The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience

 

By Martin Cohen
 

Eyes are, indeed, on Gaza, although many in Israel and the US still seem to be both oblivious and unashamed. This week, the European Union – at long last! – agreed to at least review its policy of financially supporting Israel, and hence facilitating its policies in Gaza. Books like The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience are drops, tear drops indeed, in an ever-expanding ocean of Palestinian sorrow, but surely contribute to the understanding of those prepared to listen.

The author, Plestia Alaqad, is a Palestinian journalist and author who has been forced to bear witness to the destruction in Gaza. “At just twenty-one years old, she captivated audiences with her raw and poignant coverage of her surroundings”, the publisher says, adding that she has offered “an unfiltered glimpse into the harrowing realities of life under siege”.

Rather than say anything myself, I thought to just choose a few paragraphs from the book – and let them speak for themselves.

7 October 2023

I’m familiar with what the steps taken during an emergency situation look like. One: you start stocking your house with bread, flour and lots of groceries. Two: you open the windows a little bit so they won’t break from the pressure released by bombs and airstrikes. 

You know what always inspires me? The spirit of Palestinians. How after every loss, you only find us stronger and trying even harder to live and love life. In 2021, I thought I was experi- encing the worst days of my life. Buildings and houses were being bombed by the IOF; even the streets were being bombed, making it harder for paramedics to reach injured people. Yet, once the Aggression was over, there was a community initiative to clean the streets of Gaza (I immediately took up a broom and joined in). Only a few weeks later, Gaza’s streets were full with Palestinians striving to live despite the harsh reality that surrounded us. 

10 October 2023

I see that Dana’s house is wide open, so I go inside and I call her to take her on a virtual tour of her home. Her mom’s and brother’s rooms are completely burned out, almost unrecog- nizable, while her room is full of debris and broken glass. But it’s still her home, just like my building is still my building. In Gaza, even if your house is destroyed and the ceilings have fallen to the floor, it is still your house, and you’re going to claim it as your house. Even if it’s not safe, even if it’s ground down to rubble, you will put a tent down on the flattened remains and you will call it your home. The connection between a Palestinian and their house is a sacred one, 

11 October 2023

Mohamed and I go to report on Al-Krama district, which was bombed yesterday. My heart breaks when I see family photographs randomly scattered under the rubble, and I feel terror thinking of the day when Israel will kill me, and random people will walk in the street, see my diaries discarded under debris, and wonder who Plestia Alaqad was and why she died when she did. 

12 October 2023

I wake up to a notice from Israel, warning any Palestinians in North Gaza to flee to the south within twenty-four hours, which is nearly impossible. How are approximately 1.1 million people supposed to evacuate when there are barely any cars left working? We don’t have any gas. And where are we supposed to evacuate to? To a tent? Not everyone has family and friends in the south.
The world can’t pretend that there are two sides here any more. There is no humanity, no equity, no semblance of justice. It’s a calculated, deliberate and ruthless ethnic cleansing, and nobody seems to care.

13 October 2023

I am shocked by what I see in the streets on the way to Rasha’s house. People are just walking, walking, walking, carrying their lives in their bags with them. I see the 1948 Nakba in front of my eyes, just as my grandfather once described it to me. I remember him telling me how he was forcibly displaced from his home, and how Israel’s goal was to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Palestinians. And here I was, seeing it for myself.

9 November 2023

In the morning, I watch as over 50,000 people are forcibly displaced from their homes in North Gaza to camps in the south. It is absolutely harrowing. I stand by as thousands of people file through the safe corridor, their whole lives packed into suitcases in the space of five minutes. It is like a scene out of a dystopian novel – my mind goes straight to the prose in Nineteen Eighty-Four – come to life.
And yet there is a kid, Waleed, standing there with sweets, handing them out to people as they pass him by. He is wearing a cute ‘Happy Birthday’ hat.

16 November 2023

The hospitals in Gaza are full of amputatee kids. They’re the saddest stories by far. A week ago, I met a baby girl, Fatma – my grandmother’s name. Fatma had lost both of her legs. I spoke to her mother, and she just kept repeating how she wished that it was her legs that had been amputated instead of her daughter’s. She told me that Fatma had come as a blessing after fourteen years of infertility. And I just stood there beside her, blankly reporting on the scene, privately wishing that I could somehow alleviate her and Fatma’s pain. 

20 November 2023

What’s the point of wearing a safety helmet and press vest? I don’t want to wear them any more; they’re like giant targets instead of safety nets. Israel is targeting journalists. And doctors. And lawyers. And engineers. Basically, anybody who might practically be able to help rebuild Gaza in the future.

How long until they get to me?

I knew Gaza before 7 October 2023. I’ve known Gaza through- out the Genocide. But I have yet to know the Gaza of tomorrow. 

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The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience, by Plestia Alaqad, was published by Macmillan in 2025

Picture Post #43 The Importance of Empathy

 

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'Because things don’t appear to be the known thing; they aren’t what they seemed to be

neither will they become what they might appear to become.'

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Posted by Martin Cohen

 

I remember reading about Nazi Germany, which is truly the only comparison that makes sense when looking at Israel's genocidal hatred of all things Palestinian. The ordinary German people used to line the streets and toss bread to Jews in the wagons as they went past on their way to concentration camps.  They did this for AMUSEMENT - they laughed at the people scrabbling for the scraps, like animals. 

The point is, ordinary Germans felt their Jewish neighbours were not "people'. Something of the same cruel indifference governs the behaviour of Israelis to their Palestinian neighbours today. The picture is powerful because it reveals what happens where common humanity has disappeared.

AP photographer Tsafrir Abayov, who has been covering the border between Israel and Gaza for almost 20 years commented in the Independent:

“I grew up in Ashkelon about 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Gaza, and I’ve been covering the Israel-Gaza border for almost 20 years, so I know this border from end to end. I have a lot of spots where I know I can get a good shot. On this day, I was driving by and I saw a group of female soldiers who had gone up to a tank position on the Israeli side, about 50 meters (164 feet) from the border. I don’t think these soldiers are normally stationed there. They just went up to take a look. From this position you can see right into Gaza — and all the destruction.”

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Bittersweet Ballads

Children playing amidst the rubble of damaged buildings in a camp for Palestinian refugees

By Martin Cohen

Palestine Wail and Other Bittersweet Ballads is a collection of poems by Yahia Lababidi. Yahia, as he recalls, has a personal connection to the conflict in Palestine, because his grandmother, Rabiha Dajani, was, seventy-five years ago, forced to flee her ancestral home in Palestine at gunpoint. She went on to become a remarkable educator, activist and social worker.

The collection starts with an apt quotation. Mahmoud Darwish’s aphorism that:

 

«Every beautiful poem is an act of resistance.»

These are poems like ‘We Were Playing with the Clouds’ by the Palestinian artist and activist, Ghassan Kanafani (1936 – 1972), which runs:

I wish children didn’t die.

I wish they would be temporarily elevated

to the skies until the war ends.

Then they would return home safe,

And when their parents would ask them,

where were you? They would say,

we were playing in the clouds.

Yahia himself writes, by way of an introduction to the collection:

‘The death of one child, due to natural causes, is nearly unbearable. The systematic, cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocent children, in the name of so-called ‘self-defense’, is an unjustifiable moral obscenity. Yet, this is what the Israeli government continues to do and it is appalling that there remain democratic nations as well as civilized individuals who find it difficult to unequivocally condemn such depravity and call for a ceasefire. Who will honor these blameless, anonymous martyrs? How can we remain silent in the face of such atrocities?’

‘Words matter, since narratives shape realities and, in turn, how history is told and who is deemed worthy of our sympathies. That’s why artists are deemed dangerous, for daring to speak truth to power. It is, especially, significant for example that since October 7th, more than 70 Palestinian journalists have been killed, in Gaza, in the line of duty while Israel has murdered at least thirteen Palestinian poets and writers in Gaza.’

‘Our understanding of the human condition is diminished without the emotionally imaginative and spiritually-enriching witness of storytellers and artists. We know from watching the news that narratives are grossly distorted when high-jacked by corrupt politicians and compromised media. As a prominent figure in the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, Malcom X, succinctly put it: “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.’

As a case in point, just over a month ago, young Palestinian poet, scholar and activist, Dr Refaat Alareer, was assassinated by a targeted Israeli airstrike, along with his brother, sister and her four children. Anticipating his own death, Alareer shared this heart-rending poem, just one month prior to his murder by Israeli forces:

If I must die

 

If I must die,

you must live

to tell my story

to sell my things

to buy a piece of cloth

and some strings,

(make it white with a long tail)

so that a child, somewhere in Gaza

while looking heaven in the eye

awaiting his dad who left in a blaze–

and bid no one farewell

not even to his flesh

not even to himself–

sees the kite, my kite you made, flying up above

and thinks for a moment an angel is there

bringing back love

If I must die

let it bring hope

let it be a tale.

But this is a collection of new poetry by Yahia Lababidi so let us include now this one – by way of a taster. The reader is sincerely encouraged to seek out the rest in the collection.

The Light-keepers

Hope is a lighthouse

(or, at least, a lamppost) 

someone must keep vigil

to illumine this possibility

In the dark, a poet will climb 

narrow, unsteady stairs

to gaze past crashing waves 

and sing to us new horizons

Others, less far-sighted, might 

be deceived by the encroaching night

mistake the black for lasting, but 

not those entrusted with trimming wicks

Their tasks are more pressing —

winding clockworks, replenishing oil –

there is no time for despair

when tending to the Light.

Commenting on the collection, James Crews, author of Unlocking the Heart: Writing for Mindfulness, Creativity, and Self-Compassion, writes: 

‘These are necessary and truthful poems. Yahia Lababidi powerfully illuminates this heartbreaking time and terrible season in the history of our world. This book, like a lantern in darkness, brings to light the truth of lives we must learn to honor and remember.’

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And do check out Yahia’s YouTube channel where he regularly includes readings of his poems.

https://www.youtube.com/@Yahia.Lababidi