossible during the past 3 months of relentless bombardment. Little did I know that it would be farewell.
My cousin Abood, a frontline photographer based in a tent in the Baptist hospital of Gaza City, called me immediately after he wrapped our martyrs in white shrouds. “May God grant you with patience. I know how dear they were to you,” he told me in the hope of comforting me.
A week before this horrific massacre, I counted on Abood to deliver a humble donation to my uncle so that he could distribute it. Although his pride would never have allowed him to ask for a penny, it goes without saying that Israel is imposing inhumane and unliveable conditions that leave them in desperate need.
In reality, it meant so much more to my uncle that we remembered them. In his last conversation with me, he even said: “We are all on a death row. What’s the point of feeding us if Israel insists on killing us?”
Nevertheless, they barely enjoyed the relief that came from the last transfer that had reached them against all odds.
I had received the devastating news during a trip to the south of Spain with my partner. I had deluded myself into thinking I could take a break from the genocide haunting my family. A few hours after landing in Sevilla, my phone was blowing up with notifications. The city’s streets, locals and tourists heard my desperate cries that nothing could ease. The shock and grief were intolerable, I couldn’t stand my surroundings and found myself repeatedly screaming their names and calling out Israel and international complicity for killing them while displaced, cold and starved in Gaza.
All I wanted then was to return to Barcelona and be with my recently displaced family. Only they could understand because they knew the bond I shared with my martyred relatives.
Uncle Marwan and aunt Haniyya were like love birds. Haniyya worked as a cleaner in Al-Awda hospital, and Marwan did all sorts of handy jobs to support his family. My parents used to count on them a lot. They didn’t have much money, but they had endless love and generosity, and were widely admired. They never showed up empty-handed at our home despite their financial struggles, and would often bring bananas because they were my favourite fruit.
As a child, I often stayed over at their home in Jabalia Refugee Camp. They were like second parents to me. I share countless memories with their sons Kamal, Yousef and Wasim, including a picture of us laying on their parents’ bed which Yousef had sent me before being killed.
Not only has Israel taken those I shared these moments with, but even the physical spaces where we made them are gone.
The house where Yousef was killed was destroyed. It was my grandparents’ and it was where my father and uncles grew up, then lived in when they each started their own families. It’s where my siblings Majed and Majd, my cousins, and I were born. It’s where we took our first steps and uttered our first words.
The house has been attacked across several generations. During the first intifada, it was often subject to night raids by the Israeli army that unnecessarily terrorised my family, including through kidnapping. A month after my birth, Israeli forces broke in and ransacked the place, they beat my dad then put him in administrative detention for six months.
This home was the latest to be reduced to rubble. “Even when we can return to northern Gaza, there will be nothing left but destruction,” my uncle had said soon after it happened.
Honouring our martyrs
My displaced siblings all came to Barcelona the day after our family was killed. We held a two-day funeral to pay our respects and to pray for their souls, as well as those of all the martyrs of Palestine.
Despite their agonising pain over their loss, Mohammed and Sara – my aunt and uncle’s only surviving children – joined us via a video call and spoke to our international multi-faith crowd who joined my family in collective grief. The room was in utter shock listening to their accounts of how their playtime was disrupted by an Israeli massacre that rendered them orphans. Mohammed lost consciousness and woke up to realise his parents and brother Wasim were buried before he was even able to say goodbye.
The massacre had also taken place during Sara’s 12th birthday, shortly after she had gone out to play with friends nearby. She heard the explosion and rushed back to find the bloodbath. She went from one body to another, screaming, “Baba get up! Mama, get up!” but received no answer. This is the memory she will carry with every birthday she marks.
Wasim, who welcomed the birth of his first baby who was also named Yousef, on 7 October 2024 (of all days), was initially breathing following the attack. The fuel of the van that was taking him to hospital ran out and he died shortly after. Wasim’s young widow Mona remains in extreme shock. We can only pray that their baby survives.
I don’t know how we’ve continued to find the strength to wake up to constant horrors and losses. I believe that no human should be tested by such cruelty. But this burden shouldn’t be ours alone to carry.
Our grief, just like our love, is deep and constant. It feeds our ever-growing determination to end Israel’s relentless colonisation, occupation, theft and ethnic cleansing of our people. As my uncle told us before his death, even if the attacks stop, Gaza will be left with rubble and mass graves.
We will rise from the ashes, but Israel is ensuring its mission of genocide continues until the very last minute. Since the announcement of a ceasefire (before its official start), massacres have been reported nonstop across Gaza, with more families of medics and journalists being targeted.
May every martyr and survivor haunt those who facilitated, armed or justified this genocide, which will be imprinted in the minds of generations to come. Israel’s flagrant crimes are unforgettable and unforgivable, and all our energy must be invested in ensuring accountability, justice and freedom for the Palestinians. This is the least that can be done to honour the martyrs who must never be forgotten.
Shahd Abusalama is a Palestinian academic whose Ph.D at Sheffield Hallam University explored the historical representations of Gaza in colonial, humanitarian and Palestinian documentary films, which will be published by Bloomsbury under the title of “Between Documentary and Reality”. Shahd is an artist, activist, and the author of Palestine from My Eyes blog, also published as a book in ltaly in 2013. She is also a co-founder of Hawiyya Dance Company which showcases Palestine’s folkloric Dabke and music to UK audiences and beyond to amplify anticolonial and antiracist causes.
Follow her on Twitter: @ShahdAbusalama
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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.
