Silenced Palestinian Voices VII: Dreams Interrupted, Life in Suspension in Gaza
This is the seventh article in the "Silenced Palestinian Voices" series, a subseries of the broader "Quiet Abandonment" project, which explores the world's retreat from the Palestinian cause.
The fabric of a tent is all that separates Riwaa from the streets. At 31, this English teacher and digital marketing professional finds herself homeless in Al Mawassi, displaced from her hometown of Rafah with her family of nine. Unlike previous articles in this series, which brought together multiple narratives, this piece focuses on the singular, powerful voice of one brave woman.
I was privileged to speak with Riwaa, her real name, openly on Zoom. The Internet connection was patchy and at times her voice was unclear or her image froze. The conversation was conducted in English.
An attractive woman, Riwaa wore a gray hijab, earphones encircling her head, a little like a halo. She was sitting in what she called “our humble kitchen.” Behind her were jerrycans of water on a shelf, gas canisters (empty for seven months now), and what looked like a sack of flour. She gave a sweep of the room with her camera, showing me the small working table and boxes along one side.”We are trying to cope,” she said with a sad smile.
In this article, I let Riwaa speak for herself. I showed her the quotes and paraphrasing of quotes that would be used; she approved most and corrected those that were inaccurate or did not fully convey what she meant.
This interview presents one individual's perspective and experiences. As with all articles in this series, I present voices without editorial commentary, allowing readers to draw their own conclusions.
"We are sleeping in the streets. Because what separates us from the streets is just a piece of fabric. So you can imagine how much danger there is for 6 girls. Where are the feminists and feminism movement to cover this topic about how Gaza girls are living?"
A Life Before War
Before October 7th, Riwaa lived what she describes as a full life. A 2017 graduate with a bachelor's degree in English language and teaching methods, she worked from home for an international company, balancing digital marketing with one-on-one English tutoring. Her days included gym visits, family gatherings with her five sisters, and time with friends at restaurants and the beach.
"I was living my life. Literally, when someone says that I'm living my life and this is me. I was living my life," she reflects. "I had my own job. I was working from home. And you can imagine how nice and comfortable it is to work from home."
As the youngest of eight siblings in a family that stayed out of politics, Riwaa was focused on building her career. She had completed most of the paperwork for a scholarship application, planning to pursue advanced studies in interpretation or education abroad, then return to contribute to her community.
But when there was no Internet for approximately four months after October 7th, she couldn't complete her submission. "This chance went in vain," she says simply.
The Weight of Continuous War
For Riwaa, this war represents the latest in a series of conflicts that have punctuated her entire life. "I am 31 years old and all my life I experienced... I was living under several attacks, several wars," she explains. "Year after year, it became more and more difficult and more bloody. And this war is the most brutal that I have never experienced such a hard war."
"On the 7th of October, I got up on the sound of rockets, news, and it took us at least four hours to realize what's going on. My feeling was that I'm shocked; I started to realize that everything turned to ambiguity. From this date, everything became ambiguous about our lives. We can't predict the next step; we can't predict what will happen next. And we can't manage our lives after that so I was confused; I was shocked."
When asked what shocked her most, she explained: "About everything - about what's going on. Why is this happening? What will come next? And we are living it. A very difficult situation. And not only since the 7th of October but for 70 years. It becomes more brutal. So yes, I was confused and I felt everything became ambiguous."
The cyclical nature of violence has created a sense of life suspended in time. "I feel like why they are choosing this all the way... It's like a series. It's like seasons," she says.
This pattern has made major life decisions impossible. Before the war, marriage was a possibility she would have considered "if this opportunity came in such a good life that I was living." Now, she explains, "We can't guarantee anything. And everything is ambiguous. We can't understand what's coming next. So how can I dare take such a step in my life? Our life is in pause now. We are stuck in a period of time."
The Struggle for Medical Care
Perhaps nowhere is this suspension more devastating than in the story of Riwaa's sister, Alaa, who is non-verbal and disabled. Before the war, the family was preparing for crucial medical intervention for Alaa's spinal curvature, with plans to travel to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
The family had even paid coordination fees to Hala, a travel company, registering all nine family members to leave Gaza. "Our names were supposed to come up but then, two days later, Israel invaded Rafah and they closed the Rafah crossing," Riwaa explains. Therefore, even the $5,000 per person they paid ($45,000 total for the family) couldn't secure their departure.
The complexity of leaving Gaza extends beyond just the Rafah closure. Even if Egypt were to reopen the crossing, Riwaa explains there would be no functioning authority to process departures. "If I now take my papers and go to Rafah crossing, is anyone there in the Palestinian side to receive me, welcome me, do my papers and stamp it to leave from Rafah to Egypt? No one. There is no one. There is no authority there that can deal with it; it’s just closed because the IDF invaded Rafah so there is no way to go there.”
“The ways to leave are very limited and for special cases: injuries evacuation, people with diseases, family reunification when a family member can apply from outside Gaza, student visas. So it's very limited and it's not for all cases. If you are not one of these cases, you don't have any chance of leaving. There is no proper way to travel as a human being.”
Now, with Gaza's medical sector "completely collapsed," Alaa's condition worsens daily. "My sister, her situation became worse and worse," Riwaa says, her voice carrying the weight of helplessness. They are trying to overcome this limited criteria for leaving. “We hope to get permission to leave.”
The Question of Home
When asked why she doesn't return to Rafah, now that there are reports of people living there under tribal control, Riwaa's response reveals the complexity of displacement and dignity. "Why should I be controlled by a tribe when I have my home, my own home, just to return to my own home?" she asks.
Her house in Rafah is "demolished, completely demolished," but she would rather "live over the rubbles" than accept control by others. "People return to Gaza and they build their own tent over their rubbles. And so we can deal with it."
The Human Cost of Conflict
The personal toll extends beyond her immediate family. "I'm sad to tell you that I have lost many of my friends and many of my relatives. Some of them lost their husbands," she shares. During our conversation, she mentions a friend injured when the IDF conducted an operation to free hostages in Rafah. "She was around this place. She didn't know, of course, if this place has hostages or not... And when the bombing happened around this place, when they freed the hostages, she was injured."
A Plea for Basic Rights
For Riwaa, the core issue transcends politics. It's about fundamental human dignity and rights. "I want to tell people, and I'm so sorry to say this because to say this dehumanizes us. When we say that we have to prove to the world that we are human beings and we have to live with dignity, with safety."
She emphasizes the restrictions that have defined Gaza life for two decades: "We have been over 20 years in an open-air prison and we can't travel properly. We can't travel like anyone travels in the world. You, as a human, as a citizen, can go easily to the airport and stamp your papers and get your papers and travel via plane, but me, I can't."
Living in Fear, Hoping for Safety
When I asked Riwaa directly whether she would tell the IDF where a hostage was located, if she knew, in exchange for her family's safe passage out of Gaza, her initial response immediately reframed the question in terms of reciprocity: “Actually, there are many Palestinians in the Israeli jails. If I asked you to let them leave, would you let them leave?”
Then, when pressed further about her personal choice, her response revealed the impossible position in which she finds herself as a civilian during conflict: “Here I want to explain that it's not my duty as a civilian. If I can travel and be safe with my family if I tell about a hostage, so there is no guarantee we will really be safe. And to be more clear, it's not about the guarantee -- it's simply not the duty of civilians. It's the duty of the negotiations and the governments and the international community.”
She pressed back against the premise of the question itself: “And this is the duty of both our governments. Do the Israeli people trust their government to work on the negotiations to free the hostages? And shouldn’t both of our governments do their best for us to end this war? Because it's not the duty of the civilians and it would be chaotic.”
When I wondered if she would make such a choice for her family's safety, she responded from a place of trauma and uncertainty, repeating that there is no guarantee of safety, and: “So all the feelings that I have currently is I'm scared. I am sad about what's happening... So all my concentration is to be safe with my family because I'm scared."
Her priorities are clear and immediate: "The most priority that someone should take care of is the safety of myself and my family... My only mission now, and it is a human mission and very sincere for my family, is to save my sister Alaa, to save my family.”
Riwaa then said, "I wish for anyone in this world, safe place for me, for my family, for my city, for any people in the world... I believe for both to be free."
A Voice for the Voiceless
As our conversation wound down, Riwaa made a specific request: "I really would like to raise Alaa’s voice, not only my voice, because my sister is non-verbal and she cannot tell her story. So I would like you to focus... I would like you to shed the light on my sister Alaa because she is non-verbal and I am the one who is sharing her voice.”
Acknowledgement: I would like to thank the activist who will remain anonymous for connecting me with Riwaa.
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The cognitive dissonance exhibited here by this educated civilian is truly astonishing.
Is Gaza actually an open-air prison?
"Israel is in the midst of a war thrust upon it by the atrocious massacre of Israelis by Arabs from Gaza on October 7, 2023. Some anti-Israel media reports have tried to justify the barbarism by arguing that Gaza was a “large open-air prison”. Despite the irrelevance, as nothing can justify these hideous acts, it may be interesting to examine this assertion about Gaza.
The Gaza Strip is a small, narrow piece of land on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, a mere 365 square kilometers (half the size of NYC), with a population that has exploded over the last century to approximately 2 million people, 2 million people whom absolutely no one wants, and who have been used as pawns by the Arab leadership.
Conditions in the Gaza Strip
The 1947 UN Partition Plan of the Land of Israel would have made Gaza part of the proposed Arab state west of the Jordan River. However, the Arabs rejected the partition plan, launching the 1948 War of Independence.
At the conclusion of the war Gaza was occupied by Egypt, which refused to annex it or offer its residents Egyptian citizenship, i.e. Gaza was part of no country. That was the situation until 1967.
Thus, from 1948 to 1967, conditions in the Gaza Strip were harsh. Egypt essentially isolated itself, refusing to integrate either the locals or the 200,000 refugees, leading to severe economic conditions.
In 1955, a member of the United Nations Secretariat, James Baster, wrote in the Middle East Journal that “For all practical purposes it would be true to say that for the last six years in Gaza over 300,000 poverty-stricken people have been physically confined to an area the size of a large city park.”
Israel decisively prevailed in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Furthermore, thousands upon thousands of Arab refugees were now setting up camp along Israel's porous borders. The refugees were placed under martial law by Egypt and forced to live in filth. Seeing the unhappiness of the refugees, Arab regimes, took advantage of the situation to incite resentful Palestinians to take up arms against Israel.
Initially, the border violations and infiltrations manifested as small-scale theft and banditry. But by 1954, Egyptian military intelligence was actively supporting Palestinian fedayeen activities in several ways.
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/egyptian-fedayeen-attacks-summer-1955
The ongoing Hamas belligerence has indeed led to an attempt by Egypt and Israel to control what comes into Gaza.
Does that make it an open-air prison?
As will be seen, if it is a blockade, it is not a very successful one.
One of the arguments is that Israel and Egypt restrict movement of the Gazan residents in and out of the territory. On September 19, 2023, Palestinian TV broadcast a program called Emigration from Gaza – what no one talks about, which claimed that in the past 15 years, about a quarter of a million young Gazans had left for abroad.
The bottleneck that has prevented more people from leaving is Hamas bureaucracy and the hesitancy of other countries to accept them.
Just last month (Sept 2023) there were violent clashes involving hundreds of young Gazans outside the sole travel agency in Gaza City authorized to issue visas to Turkey.
In a prison, people might try to leave, but it is usually not possible; and if they do, do they return to visit?
According to news reports, in July 2022, over 15,000 expatriates returned to the Gaza Strip for the feast of Eid al-Adha. They were excited to visit and reported that the markets were full with plenty of livestock for the festival. There seems to be an awful lot of traffic for a prison!
The medical situation is often discussed, with claims that the “blockade” leaves Gazans with poor medical care and lack of supplies. Yet drugs that Hamas wants, it is apparently quite capable of getting.
On Oct 7, thousands of terrorists streamed into southern Israel, many of them high on Captagon, colloquially known as “the drug of Jihad,” or “the drug of ISIS”, popular among ISIS terrorists for its leading to hyper-arousal and hyper-stimulation.
Additionally, the medical stats in general are quite surprising. The maternal mortality rate is 20 deaths/100,000 live births, better than Ethiopia (267), South Africa (127), Cyprus (68) and even the US (21). Infant mortality is 14.87 deaths/1,000 live births, far better than Nigeria (55) or India (30), and comparable to Egypt (17) and Venezuela (14).
And life expectancy at birth (75.66 years) is comparable to its neighbors – Egypt (74.7), Syria (74.5), and Saudi Arabia (76.9). They have more physicians per capita (2.71 physicians/1,000 population) than Lebanon (2.21), Egypt (0.75), or even the US (2.61) and similar to Saudi Arabia (2.74).
What Gazans are particularly good at is reproducing. Over 13% of girls are married by age 18. In 2000, a New York Times article said it well: “Gaza’s extremely high fertility rate… is comparable to... Uganda’s. But unlike those countries, almost all of the babies survive… .”
In other words, the birth rate, which has somewhat moderated in recent years, is like the third world, but the health care is far better. Indeed, it has been said that Gazans view the demographic route as a way to settle the score with Israelis. This has resulted in a staggering 40% of the population under age 14, among the highest in the world, and only 3% over 65.
AN IMPORTANT civilian asset is concrete. Is that getting into the “jail?” In 2021, Hamas claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, almost half the size of the NYC subway system. It is sophisticated and wired with electricity and reinforced by concrete. Building supplies thus seem to be entering this “jail”, and workers are busy.
Unfortunately, it is not a civilian transport system but a terror network. The claimed shortage of housing has nothing to do with a blockade – the quantity of building materials, the cost of manpower and capital that Hamas invested could have built many new sports facilities.
And, unlike a jail, there are nice neighborhoods. Gazan CNN journalist Ibrahim Dahman describes where he works:
in a “beautiful, upscale neighborhood in which all press offices and foreign and international institutions are located.”
Does not sound jail-like.
On some issues there is nuance and two sides. In the current conflict between Israel and Hamas, there is only good and evil. Some of those who want to introduce nuance claim that Israel has created an open-air prison. It is simply not true. Despite there being some degree of blockade by Egypt and Israel, and the claim that this has led to shortages in food and medicine, within that small area of Gaza there are thousands of rockets, unlimited machine guns and ammo, and enough cement for miles of underground tunnels.
There seems to be no scarcity of weapons. If that money had been spent on the needs of the people it could have been used to purchase MRI machines, computers for schools, and more than enough food for the entire population.
Any problems in Gaza are not because it is some sort of open-air prison but rather because of the hatred of the Hamas leadership for both Jews and the Arab residents of Gaza.
Is Gaza an open-air prison?
In a way it is. There are many restrictions placed on the residents – what they can wear, who they can associate with, what they can think, etc. However, this is not because of Israel or any other external element but rather because of the oppressive, evil, Hamas regime that has been strangling all life in Gaza for 16 years.
The writer is a professor of neuroscience at Bar-IIan University."
https://m.jpost.com/opinion/article-770411
"On Saturday’s (7.Oct.23) barbaric Palestinian Hamas surprise pogrom in which at over 1200 Israelis were murdered, with babies and the elderly among those who were butchered, beheaded and burned alive and around 240 kidnapped into Gaza as hostages, these demonstrations were beyond obscene.
The pro-Palestinian mob displayed not one placard protesting against the depravity of Hamas; no revulsion at the murder of children, rape of women and decapitation of babies; no horror at the fate of the hostages."
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/how-britain-lost-itself?utm_source
Israel has allowed Gazan medical treatment in Israel even though terror campaigns were launched at Israeli civilians.
https://jcpa.org/article/israeli-approvals-for-medical-entry-in-the-shadow-of-terror-attacks-at-the-erez-crossing/
What the phenomenon of martyrs looks like by
An Egyptian psychologist
MEMRI TV PROJECT
Prof. Adel Sadeq, Head of Psychiatry, ‘Ein Shams University in Cairo
https://www.memri.org/tv/head-psychiatry-cairos-ein-shams-university-prof-adel-sadeq-psychological-make-suicide-bomber
igra TV (Saudi Arabia) April 25, 2002
Watch the interview with the Egyptian professor
Arabic with English subtitles
"He who can make you believe in absurdities, can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire.
Lack of recognition of the other since the 1920s from the "Peace Covenant" to "Peace Now". We are experiencing ignorant ethnocentric arrogance, "banalization" and devaluation of the "other" which are the source of all the "unpleasant surprises" we have experienced... It started in 1925.
Perhaps in order to defeat the enemy we must first defeat our ignorance and hubris.
Lack of recognition of the "other" due to which we have been immersed for over a hundred years in...."an orgy of peace" which unfortunately has always been And there remains an orgy without a partner, and an orgy without a partner has a simple onanistic meaning.
To summarize this point:
Those who fund and initiate wars of aggression or terror campaigns against their neighbors should be ready to pay for the consequences.