11 May
I awake to the drone of warplanes above and a soft rustling from the corner of my room. My cat Ghandoura is gently moving around three tiny bundles, breathing ever so lightly. The kittens were born three days ago and every time I look at them, they’re fast asleep, like a small wish that managed to survive the war. Every morning, I feed Ghandoura a spoonful of mashed baby food. Cat food has vanished from the shops.
Gaza, these days, is more exhausting than usual. Not the kind of fatigue that passes with rest, but the slow extinguishing sort. The children’s faces are pale, their shoulders thin, their eyes hollow. A general frailty hangs in the air. As for me, I’ve stopped eating bread. The flour is old, infested. We add vanilla and rosewater to trick ourselves, but I still can’t stomach it. I rely on lentils, fava beans, chickpeas and the occasional vegetable that shows up in the market like a rare, overpriced guest. I’ve been forced to invent new recipes, improvising as I go. Every dish I learned from my late mother is missing at least one ingredient when I make it now. If one ingredient is available, the other is not.
Today my sister Randa will visit with her new granddaughter, Aya, for the first time. Aya was born in March after four miscarriages. Her elder sister Sila was killed in December 2023 as the family tried to flee the bombing in Al-Shuja’iyya. My nephew Sameer – Sila’s father – was holding her, believing she was safe. He later told me: “Shrapnel was flying everywhere. I cradled Sila in my arms and brushed the dust from her face. She looked like a sleeping angel. I didn’t realise a small fragment had pierced her belly.”
Sila was only seven months old when she took her final breath in her mother Saja’s arms. Saja refused to let go of her body, holding her for a whole day. Then she fell into a long silence. Each time I visited, I would find her clutching a rosary, staring into the void. Then came Aya, like a breeze, bringing with her a little joy.
When the doorbell rings, it is my sister, along with Saja, and little Aya. My father takes the baby, laughing: “God bless her, a little bride from a little bride… May she grow up cherished and adored.” I hold Aya in my arms, tiny, warm and smelling of spring. We sit and drink tea. We curse Israel, the silent world, the ceasefire negotiations, and hunger.
Our home is in the Al-Sabra neighbourhood of Gaza City. The area is somewhat fortunate: the extent of the destruction here is minimal compared to other neighbourhoods. Only around 20 per cent of the homes and buildings have been reduced to rubble. Some of the neighbouring areas are difficult to access, but from what I understand, they are completely destroyed.
Still, like most homes in the Strip, we haven’t had electricity in nearly two years. Electrical appliances have become decor: the fridge is now a cupboard for tins, the lightbulbs ornaments. We rely on batteries charged, when possible, at those places that still receive power, or use candles when all else fails. We charge our mobile phones and other devices at a solar-powered station, taking turns and paying what little we have.
Each afternoon I head to a nearby co-working space, one of the places that still has power – a small office down a sidestreet with internet, lighting and company. Co-working spaces like this are used by students, freelancers, journalists and anyone else who doesn’t have internet access in their neighbourhood. We play cards, laugh, write, download files, read and imagine being anywhere that doesn’t resemble this place.
At the end of each day, a sharp question knocks on my chest: what’s the point? But despair is not a garment that will ever fit me.
23 May
My ringing mobile wakes me. I’ve overslept and on the end of the line is a woman with whom I’d arranged to barter a kilo of flour for a litre of vegetable oil. I’m late for our appointment. I wash my face and rush out of the door. The neighbourhood around me is coming alive. Water has finally returned to the municipal pipes after a week of absence, and my father is climbing the stairs with an overflowing bucket.
He calls out to my little brother Mahmoud, not yet eight years old, who is on his way out for the day. “My dear, don’t wander too far from the house,” he calls. “Don’t touch anything around the rubble of the destroyed house, there could be remnants of explosives. God be with you.” Mahmoud is preparing for his daily task. He slings a sturdy bag over his shoulders and sets off to collect fuel. Wood has become scarce, so Mahmoud will gather tree branches, cardboard and even plastic: anything that might spark a small fire we can use to cook and warm ourselves.
I have arranged to meet the woman with the oil at al-Saraya Roundabout. We’ve made this deal through a Facebook group dedicated to the exchange of goods and services. The war has forced us to adapt. As I near the roundabout, I see a young man no older than 20 sitting at a table with a few banknotes, a bottle of glue and a big box of coloured pencils. A small sign on his table reads: “Torn currency: restored like new.” This young man has taken up the trade of restoring money: cleaning it with an eraser, patching the torn edges back together with glue, then hiding the glue marks with coloured pencil.
In the midst of a severe cash shortage, and after most bank branches and ATMs have been destroyed, our banknotes have become tattered and worn. All the places selling the essentials – flour, vegetables, tea, coffee – aren’t set up to take bank cards, so we must pay in cash. We use the Israeli currency in Gaza, and commonly used denominations, such as the ten-shekel note, are no longer accepted due to their tattered condition. The practice of restoring money did not exist before the war, but it has become essential. You’ll find a stall like this every hundred metres or so.
When the lady arrives, she looks to be in her forties. I hand her the kilo of flour, and she gives me the litre of oil. She mentions a handbag, gifted to her by her sister in Saudi Arabia, which she will exchange if I’m willing to part with more flour. I shake my head. “I wish I could, but we don’t know how long the crossings will remain closed,” I reply. “You could make pasta from lentils to conserve flour.”
Mahmoud still isn’t back from his usual firewood trip when I return home around noon. An hour passes, then another. After three hours there’s still no sign of him. Worry creases my father’s face. He keeps walking to the balcony and scanning the street corners. When he can bear it no longer, he leaves the house and searches the neighbourhood. But he returns alone. Another heavy hour passes. Then, finally, we spot Mahmoud at the end of the street, the sack of wood slung over his shoulder. His cheeks are flushed from exhaustion and the sun.
We rush to the door and my father hugs Mahmoud with a mixture of worry and relief. Despite his tiredness, a small smile lights Mahmoud’s face. “I’ve brought you a surprise,” he says. He opens the sack and produces a small white bag, as if revealing a treasure. “Ahmed and I went to the orchard and picked vine leaves and mulberry leaves,” he says. “Today we’ll have a delicious meal, like in the days before the war.”
Mahmoud’s friend Ahmed is no older than ten and his father was injured in a bombing. Since then, Ahmed has become the man of the house, caring for his family with diligence. The orchard in question lies deep in the Tel al-Hawa neighbourhood, about an hour south of Gaza City, in an area largely deserted due to the Israeli military presence. Reaching the orchard is a perilous journey: military vehicles might appear at any moment and the sky could split open with a rocket’s scream.
But Mahmoud and Ahmed went, and Mahmoud and Ahmed came back. They brought back with them a memory from a time when food was a joy, not just a means of quelling hunger. Saja and I sit around a low, round wooden table. Over this we spread a hand-embroidered cotton cloth – one my mother had kept for special occasions – and begin to stuff Mahmoud and Ahmed’s vine and mulberry leaves with care.
Vine leaves, that old Levantine dish, made over hours and devoured in minutes: slices of potato and lemon at the bottom of the pot, topped with a layer of rice-and-meat-filled leaves, then more potato and lemon, and so on until the pot is full. It’s then covered with a rich mixture of tomato sauce, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice and plenty of olive oil. Now, however, we have no meat, no potatoes, no lemons and no olive oil. All we have are the vine and mulberry leaves, which we deliberately overstuff with rice. I don’t know if mulberry leaves feature in any known culinary tradition, but they’ve joined our pots.
Mahmoud insists on watching until the stuffed leaves are ready. He wants to be the first to taste them, sitting by the pot like a little guardian of the family table. When the lid is finally lifted, the steam rises like a warm cloud, filling the kitchen. Mahmoud claps, picks up a hot vine leaf and blows on it carefully.
“So, Mahmoud,” I ask, “Am I a good chef, or should I resign?” He raises his thumb in approval, still chewing with a satisfied smile. I add, “Don’t repeat what you did today. God protected you this time, but you mustn’t take such risks again, all right?” Mahmoud gives a small nod, immersed in his meal.
6 June
The cruellest thing about the daytime is that it never lasts. There is always a night waiting behind it, lying in ambush. Last night, I struggled to sleep. Nightmares interrupted every attempt to escape. I wake after midnight, breathless. There is a weight on my chest, invisible, yet heavy enough to choke me. Anxiety feeds on whatever peace I have left.
Outside, the sound of explosions never stops, broken only by scattered gunfire. It’s not anything new, but night sharpens everything – makes it all feel closer, more real. I don’t go to the window. I don’t need to see where the sound comes from. I’ve come to learn that expecting it doesn’t protect me, it just wears me down. I now know, by sound alone, when to brace myself for the glass to rattle.
Beside me, little Aya was sleeping, her mother holding her from the other side. They had taken shelter with us, along with my sister Randa’s family, after evacuation orders swept through Shuja’iyya, Tuffah, and parts of Zeitoun.
The men sleep in the guest room, the kind found in every Palestinian home. We always keep it ready, clean, waiting for our family, whose homes have become dots on the evacuation map.
Aya, who flinches with every blast, opens her eyes for a moment, lets out a soft cry, then drifts back to sleep. I reach out, gently place my hand on her head, then softly pat her chest. In a low voice, I sing her a traditional lullaby:
Time to sleep, time to rest, His soft hair falls on his brow.
I’d give him my soul and life,
And if he wants, my years as well –
I’d give him the best of days.
I sing until sleep pulls her under again.
In the morning, my friend Nour stops by, as she often does on her way to work. She is a dentist at a children’s clinic in the next neighbourhood. Today she looks more drained than usual. I light a pile of papers to make tea; I can’t find a single piece of firewood. It takes longer than usual, and its smoke clings to my hair and clothes. Nour takes her glass, sips gently, then drifts off into thought. Suddenly, she says: “Who was it who said: ‘We are fighting human animals’?”
It was Yoav Gallant, I say, Israel’s minister of defence, when he announced the siege on Gaza two days after 7 October. “He said it right at the start, 9 October 2023. ‘There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting animals and we act accordingly.’ I laughed at the time. Thought he was exaggerating. Thought the world wouldn’t allow it. I believed in law, in humanity. But there’s neither law, nor humanity.”
I think of all the atrocities that have happened since then. Five-year-old Hind Rajab, shot to death by Israeli tanks while trapped in a car, her final cries recorded, didn’t change a thing. The Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer who wrote “How many dead Palestinians are enough?” before he was killed in an air strike, along with his brother, sister and four of his nephews. The 50,000 children reportedly killed or injured. And today, after three months, with almost all aid still blocked, people are dying of hunger. “The world is silent,” I say to Nour. “You know what’s truly terrifying? When it becomes ordinary to see children under rubble, burned hospitals, people slaughtered live – and no one is held to account.”
Nour says: “Work has become a burden. All the patients are children, and my heart breaks for them. The signs of malnutrition are so clear. I can’t face this every day.”
After Nour leaves, I can’t stop thinking about her. My strong, determined friend, now worn out and disheartened. I wish I could help.
I often avoid the news. But somehow it always finds its way to me. Sometimes from a taxi driver, other times from my friends’ Facebook posts. This time, it comes from my six-year-old sister Fatima. She returns home from nursery, her cheeks flushed, and knocks gently on my bedroom door. I am feeding the kittens. Fatima says excitedly: “Sondos! I have good news! There’s going to be a ceasefire for two whole months!” I look at her, unfazed. Fatima continues, insistent: “I’m serious! Uncle Hani, the bus driver, told us the war is going to end. Uncle Hani knows everything!”
Fatima is partially right: there is a proposed American ceasefire meant to last for 60 days, in exchange for allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza. It was brokered by Qatar and Egypt, with the US as guarantor. But this is the same US that then used its veto at the UN Security Council to block a permanent ceasefire on 5 June – the fifth time it has done so since the war began. None of this makes sense. I’m not equipped to understand it.
I only live it, whether I want to or not.
Sondos Sabra is a Palestinian translator and writer. Her account of the war will appear in “Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide” (Comma Press), published on 26 June
[See also: Labour MPs are revolting over Gaza]
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This article appears in the 12 Jun 2025 issue of the New Statesman, What He Can’t Say