“We love life whenever we can. We dance and throw up a minaret or raise palm trees for the violets growing between two martyrs,” wrote the beloved Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish.
He proclaimed to the world what lies at the heart of Palestine: love. And in Gaza, love can be felt everywhere, even amidst genocide.
When we think of the term ‘war’ our minds naturally wonder to everything that’s ugly. War is torture, displacement, hunger, death, blood and fear. War is literally the opposite of love. But in Gaza, despite being faced with all these horrific things for over a year, love surrounds it.
Love is what keeps the tiny occupied land from being wiped off the face of the earth.
It is choosing to remain even as the most powerful nations try to force you out with their arms and influence.
Whenever I meet a fellow Gazan – whether a new or old acquaintance – they always speak about Gaza with that same profound emotion that outshines the ugliness and the pain.
Indeed, in Palestine it is expressed through so many of our rituals, like when we commemorate our deceased. Or, when doctors refuse to stop treating their patients even at gunpoint, and when journalists fight to deliver their message despite the constant threats.
It is the resistance protecting their land through unimaginable conditions, the same land that the children of Palestine are deeply attached to even when they have only ever seen it in ruins.
Certainly, it is our foundation: we share a love of the fertile earth that gives us our olive trees; in every stitch of tatreez; in the stories of our ancestors preserved in our folk songs, and even in the mint tea we sip in front of our beach. It is heard through the oud played by musicians who write songs from their flimsy tents in refugee camps.
It is also in what became the everyday in Gaza, like a husband standing in line for 16 hours to fetch clean water despite being wounded. Or families sharing their food with their neighbours when there is too little to even feed themselves.
Palestinians taught the world much as they resisted through giving life, by fighting and remaining steadfast in the face of Israel’s machine – for some, even till the end.
For the Palestinian survivors I’ve spoken to, this is what kept them going, kept them resilient for over fifteen months of genocide.
Like one young woman who had been living in newlywed bliss with her husband – a journalist - when before her eyes, he stood in front of her to protect her from a betraying missile that hit their home. He was killed instantly. Since then, she took over from him as a journalist in order to honour his legacy.
She is raising their baby daughter to be brave, just like her father.
“I lost everything in this genocide: my only love, and my life somewhere along the way, ” she explained when I asked her about the most significant barriers she faced. “But my husband proved in his final moments on earth that there are no obstacles to love if you decide. He was our protector and our shield from an Israeli airstrike, and preserved our lives instead of his own”.
Despite the occupier’s best efforts, love prevails for the Palestinian people. We preserve one another, including our martyrs.
You see, love has a different meaning in the middle of the genocide. This is something a young Palestinian mother told me. For seven years she had struggled to conceive another child, and had three miscarriages. Her husband had struggled to get her the medication she needed, and to pay for medical bills, but somehow, she fell pregnant.
This is what helped them hang on for dear life amidst all this pain and suffering, her husband explained.
The idea of trying to have another baby following miscarriages and displacement as deadly strikes continue to rain down, is inconceivable to most on this earth. But for her it was a powerful symbol that the life growing inside her will come into the world and be raised to share the same passion for her homeland.
The stories of intimacy, eternal love and compassion that come from Gaza are likely to be forgotten or overseen not only during the bloodshed, but also in the aftermath as questions of accountability and rebuilding are prioritised. We must therefore preserve them by recounting and documenting the intimate experiences of Palestinians.
For me, love is central to our survival as Palestinians. It is expressed when we stand together united in the face of oppression and when we refuse to give up.
This only strengthens through our struggle for justice, and when we keep speaking about our homeland so everyone knows our story.
It is the reason I decided to go back and fight after a long year of sickness, and why I chose to write these words.
If not for the love of our land and the Palestinians it belongs to, how else would we still be alive? Why else would we still be fighting to free it?
Yara Eid is a Palestinian journalist and human rights advocate who has worked with various international human rights organisations, including Amnesty International. In her writing she explores the struggles of living under apartheid and occupation. Yara has worked as a war journalist on the ground, and covered the 2022 aggression on Gaza. She has been published in Aljazeera, the LA Times, and others.
Follow her on X: @yaraeid_
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