In Gaza, Israel destroys our homes and forces us to burn their memories

Yesterday I finally went to my sister Haya’s house, almost five months after it was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes, to collect furniture and other items to use as firewood and whatever else was left of the house .

At first I tried to avoid the pain of going there, as I had formed rich memories in his house, which is now in ruins. There were times when my sister and I would sit together and chat over a cup of coffee or when I would escape the busy places around me and find a quiet place in her house to write and sit with my thoughts.

Haya and her husband, Hammam, ran a small flower and home decor shop on the main floor of their building. Her house was full of beautiful details, which reminded me of a small art museum.

There was harmony between the purple sofas, the beige carpets and the white curtains. There was a corner for natural flowers and another for Haya’s handmade peasant embroidery art. Her children’s room had a bookcase in the shape of a tree on the wall. And there was a large dining room table that became my favorite place to write.

On May 15, the five-story building was hit in a heavy wave of airstrikes on al-Wehda Street, a densely populated area in central Gaza City. The bombing came nearly two years after Israel’s deadly May 2021 massacre that killed at least 44 Palestinian civilians.

Haya, Hammam and their children were lucky to have fled south before their building was attacked. Twenty-five members of Hammam’s family were trapped inside for 15 days during the Israeli raid on the neighborhood.

Only one person survived, while the bodies of the others remain buried under the rubble due to the lack of adequate civil defense capabilities in northern Gaza.

distant memories

I was getting out of the shower when we got the news from Hammam’s relatives. I joined my family in the living room, where they sat in terrifying silence. Their pale faces scared me.

Like most Palestinians in Gaza, my family is completely dependent on firewood for cooking and boiling water, as cooking gas has not entered Gaza since last October.

“Who was killed?” I asked, my voice shaking. “Haya’s house, full of people, was bombed,” my mother muttered in pain. “May Allah pour out His wrath on Israel.” I returned to the bathroom and wept over our fate, which seemed to be filled with endless loss.

Weeks after Israel’s incursion into the neighborhood, I tried to avoid walking down the street. He didn’t want to accept the reality that the house was gone, that the kind people who lived there were trapped under the rubble, and that every moment he spent there was now just a memory. I often think of how our memories of Gaza are like olive trees, deeply rooted and difficult to uproot despite the painful cost of resistance.

But my family, like most Palestinians in Gaza, especially those who stayed in the north, are completely dependent on firewood for cooking and boiling water, since cooking gas has not entered Gaza since October of last year.

Many people collect wood from the remains of their destroyed houses or cut down trees in the streets.

Some even use their clothes and furniture to make a fire, while others buy firewood if they can. For my family, we first used our old furniture and then bought some firewood. But now, even buying firewood has become difficult as the war has dragged on for over a year.

Going to Haya’s house was my only option.

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It felt exhausting because it was my first time going there, not to visit or share a cup of coffee or write, but to pick up what was left of the destroyed house.

I went with two friends so that if something happened to one of us, the others could help. This war has taught us not to do anything alone: ​​if you get killed, at least someone will know.

We entered the rubble through a neighbor’s partially destroyed house. For a moment, I couldn’t move as a flashback hit me like a wave, overwhelming and painful. Every memory of that house played before me like scenes from a distant movie.

I heard the whispers, laughter, tears, and conversations that once filled this place. I felt like I was in a nightmare until my friend Wissam’s excited voice brought me back to reality: I had found large pieces of wood.

We dug deeper into the rubble, looking for more. It was a strange mix of emotions: bitterness as I tripped over broken clothes, photo albums, and furniture, and a sense of pain for the people still trapped under the rubble, perhaps a few feet below us.

Becoming numb

My heart raced every time I touched any piece of furniture, my mind processing that the place that once felt like home was now reduced to rubble. But I couldn’t hide the slight sense of relief with each item or piece of wood we found, as if we were unearthing some buried treasure.

Even though the house was completely destroyed, I kept looking for things that could never be found, like the chair I sat on, the large mirror with the embroidered frame hanging in the living room, the family photo that greeted me once in the corridor, and other irreplaceable pieces.

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We moved quickly. This war has taught us in Gaza to always be ready for the next strike and always prepare to flee.

My heart pounded in my chest as we stood over the wreckage, the air thick with the dust of destruction. I imagined that the debris above could crash at any moment. I felt a cold sweat on my back, fearing that we would be bombed as the Israeli drones always bomb the destroyed houses, claiming that the resisters were hiding in the rubble.

We stopped after five hours because night was falling. Finally I realized that my hands and clothes were bleeding from the pieces of glass and stone. The sight of blood shocked me, not because of the pain – I hadn’t even felt it – but because it made me realize how numb I had been to the devastation around me.

On the way home with a cart full of wood, people looked at us, their eyes full of envy or despair.

“You won’t need to buy wood for months,” said one man, looking at the cart full of gold. A woman approached us. “There is not a single piece of wood in my house,” she said despairingly. “I have been searching the streets for hours with no luck; please give me firewood so I can cook for my children.”

I gave him some, but I couldn’t explain that it wasn’t just firewood—it was a lifetime of memories.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.