The ceasefire brought no relief. It just marked the beginning of another psychological war: new displacement, the endless search for missing loved ones, and the exhumation of bodies buried under rubble, writes Ahmed Alsammak. [GETTY]
It was midnight on December 28, 2008, during the first Israeli war on Gaza, when I was jolted awake by my neighbour shouting from their window: “Evacuate the house now! They will bomb it in minutes!”
Terrified, I had no idea what to do. My mother quickly woke my two siblings up, and we fled the house, still dressed in our nightclothes. We had barely gone 50 meters when missiles illuminated the area. We crouched beneath a wall for cover as rubble and smoke engulfed us. After a few moments, we started running again, heading towards my grandfather’s house, about 1.5 kilometres away.
It was the first war I had lived through, and I was only 13-years-old. I had been preparing for my exams and was eagerly awaiting the school holidays. When the attacks began, I had innocently asked my mother: “Is my schoolbag and stationery safe to take the next exam?”
Each day of war was a living hell. I couldn’t understand why they were bombing us, especially children.
The next morning, we returned to what was left of our home—a place my family had poured their life savings into. Three houses in our neighbourhood had been reduced to rubble. I couldn’t even recognise my room, nor could I identify the boundaries of our house.
When the war ended, most displaced people returned to their homes, except those who were killed, or those whose houses were entirely destroyed.
We were forced to rent a small apartment in a noisy and crowded part of Al-Bureij refugee camp, in the middle of the Gaza Strip. There was no space to play football or hide-and-seek with my siblings and cousins, but I didn’t complain—we were considered lucky to have found shelter. I had nightmares for months and didn’t dare leave the house at night for years after the war.
During my final year of high school, I worked tirelessly to achieve my dream of becoming a journalist—a career born from my passion to share with the world what life under occupation is truly like. But Israel launched another 8-day war on Gaza in 2012. Each second felt like an eternity as I lived in constant fear of being killed, losing my family, or seeing our home and school destroyed.
On the last day, just hours before the ceasefire came into effect, our house was bombed. It was one of the worst, most unbearable moments of my life. Most of the houses in my neighbourhood were also flattened. I cried inconsolably. It had taken us two years to rebuild after the first bombing, with a mountain of debt and loans. We were forced to endure more displacement.
That war left me with severe anxiety that significantly impacted my studies, lowering my GPA from 91% to 70%. But, thankfully, I was able to meet the required percentage for journalism school at Al-Azhar University in Gaza.
In 2013, I began my university studies, but I was always haunted by the horrors I’d experienced. We rebuilt the house again and moved back in in 2014, just a few months before the third bloody attack by Israel.
For weeks, Israel killed thousands of Palestinians. Whilst I didn’t lose any family members or our home, the psychological scars were unbearable. I couldn’t function. The horrors triggered severe anxiety and depression, robbing me of any sense of normalcy.
It’s almost impossible to find a Palestinian who hasn’t experienced this. I used to look at people’s faces after the war, they were filled with sadness and exhaustion. Even young people had wrinkles that told stories of suffering and hardship.
Every few months—or a year at most—Israel launches full-scale attacks or escalations of violence in Gaza. The aim seems to be to ensure that every Palestinian experiences the terror of war, forcing us to pay a heavy price simply for living in our homeland.
In September 2023, I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship to pursue my Master’s degree in Ireland. I travelled through the Erez crossing, which links Gaza with Israel. As we passed the land my grandparents were forcibly expelled from during the ethnic cleansing of 1948, I felt an overwhelming wave of sorrow. Tears streamed down my face when I saw Jerusalem.
I begged the driver to let me visit Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray and see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead. He apologised, as my permit was “shuttle” – meaning only crossing to Jordan was permitted, not exploring the city. I pleaded with him, but he refused.
I was utterly exhausted when I arrived in Ireland and I fell asleep immediately once I reached the hotel. When I woke up, I walked the streets, observing people’s faces. Their facial expressions were different from those in Gaza. Wrinkles were only visible on the elderly.
I spent the most beautiful few weeks of my life: safe and carefree, of course, because I was so far away from the Israeli occupation. No more wars, escalations, bombings, or electricity cuts – until the most recent genocide erupted. It was more brutal than the Nakba, as many older Palestinians told me.
Being away while having a family in Gaza is more harrowing than living through the war itself. In the first two months, I lost two uncles and many cousins. Shortly afterwards, our house was bombed by the Israeli army, who burned what remained of it when they stationed and besieged our neighbourhood.
The ceasefire brought no relief. It just marked the beginning of another psychological war: new displacement, the endless search for missing loved ones, and the exhumation of bodies buried under rubble.
Mothers notice the empty beds of their slain children, smaller portions of food as the family members are fewer now, smaller cutlery, and empty shoes that no one will ever fill. Widows yearn for the embrace of their husbands, while orphaned children go to school without breakfast, their mothers’ comforting laps now gone forever.
Palestinians now live with the atrocities they endured during one of the bloodiest genocides in modern history. Life will never ever be normal for Palestinians after this.
Ahmed Alsammak is a Palestinian journalist from Gaza where he covered the last three Israeli wars on Gaza. His works are published in The Intercept, Middle East Eye, and other outlets. He is currently based in Dublin where he is pursuing an MBA. Ahmed was a project assistant at We Are Not Numbers (WANN), a youth-led Palestinian nonprofit project in the Gaza Strip.
Follow him on X (Twitter): @Ahmed_al_sammak
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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.
