"Today i turn 33.
I was born in a refugee camp called al-Shati Camp, or Beach Camp, in Gaza City. This photo was taken in March 2022 on the beach of Beit Lahia, north Gaza. I lived in Beit Lahia, the city of Strawberries, from the age of 8 until I was forced out of Gaza. Beit Lahia was where I got married, where I became a father. It’s where I started writing. It’s where I started the Edward Said Public Library.
Where I lived in Beit Lahia was never far from the sea. Everything felt close: the strawberry fields, the shoreline, and the schools where I once studied and later taught. Even Yaffa, the city from which my grandparents and great-grandparents were expelled in 1948, was not far, only forty-three miles away. Yet the cruelty of this world has made it impossible for me to return to, or even visit, the city of my family.
That same cruelty has made death, the drones, F-16s, and bombes, closer to me, and to everyone in Gaza, than anything else on earth.
May Yaffa one day become the nearest of all cities. May the orange trees in my grandparents’ groves again cast their shade over our home, and bear the sweetest oranges once more.
(The book I was reading from was The Prophet. It’s currently under the rubble of our house in Beit Lahia
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