Voices of Resistance

“Voices of Resistance: Diaries of Genocide” (published by Biblioasis in North America and by Comma Press in the U.K.) is a collection of diaries from four Palestinian women — Batool Abu Akleen, Nahil Mohana, Ala’a Obaid and Sondos Sabra — chronicling their daily lives in Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. The following is an excerpt from Sabra’s diary.

Of course, they don’t intend to kill us, even when they drop 2,000-pound bombs on us. Even when they rain down bombardments across entire neighbourhoods and make life impossible in our city. No, no, don’t misunderstand. They are merely eradicating “terrorism.”

Two days ago, on December 5, “terrorism” was hiding in the body of Omar, my six-year-old nephew, perhaps in his heart, or maybe among his soft locks of hair. So they killed him. They dropped two missiles on him and his siblings, Aya and Ahmad and his niece Sila, who was only seven months old, killing them all.

At 5 am, my sister Randa woke to strange noises outside her house in Shuja’iyya. She roused her husband Saeed to investigate, and as soon as he opened the window, two successive explosions shook him. A thick layer of smoke filled the air outside.

Fearing a sniper might be hiding in the surrounding buildings, my sister Randa fell to the floor and crawled toward the adjacent room, in which her children had been sleeping. She found them all awake and whispered in the ear of her eldest son, Samir “The army has surrounded us.”

Fear gripped Samir’s heart; he picked up his own seven-month-old daughter, Sila, kissed her and put his hand over her mouth to prevent any sound that might alert the Israeli soldiers. Saeed suggested they go down to the basement and wait for the Israelis to withdraw from the area. But as soon as they descended the stairs, shells hit the courtyard of the house, forcing them to flee.

The sun was already rising as they moved cautiously toward the backyard, which led out into the street. There were eleven people in total: Randa and her husband Saeed; their children Samir, Mohammed, Ahmad, Aya, Fella, Farah and Omar; as well as Samir’s wife Saja and their baby daughter Sila. They snuck into the garden one by one, holding white flags over their heads. The air smelt of gunpowder. A dense fog enveloped the neighbourhood. Sounds of cannons echoed on all sides. They picked up speed and headed for a side street, about ten metres wide.

A quadcopter drone, flying low over the rooftops, noticed them and rained its bullets down on them. They scattered, stumbled, fell to the ground thinking it was all over, then realising they were still alive, got back to their feet and fled with all their might, driven by the profoundest of instincts: survival. Randa, Saeed and one of their daughters, Fella, ran into a house at the end of the street, seeking refuge.

The others kept running, cleaving to the walls for cover. Nowhere was safe in the neighbourhood. Eventually they reached an UNRWA [U.N. relief agency] school, but the missiles had followed them. How must it have felt to have reached the verge of safety — to be able to smell survival — only to have death pounce again as they rounded the corner?

My six-year-old nephew Omar was struck in the head by a piece of shrapnel and died instantly. His brother Ahmad, sister Aya and baby niece Sila were wounded and bleeding. This was Omar’s first year in elementary school. He never got to memorise the route to school each morning, or to mischievously ring doorbells and run away before anyone came. He chose another path, a more peaceful one: to soar with the flocks of young pigeons to the skies above Gaza.

With the help of a neighbour, Samir dragged his siblings to a nearby house, where he tried every possible way to stop their bleeding. Aya was wounded in her side; Ahmad in his chest and legs. Samir ran back into the street, trying to find an ambulance, though he himself had sustained a shrapnel injury to his throat and lost a tooth in his lower jaw. His efforts proved futile. Thousands of wounded are left to die on the pavements or in their houses because there just aren’t enough ambulances.

When I received the news, I tried to contact the Red Cross, struggling with the signal before finally getting through.

“Hello, habibti, Red Cross here, how can we help you?”

“This is Sondos, I need an ambulance to transport my sister’s children to the hospital. They are trapped in Shuja’iyya in a house belonging to … “

“We are sorry, habibti, we cannot help. The Israeli Army is preventing our personnel from entering Shuja’iyya.”

How cold the answer.

How warm the blood.

After an hour of bleeding, Ahmad followed his brother Omar. Minutes later, Aya joined them.

The neighbour wrapped their bodies in bedcovers and placed them on the second floor of the house, away from the eyes of his own children. At the same time, Samir’s daughter Sila was clinging to life as long as possible, craving more of her mother’s hugs, craving more of her father’s kisses.

Sila was the first grandchild of my sister Randa’s family. Her arrival brought joy to the entire household. Everyone had participated in setting up her room, equipping it with everything a baby might need. The day of her birth had been a celebration; her father distributed sweets to all the children and adults of the neighbourhood, rejoicing.

During the November truce, I visited Sila, took her in my arms and breathed in her scent. That day, a tiny white tooth started to press upwards in her lower gums. True, it hadn’t fully protruded, but it already felt sharp, voraciously biting any finger that dared touch it. Sila had a laugh that would melt your soul, transporting you out of your own dull world and into hers, with all its exuberance.

After twelve hours of bleeding, she decided to let go of this world: a world that had turned its back on her.

Until we meet again, summer fruit.

Sila’s body remained in the arms of her mother, Saja, for a whole day. Due to the ongoing fighting in the neighbourhood, Saja and Samir were unable to leave the house to bury Sila, Aya, Ahmad or Omar.

Saja was injured too: one piece of shrapnel had embedded itself in her right elbow, another in her left leg. She was barely able to move. The neighbour’s wife tried everything she could to persuade Saja to let go of her daughter, so she could place Sila’s body with the bodies of the other children on the upper floor.

Saja refused. “Please, let her stay in my arms; I want to hold her for longer.”

Saja married at eighteen, gave birth at nineteen and has lost her daughter before turning twenty. How can her young heart bear this amount of anguish? And to have this compounded by the pain of milk drying in her breasts.

While this tragedy unfolded, my sister Randa, her husband Saeed and their daughter Fella were still trapped in the house they had sought refuge in, unable to leave, and unaware of their children’s martyrdom. They’d tried calling Samir and Saja several times in the night, but their network was down. It’s common for the Israelis to cut off communications in the areas they’ve invaded.

Randa, Saeed and Fella were not alone in the house they’d taken refuge in. Over 40 people were trapped with them, all without food and water. After a full day under siege, the tanks were getting closer, and the thick smell of gunpowder made breathing almost impossible. A shell hit the roof of the house, causing a fire to break out on the upper floors. Those trapped inside could no longer bear waiting for death so they decided to flee, though danger surrounded them. They left with white flags raised, but the Israeli soldiers fired at them regardless. Some fell as martyrs, while others were injured. It was only through God’s will that Randa, Saeed and Fella survived, fleeing through empty streets and desperately searching for their family.

Eventually, Saeed spotted one of his neighbours, Abu Sami, peeking cautiously through a window in his door.

“Thank God you’re safe,” Saeed said. “Have you seen my children? Are they with a neighbour?”

“I’ve heard Abu Ahmad’s house holds the injured and displaced, they might have information about your children,” Abu Sami replied. “But I wouldn’t advise you to wander around the neighbourhood. Most of the houses are abandoned, and there are drones shooting at anyone who moves.”

Saeed, Randa and Fella ran towards Abu Ahmad’s house, their hearts pounding violently in their chests. As soon as they arrived, Saeed shouted, “Are my children with you Abu Ahmad?”

Abu Ahmad did not respond.

Saeed asked again, “Where are my children?”

In a hoarse voice, Abu Ahmad answered, “Say: There is no god but God.”

With force, my sister Randa pushed the door open, and entered to find her daughter-in-law, Saja, holding Sila’s body and weeping bitterly.

“Sila’s dead!” Saja screamed. “They’re all gone, no one is left!”

Randa froze. She didn’t scream or cry; she just stared at Sila, stared for a long time.

Fella dropped to her knees. “It’s impossible! She’s just asleep! Sila, my heart, wake up! I’ll bring you a strawberry lollipop!”

Another neighbour approached and hugged Randa, saying through her tears, “May God give you patience. … May God take revenge.”

Through broken breaths, Randa asked, “Where are my children?”

The neighbour pointed: “Upstairs.”

When he reached the upper floor, Saeed staggered as if he had lost his senses. He kneeled and lifted the covers from the faces of his children one by one, pulling each child to his chest. He let out a suppressed wail, painful and deep, as if his heart had silently exploded — a muted groan emerging from a wound so deep the entire world couldn’t heal it.

Randa stood by Omar, her beloved boy, wiping his small, cold face. Still, she did not cry or scream. She only whispered, in a broken voice, “My darling … you can not know how much I love you. Why did they do this to you?”

Beside Omar lay Ahmad, a quiet and shy child who had lost the hearing in his left ear at the age of five. He didn’t like running and playing like other children his age; he preferred watching anime and imitating his favourite characters with great skill. Randa kissed his little hands and placed them on her face. “Oh, my soul, my child, you are leaving me too. Forgive me, my darling, I couldn’t protect you!”

And Aya, their sister … When I first heard about Aya’s injury, I deeply hoped it was minor. I considered Aya a friend as much as I considered her my niece. She was athletic, strong, full of life. Naively, I believed that someone like her couldn’t die. Life suited her so well; she knew how to live it.

Death is a reality, I don’t deny it. But I never imagined I would lose Aya in such a brutal way.

Fella and Aya were more than just sisters. Fella, the youngest of the pair, saw Aya as her guide in the difficult aspects of life: the friend who would always be by her side. Sometimes, I felt annoyed by Fella’s tendency to copy everything Aya did. Sometimes, I would tell her, “You need to be yourself, not Aya’s shadow.”

But over time, I saw what Aya meant to Fella. She was more than a sister; she was her life itself, her source of strength, her place of refuge.

Fella placed her head next to Aya’s, holding her sister’s body with boundless tenderness. She stayed by her side all night, lost in deep silence, unable to believe she was losing this part of herself forever.

By sunrise, Fella’s clothes were soaked in Aya’s blood, even her hair was laced with it, but she felt nothing except emptiness. Everything around her was silent. The sounds of the artillery and drones no longer mattered.

This morning, news arrived that the occupation’s vehicles had pulled back slightly. The neighbours took this opportunity to move the injured and recover the bodies of the martyrs. No medical help was available. In a desperate effort, the locals tried to move the injured in horse-drawn carts, hoping to reach al-Ahli Baptist Hospital: a temporary refuge for the wounded since the larger al-Shifa Hospital was attacked.

As for my sister’s children: they were buried in a hurry, with no chance to say goodbye. No funeral honoured their dignity; no shrouds preserved their bodies. They were buried in the covers they had lain in, to sleep in the peace they were deprived of in reality. Our consolation is that they are now in the gardens of Paradise.

Who knows, perhaps terrorism hides in the warmth of a home, in the bells of churches or the minarets of mosques, between the pages of books, in the streets and alleyways of the camps, or even amidst the tents of the displaced. The Israeli occupation has every right to erase anything from the face of the Earth, if they so desire. And no one has the right to criticise Israel.

After all, they are saving humanity from the evildoers.

How valiant of them.

How noble.