I left Gaza with guilt, sorrow and tears for the son Israel took from me
میدل-ایست-آی - 1404-07-11 14:30:08
I left Gaza with guilt, sorrow and tears for the son Israel took from me
After enduring 690 days of genocide, fear and hunger in Gaza, I survived in an unexpected way.
I am one of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza who have lost almost everything since 7 October 2023.
A few weeks into the war, my eldest son, Abdullah, 13, was killed when an Israeli air strike hit our family home in Rafah. The attack injured me and my other children and killed several of my relatives.
Not long after, my surviving children went abroad. Months later, the Israeli army destroyed the residential building where my apartment was. The homes of my relatives were also destroyed, along with my entire city.
I lost shelter, safety and all the conditions for survival. There was nothing more I could do in Gaza but wait in despair.
After more than a year and a half of genocide, a friend in the Netherlands contacted me about a position as a writer at De Correspondent. The process went smoothly: the newspaper applied for a work permit on my behalf, and within weeks, everything was arranged.
The most difficult step remained: leaving Gaza.
My Dutch friends and the team at De Correspondent worked hard to help. They contacted the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which, in turn, reached out to the Israeli and Jordanian authorities.
Eventually, permission was granted to 13 people from Gaza, including me, to travel to the Netherlands. The coordination took nearly two months - a long wait filled with anxiety - before the Dutch embassy finally confirmed my day of departure and the meeting point, and outlined the restrictions imposed by Israel at the crossing.
Israel barred us from carrying anything, including clothes other than the ones we were wearing, as well as bags, books and electronic devices - even a phone charger.
I did not object, as I had already lost nearly everything. It actually felt wrong to take my few belongings with me when so many Palestinians in Gaza had been left with nothing, so I distributed them among my siblings and relatives.
I lost my son, and then my shelter, safety and all the conditions for survival. There was nothing more I could do in Gaza but wait in despair
There was only one thing that weighed on me: I was not permitted to take with me the last of Abdullah's keepsakes. After he was killed, I gathered his clothes and toys in a special room of my apartment to preserve a part of his memory. But four months later, the Israeli army destroyed the building, and with it, all of his things. Only two items survived - his copy of the Quran and his comb - because I had kept them in a bag outside the flat.
The departure date was set for Wednesday 27 August 2025.
Since the conditions for leaving through the Israeli crossing were precarious, I told only my father. I greeted him the day before with a normal farewell and walked away. Then a terrible thought came to mind: could that have been our last goodbye? Didn't he deserve a warmer one? But I no longer find comfort in goodbyes.
My son Abdullah was in the middle of speaking to me when the bomb struck our home and, in an instant, he was gone.
Abdullah never uttered his last word, and I was never able to say goodbye to him. Since then, I have come to avoid forming attachments as much as possible.
Perilous passage
The meeting point for departure was near the Unicef office in Deir al-Balah.
Any delay could mean losing this rare chance that had come after nearly two years of impossible circumstances. None of us could sleep the night before, afraid the opportunity would slip away.
Two other travellers on the list, Hazem and his wife, Amal, were staying in Khan Younis. Unable to find transport at night, their only option was to journey to Deir al-Balah the evening before and sleep in a tent beside mine until departure time. By then, most of us had been living in tents after our homes were destroyed.
Moving at night was dangerous. The sky hummed with Israeli drones, constantly hovering overhead, launching strikes from time to time. But we had no choice and hoped that this would be our last night under the menacing buzzing of the drones.
Gaza has been without electricity for two years, but at 2.30am, the three of us made our way through the darkness towards the gathering point. We arrived and waited for an hour before our names were checked and we boarded a bus.
There were about 130 passengers in total, spread across three buses. They were students with scholarships, families reuniting, and others with work contracts. All had been cleared to leave by European embassies.
That day, a busload of survivors would leave the genocide behind, while two million others remained trapped under death.
We waited two more hours on the bus until the Israeli army gave the signal to move. After a long wait, the buses rolled south. Beyond Deir al-Balah was the city of Khan Younis, and further south, Rafah.
From there, we continued east until we reached the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, through which we would pass.
Land of rubble
As the buses moved south, the scale of destruction grew worse. The scene was terrifying - worse than a devastating earthquake. The Israeli army had passed through here: most of Khan Younis was destroyed, and the city of Rafah was completely wiped out. Wherever you looked - right, left or ahead - there was nothing but mounds of rubble, broken streets and bulldozed land.
Israel had carved new roads through the devastation to ease the movement of its vehicles. That scene summed up Israel itself: a state founded on the destruction of Palestinian life.
From its earliest days, it built public parks over the graves of its victims. The Israeli human rights group Zochrot has catalogued forests, parks and recreation sites planted by the Jewish National Fund on the ruins of villages destroyed in 1948-49.
Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's genocide in Gaza
It was the first time in nearly two years that I had been this far south.
Before the genocide, one could drive from the northernmost point of Gaza to the far south in less than an hour. But after the Israeli army's invasion and cutting up of Gaza, everything had changed.
I was forced to leave Rafah in May 2024, before Israel's invasion. Since then, like all those expelled under Israeli orders, I had never been able to return. Governments had declared Rafah a "red line", yet Israel invaded anyway, erasing the city and all its landmarks. Ironically, in doing so, it also erased the red line those governments had drawn.
I never imagined returning to Rafah in this way. Now, I was passing through only as a traveller in transit, uncertain whether I would ever return.
As the landscape of destruction unfolded, every sign of life had vanished. To my right and left were deserted neighbourhoods, once full of people before the Israeli invasion. For now, staying here meant certain death.
The further south we drove, the stranger the scene became. I began to see groups of people in cars and others waiting along the sides of the destroyed road. Their numbers continued to grow until they seemed to be in the thousands, at least.
Why would anyone gather in such deadly, dangerous places? I quickly understood: they were aid seekers.
Driven by desperation, people risked their lives to obtain aid boxes from the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, established by Israel and the US administration in these dangerous areas.
The risks were immense, as at least 2,000 people seeking aid had been killed in just three months, according to the UN Human Rights Office. Still, people risked their lives knowing the high probability of death, a reflection of their despair and the absence of alternatives.
Many were fathers who could not bear to watch their children go hungry while they had no means of feeding them. They had to choose between certain hunger or risking death for the small chance of bringing food home.
Farther south, where the people had vanished, the road to the crossing was littered with torn relief boxes and thousands of flour sacks. Hazem, who was sitting across from me, pointed and said: "Look at all of this food just thrown in the street. How much the people of Gaza need it."
Palestinians recognise that the small amount of aid Israel allows in is not out of concern for the people, but to promote its image through supportive outlets.
Once that image is secured, it does not matter whether the aid is discarded in the streets or looted by gangs, whom Israel protects. The hungry can die, and Israel does not care.
Law of colonisers
At 9am we arrived at the Karem Abu Salem crossing, renamed by Israel as Kerem Shalom, where Gaza meets the lands occupied since 1948.
This would be the first time in my life to cross here, and the first time I would deal directly with the Israeli army.
This had been the reality of Gaza since 1994, when I was just 10 years old. After the Oslo Accords, Israel relinquished control of Gaza's civil administration, which reduced contact between Palestinians and Israeli authorities.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from its settlements in Gaza and from the Rafah crossing, which connects Palestine to Egypt, and became the only passage for Palestinians in Gaza.
Before the war, I travelled several times, but it was always through Rafah and did not involve interaction with the Israeli military. Now everything was completely different.
A few minutes later, for the first time in my adult life, I would see an Israeli soldier up close.
The bus stopped, and an Arab worker at the crossing got on. He seemed to be from the Negev. He read out the list of prohibited items: everything was forbidden except documents and a wallet. Even the small bag carrying those documents had to be thrown away. After he left, we waited on the bus for more than an hour.
The passengers began to get off the bus, waiting to be called. Hazem turned to me and said: "The air here is fresh and the place is very quiet. We don't hear the buzzing of drones at all."
I replied: "This fresh air comes from our sea, and this place where this military site now stands is our farmland. This is always the law of colonisers. They steal the most beautiful and abundant parts of the land, confine the indigenous people to narrow enclaves, and deprive them of the necessities of a decent life."
One of the students with us, who came from a nearby distribution point, returned carrying bottles of water. He kindly offered me one. I told him: "I can't accept it from the army." He clarified: "It's not from the army. It's from the Red Cross", so I accepted.
One wrong move
We headed to a shaded area and stood in line to have our IDs checked. Another Arab worker sat there with a mobile phone, speaking to an Israeli officer on the other side of the line.
He looked at our IDs and relayed the numbers to the officer, ensuring the names matched. Once a name was confirmed, the traveller stepped into a small room, stood behind a curtain, and looked into a camera so the soldiers could see him and verify his identity. The next step was to walk towards the inner gate of the crossing.
I walked along a wide path surrounded by fences and walls, with cameras installed and monitored by soldiers from their posts.
When I reached a red light, I came to a stop. A soldier, fortified in a military tower, responded in broken Arabic through a loudspeaker. I could hear his voice but not see his face: "Walk."
I continued alone. After about 200 metres, I reached a crossroads. I did not know whether to continue straight or turn right.
Here, one wrong move could mean death - the easiest thing for an Israeli soldier to do is shoot. How many Palestinians have been killed simply because of a soldier's estimate? Confused, I stood still. Knowing he was watching me, I raised my hand in a gesture asking which way to go. His voice crackled through the speaker again: "Go right."
I took a deep breath, relieved to be back on the safe side, and hurried forward.
Most of the travel process was carried out by cameras, with no direct contact between soldiers and travellers.
There is no doubt that one feels a sense of humiliation when reduced to nothing more than a security case for the army to inspect.
And yet I could not deny a strange comfort in not directly confronting them. There are barriers too significant, and wounds too deep, to overcome: this army occupied my land, killed my son, demolished my home, destroyed my city.
Psychologically, it was easier not to see their faces.
Faces of killers
At another inspection station, the workers were also Arabs. I did not know exactly who they were - most likely second-class Israeli citizens. Israel employs these non-Jewish workers for menial jobs or pushes them into duties carrying greater risk, while the Zionist master remains behind fortified walls, overseeing it all.
We were searched through machines before proceeding to the final station of the crossing. Finally, we stood in front of the Israeli soldiers, armed with assault rifles.
It is highly likely that any one of these soldiers had participated directly in killing - and here they were, laughing, eating and talking
One soldier stepped forward with a list. He checked our names one by one, crossing them off as we were confirmed for departure.
He often did not look directly at us, and I did not look directly at him. I extended my passport. He glanced at the name and muttered in Hebrew: "Kain", which means "done".
I went to sit on a bench nearby, waiting for the procedures to finish so we could board the bus. Meanwhile, the soldiers moved around us, rifles slung, talking and laughing.
Up to this point, I had only known Israeli soldiers through rockets and death. Now I was close enough to see them talk, laugh and eat. Curiosity pushed me to glance quickly at their faces, studying their features.
A question weighed on my mind: how can a face that laughs also be the face of a murderer?
These soldiers serve in an army that has committed genocide for nearly two years, and colonised and subjugated a people for 77 years. It is highly likely that any one of them had participated directly in killing - and here they were, laughing, eating and talking.
How does a person reconcile such contradictions?
Indeed, human beings are strange creatures - capable of pretending, lying and deceiving even themselves.
As much as I wanted to avert my eyes, I also wanted to study the soldiers' faces, as though I might penetrate the depths of their inner selves. At the same time, I feared that staring for too long might normalise the killers by creating a sense of familiarity, so I limited myself to quick, fleeting glances.
Bitter reprieve
We boarded a bus that carried us beyond the crossing. On the other side, embassy buses were waiting, their flags displaying the countries that had arranged our travel.
The Dutch delegation welcomed us and provided each of us with an entry visa, which is impossible to obtain while inside Gaza due to its complete isolation from the outside world. They also offered us food.
Holding a meal in my hands, I felt a kind of guilt and betrayal. Food is one of the most basic human necessities, yet in Gaza, it has become a distant dream for children. Before I left, I heard a group of children talking about their dreams. They were not about toys, travel or games - only about a type of food they craved but had not tasted in many months.
I was now fulfilling the dream of more than two million Palestinians still trapped in Gaza: to have freedom, safety and food. But the pain remained then as it does now. This was only an individual salvation. How could I celebrate my own escape from hell when everyone else remained prisoners within its walls?
I could only tell myself that I had endured 690 days of loss, hunger and fear alongside my people. Perhaps now, from outside, I could do something to make their voices heard.
We left Gaza behind and headed towards the Jordan crossing. It was the first time in my life I had entered our lands occupied in 1948, which have since been called Israel. The vast majority of Gaza's families, including mine, were forcibly displaced from towns and villages in what is now Israel.
Returning to these original hometowns is a common dream for Palestinian refugees - a story that grandparents pass down to their grandchildren. I had long dreamed of visiting them.
I finally saw them today, but only through the bus window. We were being deported. Leaving the road was forbidden. The bus took us deep into the Negev, through Arad and past the Dead Sea.
There was a shorter route across the West Bank, but Israel barred us from it. Perhaps it feared that even seeing the people and towns of the West Bank would spark a sense of unity and connection to other parts of our homeland. I do not know. But with a colonial mentality, nothing surprises me.
Road to exile
On the other side of the road, I saw life carrying on as usual. People were only a few kilometres away from the genocide perpetrated by their army. Some of them were soldiers themselves, perhaps on leave after taking part in the slaughter.
There, death was being poured onto two million people in a vast detention camp under catastrophic humanitarian conditions. Here, daily life continued, as though nothing were wrong. Perhaps it was because they did not see the victims behind the fence as equals in humanity or believe their lives mattered.
That is how they reconcile themselves with genocide - by pretending it does not exist.
Along the way, I saw vast, empty lands. Residential areas appeared like small oases in a vast desert. Why, then, does Israel prevent Palestinian refugees from returning to their towns when there is so much abundant land?
It brought to mind the studies of Palestinian historian Salman Abu Sitta, who found that more than 80 percent of the land from which Palestinian refugees were expelled remains either empty or very sparsely populated, with most Israelis concentrated in large cities.
This means there is more than enough land in historic Palestine for all the displaced to return and live alongside the Jewish population. The problem, clearly, is not a lack of resources or space, but colonial greed and a supremacist ideology.
The bus driver suggested I sit near him so we could talk. He told me he was from Jerusalem. Palestinians between the river and the sea do not inhabit a contiguous geographic space. Israel has deliberately reinforced this separation to fragment Palestinian identity.
Like most of my generation and those younger, I had never visited Jerusalem or the West Bank. I was excited to meet a Palestinian from Jerusalem.
We exchanged some stories. The driver told me he had not been able to travel for 20 years because of identity and residency issues in Jerusalem. Every Palestinian has their own personal tragedy, inflicted by the realities of the occupation.
After about five hours, we reached the bridge crossing between Palestine and Jordan. We waited two hours on the bus before a Jordanian security officer, accompanied by an Israeli soldier, boarded to check the passenger list. Their communication was smooth, as they worked together on a daily basis.
We were then transferred to another bus, this time driven by a Jordanian. The driver waved at an Israeli female soldier standing nearby with a casual familiarity - surely from seeing each other every day. In Gaza, Palestinians only know Israeli soldiers from behind walls or from warplanes above. Such scenes do not exist in our world.
Peace must create a beautiful feeling, I thought. But for peace to last, it must be built on justice and an end to oppression.
The bus took us to a nearby building inside Jordan, where we waited for passport checks. We sat for more than five hours. No one seemed to know the reason for the delay, let alone why these lengthy procedures were necessary in the first place, especially since the Jordanian authorities had long been notified of our arrival and knew we would only be transiting for a few hours.
The procedures ended after midnight, and the bus took us to a hotel near the airport. The Dutch embassy coordinator informed us that we had to be at the airport by 8am, meaning we would get no more than five hours' sleep. The Jordanian authorities seemed eager for us to leave, their urgency driven by political considerations.
The governments of Jordan and Egypt have repeatedly declared their rejection of the displacement of Palestinians from Gaza. In reality, their role has been limited to policing borders so that Palestinians do not cross, rather than exerting real pressure to end the massacres and destruction, and to ensure that people have the means to remain on their land.
What remains
That night, as we waited in Jordan, I messaged my family to surprise them with news of my departure. My 10-year-old daughter Batoul, who is receiving treatment abroad, sent me a voice message. In an emotional voice, she said: "Daddy, really? I can't contain my joy!" Batoul had been afraid for me while I was still in Gaza.
I shared a selfie for the first time since the war began with my sister in Egypt. She replied with a voice message in tears, shocked at how pale I looked and how much weight I had lost.
Part of me remained behind: the grave of my son Abdullah, which I had not been able to visit since Israel's invasion of Rafah
This is the condition of every Palestinian in Gaza. Not a single person has been spared by this war. I left behind my family, friends, and an entire people still facing death in all its forms alone.
When the plane finally took off, borders seemed to fade and the horizon widened. I have always loved the feeling of freedom that comes with flying.
At that moment, I could finally say: I have survived genocide, my body is no longer in Gaza.
But part of me remained behind: the grave of my son Abdullah, which I had not been able to visit since Israel's invasion of Rafah. The cemetery had reportedly been levelled, but with the city under military control, no one was able to reach it to confirm.
I remembered the belongings of his that I had been forced to leave and broke down in tears. In Gaza, there was never time to cry.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
