"We long for life." News from Nour, psychologist in Gaza

Gaza, Palestine. February 20, 2024.

I’m writing this on my 135th day of enduring displacement, loss, injustice, terror, starvation, cold, homelessness, grief, and amazement of how I’m still alive until this day.

Everyday my heart aches when I walk amongst endless tents sheltering thousands of displaced people, who lack access to nutritious food, clean water, warmth, safety, health care, proper hygiene, clean bathrooms, clothes, and comfortable beds. I walk around and wish for nothing but the disappearance of these tents, or a loss of memory that can perhaps erase these painful scenes from my mind.

This reality that we’ve been living is quite hard to believe. We’ve been forcefully learning to adapt to surviving under inhumane living conditions. We have been staying in places unfit for human habitation, and eating unfulfilling food. Nothing about this is normal.

Time passes strangely, each day brings more agony. We are going through life feeling like an empty shell of a human being. Our minds still can’t believe that our old lives, homes, streets, and memories have vanished from existence. We are still holding into the hope of returning to our beloved city.

I wonder if this is how our grandfathers felt when they left their homes back in 1948 too. This thought fills me with fear, what if we never return, just like they never did?

During my work at the medical points for Médecins du Monde France, I encounter children who lived through traumatic events, witnessing their parents as martyrs and casualties, and remaining by their side for hours and days while besieged. My friend who is still staying in north Gaza tells me how people there has been starving, how they’ve been trying to make food out of tree leaves and animal feeds.

Almost everyone around me mentions how they feel emotionally numb and dissociated from reality, how we are unable to process the loss of our close friends and colleagues. We all feel like our brains are about to explode when we try to comprehend what happened to us.

How are we supposed to overcome such trauma? Are we ever going to heal and live normally?

After a toll of martyrs exceeding 28,000 and nearly 7,800 missing, with the rest of us being displaced multiple times while carrying our pains, sorrows, and shattered dreams, cornered in the last geographic area, Rafah, the question echoing in each mind: Where do we go? There’s nowhere else! Will we be displaced again? Will death ever cease?

Yet, amidst it all, we cling to any news offering hope for peace and safety. We long for life.

Nour

Nour, Psychologue au sein de l’équipe Médecins du Monde à Gaza.