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For over a year now, the Israeli military regime has tried everything to displace my people. The tactics are versatile, ranging from carpet bombing entire neighbourhoods out of existence, to executing family members in front of the eyes of their parents or children, to starvation, to intentionally targeting every civilian infrastructure ranging from medical facilities to UN schools serving as shelters.

Israel even intensified the displacement under the pretext of “evacuation.” Every campaign of this nature is another round of living through horror, uncertainty, and fear. After 14 months, we are forced to relive this again and again, but with less and less.

October was a vicious and violent period, and the immorality of Israel’s attacks only adds to the pain. Israeli warplanes threw leaflets all over the 24 square miles of the north of Gaza demanding that civilians move south towards the alleged “safe zone” of Deir el Balah in central Gaza.

The so-called safe zone is where I have written the words you’re now reading. Just moments before, a home close by was bombed. The attack made my hands shiver, “what safe zone?” I asked myself.

I was sitting with my mother on the balcony as she held me in an embrace following a conversation about what I was hoping to do after this nightmare is over. I barely had a moment to feel that embrace before the bang and the sound of a home collapsing onto itself and everyone in it overcame us.

That sound is one that is now so ingrained into the being of the people of Gaza. I don't wish it upon anyone.

At some point, I had wondered into my own imagination in which the light was not that of bomb, but a shooting star exploding to a supernova.

Then, back to reality. The street was quickly filled with people rushing to see if there were any martyrs, or if anyone could have been saved. Every time this happens I think about how strange it is to see people run towards the fire and not away from it. Then I remember, we are in Gaza, we would die to save each other.

The rush following such attacks is always followed by the wailing of women, weeping, screaming, praying. With them is the sound of others trying to coordinate how to pull people from the rubble. Salvage what is possible. That is the rule. The smell of blood, and the sight of children, babies, covered in blankets is an all too familiar scene.

This is the safe zone. This is where Israel told the starved population of the north to evacuate towards.

When Israel threw the leaflets on the north, the people made a commitment to remain and stand firm. They echoed the statement of “mish tale’en” (we will not leave). Those were the first words they said in response to the leaflets – which seemed more of a sick joke than an evacuation plan.

One of the most painful stories I have heard from my family who are still in the north, is that the Israeli military was gathering people by manipulating and lying to them.

When the army realised that Palestinians were refusing to leave the north, they began ushering them towards Tal al Hawa and Sinaah. People went there under fire and bombs still being dropped, trying to find shelter in a local school. The army then surrounded the school and imposed a siege with no one able to exit or enter, and shortly afterwards began a massacre in which the military invaded began to kill people, including children and the elderly.

Those who survived were kidnapped and taken by soldiers to what has come to be known (unofficially) amongst people as the “Hallabah”, a small box in an Israeli military base in Gaza. The fate of those taken here is unknown, or death is the most likely outcome. Either way, it is a place of pain. The Palestinians that were lucky enough to get out of the Hallabah alive, came out either insane from the horror, or completely detached from everything because of what they experienced and witnessed inside.

This is one of many horrifying stories I have heard from my people still in the north. And I only know it because they refused to leave.

When will Israel understand that this is our land, our right by blood and we will never leave?

Imagine the consciousness and strength it takes to say and embody those words: “we will not leave,” whilst running from one street to the next as the bombs rage all around. Not to mention, the risk of torture and execution always being present.

The sky is grey. It has been this way for the last 14 months. Beneath it is the blood, still warm. It is always still warm. With all of this, they still choose to remain. Starved, and abandoned, they remain.

This is belonging, this is what resistance means for Palestinians, the refusal to be displaced despite the bombs, despite the starvation, and amid a global campaign demanding that we keep enduring this horror, or waiver.

The thing is, to be killed in our lands is still better than leaving and being killed anyway.

Nour Elassy is a poet and journalist based in Gaza.

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