Two weeks ago, I evacuated the Gaza Strip after receiving a scholarship to study International Relations at an Italian university. Physically, my body sits safely in a quiet city in southern Italy. But after enduring two and a half years of genocide, my mind lives entirely in Gaza.
I haven’t put down my phone for a second, constantly checking on my family and friends, bracing for the next strike. On Tuesday night, that anticipation turned into reality.
It was the eve of Eid Al-Adha, which is supposed to be a joyous festival marked by familiar rituals and familial celebrations. Even despite the ongoing Israeli siege and military bombardment, which makes a mockery of the so-called “ceasefire,” people in Gaza have clung to Eid as a way of insisting on life. Yet once again, Israel was determined to crush these efforts.
Early that evening, I video called my friend Waseem, who runs a children’s clothing stall in the center of the Al-Rimal neighborhood in Gaza City. Owing to the near-total destruction of northern Gaza and the constant encroachment of Israel’s “Yellow Line,” Al-Rimal has become the north’s primary commercial hub.
Historically, the neighborhood was the beautiful jewel of the city center — buzzing with elegant fashion shops, restaurants, cafes, and stalls. For over 2 million people forbidden from leaving Gaza, walking through Al-Rimal once felt like a small escape into another life. Even those who couldn’t afford the cheapest clothes would wander its sidewalks just to feel alive, to feel connected to a world beyond the blockade.
Waseem is the sole breadwinner for his family of five, crammed into a relative’s house since their own home was destroyed in September 2025. Our connection on the call was unstable, but I could see that his face looked worn. He told me he had been counting on the Eid season to sell enough clothes to repay his mounting debts, but few could afford them.
“Many people are begging me to cut the prices or let them pay later when they have money,” he said. “But I can’t. I have my own responsibilities. Every Eid, the purchasing power drops as poverty deepens in Gaza. If I don’t sell this month, I’ll close the stall. There’s no point.”
I stared at Waseem through the screen, analyzing his suffering from a distance for the first time. Back in Gaza, we used to conclude every grievance with a joke, laughing it off as if he were merely “jinxed” with bad luck. But this time, secure in Europe while he remained under bombardment, the laughter died in my throat. His struggle, and that of all Gazans, has nothing to do with luck; it is entirely engineered by the hands of the Israeli occupation.
I asked him to turn the camera around so I could see the streets I already miss so acutely. I yearned to see the resilient faces of children carrying bags of new clothes — faces that always gave me the energy to hold on and believe that we deserve good things.
Moments after we hung up, a notification from a local WhatsApp news group popped up on my phone: A series of four Israeli airstrikes had just ripped through Al-Rimal.
My heart raced; my palms began to sweat. I frantically redialed Waseem. To my immense relief, he answered. His face was completely covered in grey dust, the background swallowed by a thick haze. “They bombed incredibly close to us,” he choked out. “It felt like an earthquake.”
After ending the call, my mind went into overdrive. I jumped between social media platforms, watching live videos shared by journalists on the ground.
I saw a young man with Down syndrome trying to explain to a TV reporter the terror he felt when a bomb exploded near the restaurant where he was eating. I saw two little girls weeping over the body of their aunt, who had been waiting for them to finish buying clothes when the airstrike killed her. I saw the partially ruined storefronts of the men’s clothing shops where I used to buy my own clothes.
Later, the Ministry of Health confirmed that the attack killed four people and wounded around a dozen more (at least six others were killed in separate attacks in Gaza that day). The Israeli military announced that the target was Mohammed Odeh, claiming him as the new chief of Hamas’ Al-Qassam Brigades following the assassination of Izz Al-Din Al-Haddad last week.
Israel constantly flexes its “accurate” weapons technology to the West, claiming it can eliminate targets with precision. In reality, we Gazans believe they could target anyone they want without harming others; they just use their targets as an excuse to massacre more civilians under the clinical term of “collateral damage.”
Shortly after, another building in the same neighborhood was bombed, wounding dozens more. I tried calling another friend who works in a children’s store nearby, but the network was dead. I messaged his wife, Yasmin.
“Mohammed was on his way to work,” she replied. “He passed near the first building that was bombed and luckily survived, then he reached his store just before the second one was hit. He is alive, but he is completely broken by what he saw.”
I viscerally understood Mohammed’s state: I survived dozens of nearby attacks and struggled to go on as if this were normal.
Sitting thousands of miles away on my quiet Italian balcony, I wish I could do anything to ease their pain. But I have nothing left except my prayers and commitment to tell those around me about Gaza — how extraordinary its people are, and how deeply we deserve to live.
From here, I can do nothing except wait for the next call, the next message, the next list of names. Distance offers no protection from helplessness.
