At dawn on 7 October last year, my wife Haneen and I prayed al-Fajr and ate breakfast. We work as teachers, and we were preparing our baby Majd to stay with his grandmother during the work day. Then we heard the sounds of rockets and missiles being launched from Gaza at Israel.

I told myself this wasn’t usual, and that something big was happening for sure. Yet I reassured my wife that everything was fine – that perhaps the rockets signified an Israeli assassination of a Hamas or Islamic Jihad leader and would not lead to a wider escalation.

I then searched on the internet and learned that this was very different than anything we had experienced before.

By the time local media revealed that Hamas had launched a large and deadly attack on Israel, Haneen and I were already preparing for the coming retaliation.

Leaving for the first time

We left our apartment and moved to my family house in our same Beit Lahiya neighborhood. We believed that being among our beloved family, including my mother, sister, two brothers and two nephews, would be better and safer in the hard times ahead.

Leaflets dropped from above by Israeli army drones contained threats and orders of forced evacuation to the south of Gaza. We, along with some other families, ignored them, determined not to leave our houses or our land.

We refused to live a second Nakba and experience what our ancestors did in 1948.

Day by day, things began to get worse. The Israeli occupation forces launched extensive and violent air strikes throughout Gaza. They attacked houses, mosques, governmental buildings, markets, farms and entire housing complexes.

My heart couldn’t bear this pain, and my brain couldn’t believe this insane hatred. It became routine to hear terrifying sounds of explosions due to airstrikes on civilians.

The hardest decision

My wife’s family evacuated from their house in Tal al-Hawa to a relatives’ house in Khan Younis. My wife wanted to go there with them.

This story of my displacements and separation from my wife and child for over a year is a chilling example of how Israel is carrying out revenge against all of Gaza.

I was determined not to be included in their revenge plans. I did not want to have the Israeli army forcibly displace me.

A plan in action

I took a taxi on the morning of 14 October 2023 and went with Haneen and Majd to Khan Younis, where her family was staying. I spent the night there and left them in the morning, saying I was going to the market to get some clothes.

She later told me that she had a feeling that morning that we would not meet again for a long time.

I couldn’t hug my wife or my baby, as I didn’t want to expose my plan, and I thought my in-laws might try to change my mind. I left the house in Khan Younis with sorrow.

Instead of a short trip to the market, I returned to my family house in the north. On 27 October, the Israeli forces launched a ground attack backed by heavy artillery bombardment and air strikes.

The sound of explosions became louder as shrapnel hit our neighbors’ homes.

When the Israeli forces reached areas close to the house where I was staying with seven family members, including my mother and sister, I could clearly hear the tanks.

Despite seeing horror and death when looking outside, I refused to leave the Khan Younis house.

On the afternoon of 27 October, a big explosion took place. It felt like an earthquake, as all the windows of the house shattered and I could barely see an inch ahead of me because of the heavy smoke and dust.

Moments later, I heard screams of neighbors calling for help. Israel killed 26 people in this attack, with most of the bodies trapped under the rubble.

I thought that the Israeli goal of this horrendous attack was to put fear and horror in our hearts and serve as a warning that there would be other attacks if we stayed.

Thus, my family and I moved to my grandfather’s house in the west of Jabaliya.

On 3 December 2023 the Israelis massacred more than 50 people nearby. This compelled us to leave again.

But this time we didn’t know where to go. The nearest evacuation center? A school? A tent?

I wished the ground would swallow me, and in a moment of despair, I asked a longtime friend who lived west of Gaza City for help in finding shelter. He said he knew a place. I was overjoyed when hearing this. Our group now included 32 people, and we all moved to a building now serving as a shelter near al-Shifa hospital.

A short time later, on 19 December, the Israeli military ended its operation in the north and withdrew. The next day we decided to return to the north of Gaza.

Turned into ashes

Another kind friend, Ouda, whose name means “return,” welcomed all of us to her home in Jabaliya.

We had been friends since 2005, often going shopping together and visiting each other in Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya and talking for hours about our lives, loves and dreams.

On 3 January, Ouda went out earlier than usual to get water. I was woken up by the sounds of explosions getting closer and closer. I hurried with neighbors toward the screaming and was shocked to realize the Israeli forces had bombed the people waiting in line to get drinking water.

Ouda had been reduced to scattered body parts. A shock of a lifetime, leaving me thinking Israel is out to destroy all Palestinians’ dreams of returning to their homeland.

Siege and starvation

When the attacks did not have the desired results of wiping everyone out, the Israeli military resorted to siege and starvation.

We suffered from a shortage of almost everything: fruits, vegetables, meat and baby formula. The most important and rarest thing that we sought was flour, and the lack of it became a public concern.

If there was bread, we wouldn’t die from hunger. Sadly, there wasn’t any flour.

To stay alive, many of us ate animal feed.

January and February were harsh months, and I seldom communicated with my wife and child due to the lack of an internet connection. Ramadan arrived in March, and instead of celebrating, we spent it hungry and helpless.

At the end of March, the Israel military withdrew from the north, and I was able to return to my former neighborhood. The Israelis had turned my apartment into a pile of ashes. Our bedroom, kitchen, library and possessions were all gone.

My brothers and I did our best to fix up our family home, which had been partly destroyed, and settled in for a while – until more Israeli attacks forced us to leave again.

Displaced one more time

Now I am displaced in the west of Gaza at my cousin’s house. I don’t know what lies ahead. I don’t know what my destiny will be.

Are they going to displace us from Gaza City to the south, to the two narrow evacuation camps in Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah?

I will continue to refuse any move to the south.

What I want is an end to this genocidal war and the return of my wife and child and all the people who have been forced to leave their houses.

I’m afraid that my wife and son won’t come back to me. Majd, my only child, was 9 months old when I last saw him on 15 October 2023.

I am told to believe he is with my wife living in a tent in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis.

Majd has walked his first steps away from my eyes, uttered his first words away from my ears. Those precious moments lost can never be reclaimed.

Presumably my wife and I are in the same territory, but we can’t reach each other. The Israelis split Gaza into north and south, and none of us can go from one side to the other.

My beloved Haneen is an excellent English teacher, talented writer and critical thinker. I remember our nights watching movies together and analyzing them critically. We used to prepare for classes together, exchanging thoughts and experiences.

I am paying a high price for being separated from my wife and son. My body is in the north while my soul is in the south.

Ahmad Majd is a writer in Gaza.

Tags

• forced displacement
• Gaza genocide
• Beit Lahiya
• northern Gaza

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