Over the previous 20-odd years, I’ve written a sequence of poems. I’ve stored them locked away in a folder, dreaming of publishing them accompanied by illustrations that might deliver every poem to life. I wanted somebody to assist rework my phrases into highly effective photographs.
One October night, earlier this 12 months, I used to be scrolling via Instagram once I got here throughout a phenomenal picture of Palestinian journalist Wael Dahdouh embracing his daughter.
It was the work of Mahasen al-Khateeb, considered one of Gaza’s most prolific artists. One publish led to a different and I quickly discovered myself pulled deep into her artwork.
Till that second, I had by no means heard of her. However the extra time I spent on her web page, the extra I felt a connection to her easy but highly effective and vibrant drawings. Like most of her followers, I felt the artwork Mahasen produced struck a chord deep inside. I later questioned if it was time to retrieve my outdated folder and rekindle the almost-forgotten dream of publishing my works. Maybe Mahasen might illustrate them?
I shortly made a be aware of her identify on my cellphone and determined to succeed in out as quickly because the struggle would finish, excited by the prospect of collaborating along with her.
Only a few days later, on the evening of October 18, Israel launched an air strike and killed Mahasen. She is considered one of tens of artists, designers and documentary filmmakers Israel has killed within the final 14 months. Mahasen was within the north, in Jabalia, the place there was no media or prepared entry to assist teams or meals and water.
Each dying is a tragedy with out measure. Mahasen was killed along with her whole household; one other 20 individuals have been additionally slaughtered in Jabalia that very same evening. However Israeli bombs didn’t simply kill Mahasen; in addition they killed her artwork, her aspirations and her hopes – together with these of each single sufferer who was murdered along with her.
Per official statistics, greater than 45,000 Palestinian lives have been misplaced within the ongoing genocide. What this quantity doesn’t seize is the ripple impact each single dying has on the residing – on those that cherished the sufferer, who relied on them, who discovered hope of their being. Reflecting on this actuality plunges the thoughts and coronary heart right into a painful rupture.
I didn’t know Mahasen, however was tremendously affected by her dying. I can solely think about how those that knew felt.
What number of extra desires will perish on this struggle? What number of aspirations, scribbled within the margins of notebooks, jotted down in diaries, or tucked away in a quiet nook of the thoughts, might be diminished to nothing instantly? The bombs don’t solely shatter buildings and refugee camps. In addition they obliterate desires.
Desires of kids too younger to grasp. Desires of schooling in faculties utterly eviscerated. Desires of jobs and careers. Desires of journey exterior the slender streets of refugee camps buried underneath smoke and rubble. Desires of success of a small enterprise that collapsed within the blink of an eye fixed. Desires of affection and companionship smothered by weddings postponed indefinitely or cancelled eternally.
We’re painfully conscious of all this dying. Life in Gaza is available in fragments, transient moments that we attempt to grasp totally. We don’t plan as a result of we have no idea if there might be tomorrow.
And but, we nonetheless dream. We draw, write, love, and resist. Each smile we share, each story we inform, each poem we write, is an act of defiance, a declaration that, regardless of the destruction, life continues to beat in our hearts.
Our desires usually are not grand or harmful. However by some means, they terrify our oppressors. They worry our desires as a result of we search freedom and persist towards all odds. They worry our desires as a result of they problem the established order. However desires can’t be suppressed eternally, irrespective of how a lot blood is spilled.
As I now put my folder of poems again to the place I had stored it, part of me realises the necessity to seize each second earlier than it’s taken from us by a missile, a shell, or a bullet.
I proceed to dream of the day Gaza will rework from a battleground right into a vacation spot of magnificence, a metropolis that stands tall, having survived annihilation. And with me, all Palestinians proceed to dream of breaking free, even when that appears distant and not possible.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
