On 7 October, I woke up to a call from my brother Baraa.

Having only arrived in Canada two weeks prior, my family and I were still adjusting to the time zone differences, making unexpected late-night calls.

I wasn’t anticipating any news. I thought it was just a call for our usual chats.

However, the news was the worst I could expect: war.

“Hamas launched thousands of rockets on Israel,” Baraa said. I worriedly rushed to the TV and turned on Al Jazeera.

I was happy to finally watch people breaking the siege of Gaza and to see Gazan youth finally savoring a taste of freedom.

Deep down I knew that Israel’s revenge would not be usual.

From that day, the news was horrible and relentless.

I never followed the news, even during the previous wars against Gaza.

Long cuts to electricity and the internet meant that I could not. I would quickly browse social media or Telegram, the app of war for Gazans.

The difference then was that I was there with my family, experiencing the same things they were. If anything would happen, it would happen to all of us.

Ironically, this was quite reassuring.

Survivor’s guilt

Now I am far from them, thousands of miles away. And they are engulfed in the most violent war ever – cold, starving and in constant danger.

I am far away from the bombings. I am safe from the danger.

Survivor’s guilt gnaws at me persistently.

I am glued to my phone 24/7.

From Telegram to Twitter to Facebook to Al Jazeera. In bed, at work, when I travel and when I eat.

I wake up multiple times at night to check the news.

I lost hope in WhatsApp. I stopped waiting for a message in the family or friends’ groups that I muted because they were annoying me

Every day, I receive the news of many people who I have known getting killed, either individually or in massacres.

Family members, neighbors, friends, colleagues, teachers, mentors, people who I worked with, people who I have met.

And I cannot say goodbye to anyone or console anyone.

I can spend hours browsing old photos on my phone, missing every corner of Gaza, every familiar face and every cherished memory.

Even our street – a street that was not asphalted. I miss it even though it made my shoes dirty.

Israel has turned these memories into rubble.

Disconnection

Communications blackouts amplify this feeling of disconnection, not being able to hear from my family for several days at a time.

Whenever I call, I must hear the voice recording of the Jawwal network: “This number is not available at the moment. Please try later.”

After many attempts, I sometimes hear my mom’s voice or one of my brothers.

“How are you? How is everything?” I ask.

The answer is always: “Still alive.”

Each call, we talk about the same things: school, food, water, clothing, rain, people who are killed or injured.

The sounds of drones and constant bombings are always in the background.

As days pass, things get awkward as we cannot find anything to talk about. The suffering is the same everyday but getting worse.

We can spend minutes silently looking for a new topic. We talk like strangers.

Their answers to my questions are reduced to one or two words.

What they have experienced and are still experiencing is unimaginable.

Calls will end with “Alhamdulillah. Take care of yourself.”

The news of shelling in the area where my family has taken shelter is dreadful.

A worse scenario is when the news reports only the number of people killed. No names.

Anxiety spikes when names are given and there are surnames similar to mine.

My reaction is constant and meticulous. I search for the videos released with my hand on my heart.

It once happened and could be repeated anytime. I saw my uncle queuing in front of a bakery that was bombed in Nuseirat, central Gaza.

He could have been killed in that bombing but a second of time saved him.

Deliberate tactic

I sometimes watch video reports from schools or hospitals so that maybe I can catch a glimpse of someone from my family.

I once saw an old man waving goodbye behind an Al Jazeera reporter. Surely he was reassuring a relative inside or outside Gaza.

The stories of my grandparents flash through my mind.

They experienced the Nakba, the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. During that time, they sent messages over the radio.

We are living through a new Nakba. The details are shockingly similar.

The communications blackout has created divisions between people inside and outside Gaza.

I believe this is a deliberate tactic Israel uses to torture or kill Palestinians in an even more brutal manner. No one would be able to call for help or tell the world about the Israelis’ crimes.

They can kill Palestinians in the dark with as little noise as possible.

The feeling that my family is experiencing all of this horror, hunger, thirst and homelessness, while I am helpless and cannot do anything, is unbearable.

The life of people in Gaza halted on 7 October. So did the life of every Gazan outside Gaza.

We are not physically there yet we are so emotionally attached.

A friend of mine who lives in Qatar has experienced 70 panic attacks in a week.

I feel so sad for people who lost tens of their family members and are living abroad alone.

They have nobody to share their sadness with or to console them. Or they are surrounded by people who are neutral, feeling the same for the victim and the killer.

Or people who didn’t hear about Palestine before, asking: “Where are you from?”

“Palestine.”

“Pakistan?”

“Palestine, you dumb.”

Moreover, they are subjected to the comments of pro-Israel folks celebrating their family’s murder and posting hurtful comments. Others are questioning if this killing is real because how on earth can such a huge number of people live in the same house.

Watching the televised real-time genocide of Gaza, I saw that everything is destroyed: the school and the university where I studied and learned, the hospital where I trained and worked, the restaurants where I ate with friends, the market where I shopped with my sister, the park to which I went with my family at weekends, the beach I visited after finishing my exams.

Israel destroyed all these places and memories. But amid this unfathomable loss, the resilient spirit of Gaza endures.

We will get back to our houses and rebuild again.

Gaza will be revived.

Sewar Elejla was formerly a doctor at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza. She is now a Canada-based researcher.

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