Two days ago, I came across this on Instagram:
“Don’t feel sorry for us. Feel sorry for yourselves, that you’re living in a country that is arming Israel, that is sending weapons overseas to kill children. Your bombs are killing children. If that bothers you, then don’t feel sorry for us. Feel sorry for yourself. That you don’t have enough say in your own country to stop it.”
—Noor Alsaqaa, communications officer for Doctors Without Borders in Gaza
A journal entry from mid-August:
One thing I’ve really been enjoying in Berlin over the summer is taking our picnic mat to the park near our apartment, and stretching out to read—some days, I managed to read an entire book, cover to cover. We would have either packed drinks and snacks, or bought them from one of the surrounding cafes or, on Saturdays, one of the market stalls strewn out along a bordering street. It’s a simple ritual I’ve come to relish reliably, when I want some solitude but also wish to be out in the world at the same time, when I want to enjoy the full bask of sunlight that our hinterhaus flat circumscribes, when I want to give myself over to a book and enjoy it for what it is, not try to study it at my desk. Occasionally, while I’m doing this, I’ll check my phone, and something about the atrocities being done onto Palestinians by Israel but also the world, the sheer injustice of their condition, will impress itself, and my helpless complicity, onto me. I will think about how even the simplest of everyday pleasures, like sitting somewhere outside filled with life, breathing in the air and the light in a moment of peace, has been made impossible in Gaza. Did you see how the Israeli government attempted to ban Gazans from their sea shore, from something so primordial as nature? Did you see how, as Bisan Owda showed, they refused to listen, defiantly fought for whatever morsel of joy they could get for themselves? So no, I think there can be no shame in grasping for joy wherever one can find it—what does one gain from withholding it from oneself, after all? At the same time, it’s important to remember that there are others who have no right to do the same, have had their right wrestled away. But wait, do I actually believe this? Does one have a right to just continue living one’s life and enjoy it, in times like this when the world is turned on its head? Is it enough to join the odd protest and donate and boycott and speak out and still go for weddings and birthday parties and holidays? How much disruption to life-as-usual is one obligated to inflict in order to make the world right again? Does truly being in solidarity mean also going on hunger strike, as a Palestinian trio of journalists did and asked the world to do—but nobody did, and who can fault them? For those of us who do not ourselves face extinction, a hunger strike must seem the height of nihilism, the act of someone so desperate they have no other options, because what does going on hunger strike even mean if one isn’t ready to end up dead in a pitiless world? That’s the difference, isn’t it? We are not the ones suffering. Our loved ones are still alive, not bombed to bits and rags like discarded pieces of animal flesh strewn across the chopping board; they still have a lot to live for, we still have them to live for. Outside Gaza, outside the world’s conflict zones, the world still looks beautiful. If you look away long enough, keep the violence at bay long enough, the world remains beautiful. And you’ll feel good, and you’ll feel bad, all at the same time. But who cares, really, how you merely feel?
One project that offers a glimmer of hope is the work the Hind Rajab Foundation + the Global Legal Action Network are doing, actively pursuing ‘offensive’ legal action in both international and national courts against those responsible for atrocities committed in Gaza. They made the news some weeks back when their efforts led to Belgian authorities arresting two accused Israeli soldiers at the Tomorrowland EDM festival (though the two men have since been released):
A few reading notes on Palestine:
I wish I had bookmarked all the standalone pieces I’ve read on Gaza, on Palestine and Israel, so I can recommend a somewhat complete longlist. That’s the problem with online reading, isn’t it: they scatter and you lose track, you can never quite find that piece you remembered.
1./ In this sense there’s something to be said for print. I do remember a piece I read in the summer 2025 issue of The Berlin Review, which features an insightful essay by Tash Aw, for which I bought the hard copy, but it’s also notable for the diaristic piece by Nahil Mohana, “The Price of a Watermelon” (translated by Katherine Halls), which gives an insight into the broken-down ‘economy’ of Gaza:
Summer is barely here yet, and the price of a watermelon is 70 shekels. That’s 19 dollars. The war has divided people into two groups: business owners who gobble up money and hoard cash, and the rest of us, who face a constant, humiliating struggle to obtain hard currency. I rely as far as possible on a banking app that allows me to transfer funds directly to a beneficiary’s account, though it requires an internet connection to function. Many shops, businesses, and even stalls in the street use this method because there’s so little cash to be had. Employees receive their salaries through the app; the alternative is to withdraw it in cash from an exchange service, but commission these days can run to 35% or more, meaning that for every 100 shekels you withdraw, you lose 35. And that’s if you can find a bureau in the first place.
The other day, my 14-year-old daughter told me she was craving a crêpe with Nutella. A friend of hers whose father runs a business eats crêpes with Nutella every day, she told me. It’s exam season at the moment, and I want her to have everything she wishes for while she’s busy revising, including the sugar rush of a Nutella crêpe, but the owner of the sweet shop can’t be convinced. He’s insisting he can only take cash for the portion of crêpes I order in advance by phone, which, by the way, costs 70 shekels.
I put the phone down, furious. Then I do something rash. I order 300 shekels—83 dollars—worth of crêpes and other sweets from the other confectionery shop, which does accept app payment, just to spite anyone who makes me feel like I don’t have any agency. It’s a little victory for my own humanity.
This Insta post (read the caption) I found speaks to this matter too, in response to people who want to donate to Gazans but understandably ask how money donations can possibly help them at this time when Israel is preventing food and urgent aid supplies from getting to them:
2./ The Hopscotch Reading Room in Berlin has two zines you can print out yourself to read. If you’d like more zines, try this Publishers for Palestine list.
3./ I’ve found it really insightful to read the newsletters of Alaa Radwan, a Gazan writer, translator, and educator who managed to evacuate to Cairo in May 2024 and is now teaching Arabic classes for beginners online. Interestingly, she is also, with a team of Gazans in Cairo, translating a Syrian TV series that tells the story of Palestine between 1933 and 1976 in honour of her late university professor.
Here’s a passage from one of her letters, published in July:
This war has redrawn every line. The slogans no longer matter. The rhetoric has lost its power. Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem, and liberation have become distant words. The people are not dying for symbols. They are dying for survival. And even that seems out of reach. They are dying for flour. Not luxury. Not comfort. Just flour. Just bread to silence the hunger in their children’s stomachs. This is what the war has reduced them to.
My brother Yahya, 28 years old, told me recently that he felt victorious when he managed to get a bag of flour from a truck before it was looted by armed gangs. That is what victory looks like today in Gaza. Not military gains. Not diplomatic wins. Not symbolic speeches. A bag of flour. That is the scale of hope we are working with now.
More thoughts from my journal, written in mid-August: