My neighbourhood in Gaza is gone, reduced to rubble and silence

My neighbourhood successful eastbound Gaza, Shujayea, is gone! Reduced to rubble, with not a azygous chromatic near upon another. The streets that erstwhile echoed with the laughter of children, the calls of vendors, and the acquainted rhythms of regular beingness present prevarication successful silence, smothered by particulate and destruction. What was erstwhile a vibrant community, afloat of stories and memories, has been erased successful a substance of moments.

A fewer days ago, my member Mohammed went backmost to Shujayea to cheque connected our household home. When helium came backmost helium told my begetter that thing remained but for a fewer breached walls and scattered columns. A fewer hours later, we were shocked to larn that my begetter himself had braved utmost information to spot it with his ain eyes. In a spot wherever each measurement tin mean death, helium chose to locomotion done the ruins of our past.

This was the location my gramps and begetter had built with years of effort, the location that carried my dad’s dreams and bore the marks of his sweat and sacrifice. It was wherever helium raised his children, wherever we celebrated weddings and birthdays, wherever countless household memories were made. And now, it is thing but rubble.

But our family’s nonaccomplishment is not conscionable this 1 house. My father’s destroyed location is present added to my ain burned apartment, my sister Nour’s bombed apartment, my sister Heba’s demolished home, and my sister Somaia’s 2 apartments – 1 reduced to rubble and the different burned. To this database are added my uncle Hassan’s destroyed building, my uncle Ziad’s building, my uncle Zahir’s home, my aunt Umm Musab’s apartment, my aunt Faten’s apartment, and the wholly destroyed homes of my aunts Sabah, Amal, and Mona. And these are lone the losses wrong our contiguous family. All astir us, countless relatives, friends, and neighbours person seen their homes obliterated, their memories buried nether the debris.

This is not simply astir the staggering worldly worth of what we person lost. Yes, the homes were filled with furniture, idiosyncratic belongings, and cherished possessions, but the demolition goes acold deeper than worldly things. What has been taken from america is irreplaceable. A location tin beryllium rebuilt, but the consciousness of belonging that comes from walking acquainted streets, from surviving successful the aforesaid neighbourhood wherever generations of your household person grown up – that cannot beryllium reconstructed with bricks and cement.

Shujayea was much than conscionable buildings. It was a assemblage stitched unneurotic by relationships, shared histories, and the memories of mean lives. It held the neighbourhood bakery wherever we bought caller breadstuff astatine dawn, the tiny country store wherever neighbours gathered to chat, the past Ibn Othman mosque that echoed with prayers during Ramadan. These were the spaces wherever children played, wherever families celebrated, and wherever neighbours supported each different done bully times and bad.

When a neighbourhood similar Shujayea is erased, it is not lone walls that fall; it is simply a full mode of life. The demolition severs ties betwixt neighbours, scatters families crossed shelters and exile camps, and leaves a heavy coiled that nary reconstruction task tin genuinely heal. A rebuilt location whitethorn person 4 walls and a roof, but it volition not beryllium the aforesaid location that erstwhile carried generations of stories.

The symptom of this nonaccomplishment is not unsocial to my family. Across Gaza, full neighbourhoods person been flattened. Each heap of rubble hides the past of a family, the laughter of children, the contented of elders, and the emotion of a assemblage that erstwhile thrived there. Each destroyed location is simply a soundless witnesser to the quality outgo of this war, costs that cannot beryllium measured successful wealth oregon harm assessment.

What we person mislaid is not conscionable property, but identity. A location is wherever a person’s beingness unfolds, wherever milestones are celebrated, wherever griefs are shared, wherever bonds are formed. To spot truthful galore homes destroyed is to spot an full radical uprooted from the places that defined them. It is simply a calculated erasure, not lone of lives, but of memory, heritage, and belonging.

Rebuilding volition not bring backmost what was taken. The caller buildings, if they ever come, volition basal connected apical of the graves of our memories. They volition not bring backmost my father’s years of hard work, nor the consciousness of comfortableness and information that erstwhile came with having a home. They volition not resurrect the neighbourhood we knew, the 1 afloat of warmth, familiarity, and life.

The demolition of Shujayea is simply a coiled that volition stay unfastened for generations. It is not simply a substance of humanitarian assistance oregon reconstruction funds. This is astir the deliberate dismantling of a community’s bosom and soul. No magnitude of factual tin rebuild trust, reconstruct memories, oregon bring backmost the neighbours who person been killed.

Shujayea is gone. And with it, a portion of america has been buried. Yet adjacent arsenic we grieve, we clasp connected to the stories, to the emotion that erstwhile filled our homes, to the anticipation that someday justness volition prevail. Because portion they tin destruct our houses, they cannot destruct the bonds we transportation successful our hearts, nor the memories that nary bulldozer oregon weaponry tin erase.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.