Day 1 of the Massacre, October 7th 2023 Attack

Good morning from in front of the window overlooking the garden of my house, filled with dates falling on the ground. My grandfather planted this palm tree many years ago. He passed away two years ago, at the age of 80, older than the occupation. I would have liked to say that my morning resembles the jasmine covering the house, but the sounds are enough to strip you of all emotions and fill your heart with fear. Children running into their mothers' arms, thinking that this wide embrace will protect them from the occupation's airplanes. If the stone was destroyed, what would a missile do to my mother's embrace!

Day 3 of the Massacre, October 9th 2023

There is a weird smell. I feel like my lungs are going to explode at any moment. I feel strange pain all over  my body, and this means that we are being attacked with the internationally prohibited white phosphorus. The Israeli army is again asking the people of the Gaza Strip to leave to Egypt, while, at the same time, it is bombing  the Rafah crossing. No water, no electricity, no internet, and the  city center has been completely destroyed, where all people had their businesses. All aid has stopped and the world keeps its mouth shut in front of this fascism.

We are here to tell the world that you know that this is our right to defend ourselves, no matter how much you try to publicly  distort the image of the Palestinian  . This is our right since the zionist occupation started killing and displacing us in 1948, and stealing  our land. The leaders of the world know this, and they have also contributed to this occupation. Some of their people know, while others, the majority, are unaware and do not know the truth of the matter. However, this does not negate our right to self defense, no matter what.

The last thing I would like to say or what I could express is that my grandfather who planted the date trees in front of our home before he died, had refused to leave the house during every attack on the Gaza Strip. We, too, shall not forcibly  leave. 

Day 5 of the Massacre, October 11th 2023

Cold stings. After many attempts at falling asleep and overcoming the sounds of explosions, the cold stings you so that you don’t miss out on the entire scene that is happening to you. Now: a new massacre in the Karamah Towers in Gaza. People are crying out for ambulances but the area is still being bombarded. News of people who have charred, without anyone reaching them; the bombardment hasn’t stopped and white phosphorus and concussion bombs are perishing   our bodies. 

At this moment, with the cold and my chest pain, together with the bombing of Al-Rasheed Street, I am reminded of the sea. Every winter, I begin to feel something like chest cracks with the cold and I’ve never known the reason behind this pain despite running many tests. Al-Rasheed Street, which overlooks the sea and is called the corniche and which is the only haven for the residents of Gaza, is being fiercely bombarded.

Day 5 of the Massacre, October 11th 2023

10th of October is my mother's birthday, after we were forced to leave our house in Al Shujaiyyeh neighborhood, she sat on the chair saying: "If every mother hid her son, who's going to defend the land?"

Day 12 of the Massacre, October 18th 2023

My friend says that October is the month of falling in love, the weather changes from unbearable heat to one with cool breeze. When we go out at night with friends, we take a jacket to protect ourselves from that breeze, and whoever forgets his jacket, protects himself by his friend’s shoulder,  until he returns home and protects himself with the walls. 

Tonight was very harsh, the occupation army turned October from a month of falling in love to one of killing friends. Yesterday at 7pm, the occupation bombed Al Ma’medani (Baptist) hospital in Gaza, leaving more than 500 martyred and a lot injured. Among them was my friend Mohamed Qreiqa’a, a tall and handsome young man whose art paintings expressed the monstrosity of the occupation. Mohamed left his house in Shujaiyyeh to the hospital seeking shelter and protection, he left his art at home. He left his soul,  not knowing that death was awaiting him. 

The occupation is denying the massacre, they’re claiming the resistance did it, but given the magnitude of damage, it’s clear the occupation did it - no one else could. 

Dignity has dried up from the faces in the  world as they are watching what’s happening. So has the Arabness, and the humanity from people's hearts.. Even the Human Rights Organizations are useless… because, to them, a Palestinian is not human. Maybe if they had substituted their international declaration with the concept of human rights, maybe then they can do something and remember every human’s right to safety. 

Now young people are falling in love in Paris, Berlin and Barcelona, but Mohamed wasn’t there, he was at the Ma’medani hospital to tell the world that his art stands as a reminder that October is the month of death.  

Day 19 of the Massacre, October 25th 2023

Winter is coming. My friends and I used to compare Gaza’s streets with those of Paris, mocking how bad our infrastructure is. Rain floods neighborhoods, water enters  houses and sometimes people would use small boats for transportation. Sewage pipes would get clogged and a stinky smell fills up the place. 

Those who like winter long for it, just like lovers who wish to live a unique feeling under the rain, and sometimes they can experience this for a very short while, asthey steel those moments, away from the gaze of their parents. This city doesn’t recognize lovers unless through marriage. They steal kisses and hugs in alleys, or in staircases. 

This winter, they’re texting under a blanket of Israeli missiles without hugs.  They stand in long queues for hours, just  to get some drinking water and bread. This winter is going to be very bitter, houses are completely demolished, with holes in their walls and ceilings, and no embraces to make the cold gentler. 

Many families have set up tents in the South. I have found out later, that the streets of Paris are full of rats, fleas - and that the streets of Gaza are more beautiful, if it weren’t for what the occupation is doing.

Day 23rd of the Massacre, October 29th 2023

Friday 27.10 6:15 pm Gaza time. The story telling and chatting gathering time at my aunt's house turned into a mass grave. The Israeli occupation bombed the house over our heads without any warning.

I was talking to my uncle Adham in Berlin as the house was hit. One moment I was sitting on a chair on the roof with my family and the next I found myself under the rubble. I don't know when we were hit, I blacked out for a few seconds then opened my eyes. I felt like I'd been buried alive with tons of smoke in my mouth. That very cloud of smoke that I usually see when houses, which I was once inside of them, get hit.   

I started looking for those I was with at the moment of the assault: my sister, my cousin, and my other cousin. I found them and began recording a message to my friend, Reef, in Jordan, and to my uncle, so that they would let the world know about this inhumane attack.

After ten minutes of being inside the smoke, I went downstairs, only after my brother said that the path was clear on the ground floor. We began counting and checking each other, , and everyone responded  except for my father. We started calling out and digging everywhere until he heard us.

We removed the rubble with our bare hands and broken bodies to get him out. The neighbors came to help us leave the building immediately, expecting that the house would most likely be bombed again, as usually is the case. We didn’t care and we continued removing the rubble until we got him out.   In a second, we all made the decision that we are not  going to leave without him, as e we know too well, that rescue teams  fear the night, and that ambulances can’t work, and that it will take days for someone  to show up and help because of the large numbers of victims on daily basis.

We left the girls at the neighbor’s house and took my father on a stretcher to the emergency room at Al Shifa hospital, where they administered first aid. My father had a broken right foot and a broken left arm. He spent more than 3 hours on the hospital floor after being removed from beneath the rubble, with nothing underneath him to relieve his pain. I lost my mind. I took what I could, at times by force and at times nicely, anything to ease my father's pain. After 5 hours, we got a mattress for him to lie on. An hour later, a doctor stitched his head without anesthetic, because of short supply; anesthesia is reserved for more  severe cases.

Al Shifa hospital is full of people. They are everywhere. In the corridors, in the back streets, so many displaced people are here seeking refuge in the hospital, so many injured, and so many dead people in a tent in the hospital yardWe can smell them in every moment. Inside that tent, there is a bowl. A bowl of body parts. Body parts of the children of Gaza in a big bowl.

The next day, my father was referred to the European Hospital to have his foot and arm operated on. Another diagnosis was given: his left eye has an internal bleeding, tearing of the iris, and a dislocated lens. Three days without a proper diagnosis and tomorrow they operate on him. There might be a problem with the nerves in his hand. His femur is getting a platinum implant to support it, and that's still an initial diagnosis.

My name is Esam Hani Hajjaj from Gaza, and I left my home in Shujaiyyeh with my family before it was bombed,  to my aunt’s home in Al Zaytoon neighborhood, only to have  it bombed while we were in it.

My name is Esam from Gaza, and my head and right shoulder injuries weren't even checked because I could move and there are other more important casualties to attend to.

My brother's name is Ahmed and his back was burned.

My sister's name is Shaymaa, she miraculously survived , and her foot was injured.

My cousin Ahmed is 8 years old and his head was injured.

All night long, my aunt has been telling me, Esam, name this story the Tomb of Life. We were saved by a miracle from that grave. When we entered our home the following morning, we could see it. We could see clearly that it was just that God willed a longer  life for us. 

Day 26th of the Massacre, November 1st  2023

A cold shower after 4 days of not showering gives you a sense of humanity. I went to the hospital bathroom to get a shower and I found a young girl waiting to shower as well.  ٍShe has a fair skin and hazel eyes. She smiled to me when my eyes met hers, and she started talking to me. I asked her about her name and age. She said her name was We’am and she was 10 years old. 

We’am insisted I shower before her.he made me smile, this little one, despite all the pain that we’re going through. As if she gently patted my heart with her palm. After we decided that I was going to shower first, she told me that I needed a plastic bag to put my clothes, and she rushed to get me one. I went into the bathroom, took my clothes off, put them in the bag We’am got me, and turned the faucet on. 

A few minutes later, I went outside to find We’am waiting. I was drying the floor  as she asked me how old I am and I asked  her to guess. She said she likes guessing and she started guessing until she reached 27. She said: ‘we left our home because my brother insisted we do not stay another minute. They still hit him while he was at a cafe, but he survived.’   She asked about my name and I said Esam and “if you need anything just come and tell me.” I finished drying up the floor and left her to get her cold shower. I stood outside underneath the sun and a few minutes later, We’am came outside with wet hair, looking like a princess, coming out to greet her people. Then she gave me a big smile and went her way

After her smile left my sight, the nurse came to tell me that my father’s surgery is next, “come prepare him” he said. It looks like We’am’s smile took away my sense of time, to the extent that I felt everything happened in a split of a second. 

My father underwent the operation and came out well, with platinum pieces in his arm and foot, holding the bones together. But it wasn’t all good news, we were told that he lost his right eye. The doctor said they might be able to restore his sight because the damage hasn’t reached the cornea but that needs care outside of Gaza. And with every passing moment, his eyesight becomes irretrievable.

With all this pain, my mother and sisters are now in Al Nasr neighborhood in the North of Gaza. We still haven’t managed to get  them out to the South, where we are now.

Day 39 of the Massacre, November 14th 2023

The rain, like the aggression, falls down on us heavily, taking with it the safety of the bereaved, then pauses and then resumes.Heavy days for us are passing under Israeli aggression, and now the rain has come to increase our suffering . Life is strange in realizing things, as  God does not send us anything but good. However, the rain takes away the safety from the people in tents at the hospital. It takes away  their sleeping places, and expels them, just as the occupation does.   

God, we accept all that you bring on us. We have disobeyed and you have forgiven, so forgive our greater sin.

Yesterday, at midnight, we had covered our tent with a plastic tarp to protect us from the rain, but the downpour was stronger than the poles and roof of our tent, so water began to pour on our heads. We got out of the tent carrying our things after many attempts at keeping the water away. We gathered our belongings and went to a nearby public school. They say that the UNRWA would raise their flag over it so that it would be safe, as if UNRWA schools have not been bombed before. We spent the night in a classroom, crying over our situation.

At four in the afternoon, I took some eggplants to the mud oven nearby the hospital, and met a child there named Hanan. Her beautiful eyes let you forget the pain for a moment, but also robs the reassurance they give,   because of the wariness in her face; as though she had never been a child. Like me, Hanan had come for the eggplants. She smiled at me and I took a picture of her. People come to the mud oven on daily basis,  in order to take turns baking, due to power cuts and the lack of gasoline. 

In the morning, I took my father to change the dressing on his wounds. I went into the hospital with him, and a child and his mother entered along with us. The child needed to remove stitches from his back, while his mother had injuries in her foot and hand. After treating my father’s wounds, the nurse called out: “Hajjaj, hold the child tight and prevent him from moving.” I held the child’s back steadily and he began screaming in pain. The child was very strong, and he was able to move despite my grip. I was afraid to apply more pressure and break his pelvis in my hand. The child’s father told him to say, “Oh God,” and the child began saying it in his innocent voice, drowning in tears. At that moment, he stole away my resilience and my tears were about to fall, but I held them.  .

We finished  and each went his own way. I went to the tent to rebuild it again. We stayed for hours until the night fell upon us. By seven in the evening, the rain came down again, taking down most of the tents in the hospital yard, our tent included, which we had spent the entire day rebuilding. Once again, we drowned.

We carried everything and went back to the school after  having left it. Hours later we heard the sounds of bombs that shook the place. The occupation forces bombed a house near the hospital, and there were casualties in the street nearby the hospital, where  we go to buy whatever is available. The ambulances rushed to them and brought them in along with martyrs, one of them split in two. 

The situation here is catastrophic. The situation of people in the hospital makes stones weep. Food is scarce and only available at double the price. There is no place for them (Gazans). There are no walls to protect them from the cold and nothing to protect them from the bombing. We are exposed to death at any moment, because the occupation forces has a green light from the world to kill us.  

News say that Thursday is the last day for the telecommunications networks in the Gaza Strip, after which they will all be cut off. Natanyahu is demanding that each Palestinian within the Gaza Strip go to the Egyptian Sinai. We may be forcibly displaced. 

My name is Esam. We were displaced from Shujaiyyeh after the bombing of our house to Hay Al Zaitoun, where the house was bombed over our heads on Friday, October 27 at 6:14. We were transferred from Al-Shifa Hospital to the European Hospital to treat my father. This may be our last contact. Perhaps our next contact will be from Sinai or through prayers for our souls.

Day 59 of the Massacre, December 4th 2023 

 It is as if my heart is a story woven by an old woman’s hands,  weaving all the stories of the house, from the kitchen to the living room to the bedrooms. Time in this story is strange,and sounds are distant, and it does not taste the same as those every child tastes before bedtime. 

The last scene during the truce was infused with life - as if Gaza has never died. It was like an artery through which blood pumped viciously

One morning, I wanted a hot cup of tea to soothe my aching throat, but the water kettle betrayed me with its malfunction. So I put the tea in the cooking pot we use for the fire.I saw many pots by the fire, and by the time my turn came, the fire was out. As I was lighting the fire again, a young boy said to me: "What are you doing, uncle?" I said: "Making tea."  He said: "Tea in a cooking pot!" I laughed, and started helping me  light the fire. He told me that the fire wouldn't light because of the type of wood. I smiled, seeing how this child's life experience had surpassed mine. There was, in fact, two types of wood beside me that people had cut from trees. 

Next to the water spout, I found a girl and her sister. They told me that my presence made the water return, and I said: "Wallah!" And we all laughed. We didn't care about names, they asked me about my age and if I was married. They were younger than me, and they were sharing stories about their broken engagements. For one of them, they could not agree on the dowry and living arrangements. One loudly said: "I didn't love him!" and she was the only one with bruises on her face from being beaten We all departed in our different ways. 

What I want to say is that life is within us. We live it everywhere, even if there is destruction. But how can I ignore these sounds that kill our loved ones every second. I now sit on the pavement of the hospital and the bombs are shaking all around. It is 5:36 pm.

Day 75 of the Massacre, December 20th 2023 

This city is full of strange contradictions, mixing death with life and transforming scenes of death to a cinematic piece devoid of pleasure. But the viewer is unable to look away despite its cruelty. You try to shield yourself from the overwhelming pressure of hearing the news that someone was martyred or injured, from the sounds of terrifying tales and the scenes you see every hour. 

Yesterday I went to the market and on my way back from Rafah to the European Hospital, the bus driver did not want to hear the news and he decided to turn on music. The driver was humorous, he lit his cigarette and  said I want to die this way, I do not care about anything and I am happy with the life I lived so far. Al lot of people tried to sell him diesel but his answer was always that he is ready to provide diesel and sell it with prices less than the market. 

The bus was like Aladdin’s lamp, it transported us from an atmosphere full of death to our memories of trips in buses listening to music with friends and fighting over who will put on their favorite song first. It took me to memories of going with my brother’s car at night to Gaza’s beach. That same car was not saved from the bombardment either. 

This made me think whether what I am doing in this bus means I am disrespecting people’s pain and mine, but we all share this pain. I want the aggression on Gaza to stop and for me to take a hot shower without anyone knocking on the door while I’m inside. I want to lay down in my bed and have a deep sleep and free myself of my clothes under the blanket. I want to wake up whenever I want without the sounds of screams. I hate destruction and my message to the world is that those who commit massacres against us should throw themselves into the garbage bin because they know what they are doing in their dark path.

But everything in our world is incomplete. I was wrong to think that my day will be complete in the eyes of the driver, but time was enough to turn things around . After the evening prayer and near the shelter school close to the hospital, a house was bombed and 60 people were martyred while tens were injured from those sheltering in tents next to Al Fukhari school, all in one minute.