‘I Don’t Want to Forget Who I Am’

By Mahmoud Al-Shaer

ed. Wiam El-Tamami

Mahmoud Al-Shaer is a Palestinian editor, curator, poet, and cultural organizer. He is an active and influential member of the cultural field in Gaza, founding and leading initiatives such as Majalla 28 and Gallery 28, and coordinating the cultural program at Al-Ghussein Cultural House. Both Gallery 28 and Al-Ghussein Cultural House have since been destroyed, and Mahmoud and his family have been displaced multiple times. He is currently living in al-Mawasi, in the south of Gaza, with his wife Hadil and his three-year-old daughter Nai. His young son, Majd (the twin brother of Nai), had to be evacuated to Turkey with his grandmother, Mahmoud’s mother, for emergency medical care. Both are now receiving critical medical treatment in Ankara; the family has been separated for almost one year.

And yet, despite overwhelming odds, Mahmoud Al-Shaer continues, insistently, to write, to try to reach out and connect, to communicate what is happening since his whole world fell apart. Below is an edited selection of texts that Mahmoud has been publishing as updates on his fundraising campaign.

We run the first half of these texts today, with the second half scheduled for Thursday, November 7. -WE.

October 24, 2024

I am trying with everything I have to survive, to keep my spirit and the spirits of my family alive. What is happening here surpasses even my worst nightmares of violence. It is something unimaginable, and I am enduring it along with more than 2 million people trapped inside the Gaza Strip.

But I will survive—I am doing everything I can to make it.

October 17, 2024

The despair caused by the length of this genocide forces me to confront losses I had previously refused to acknowledge, like the killing of many friends and relatives, and the loss of all our cultural spaces, both public and private, that had formed a cultural scene despite the siege imposed since 2006, until we were under intense siege and genocide for the past 365+ days.

The despair caused by the length of this genocide forces me to admit that my life was utterly destroyed by October 7th, and that I now exist in a place completely void of life. The army has destroyed the infrastructure, buildings, streets, and has left us without any foundations for the life we remember. It forces me to recognize that survival comes at a cost, and that in Al-Mawasi, this cost has turned, in a capitalist era, into a huge expense. Since we all live in an area unfit for civilian life, lacking any type of infrastructure, everyone had to create facilities such as kitchens, bathrooms, and build additional spaces beyond the tent. Sometimes, people even pay for the ground they live on ($1 per square meter per month). Food options are extremely limited—no fresh vegetables, no fresh meat. Because the electricity is cut off, small quantities of frozen meat come in, sometimes priced ten times higher. Vegetables recently reached a hundred times their previous price. I must also acknowledge that I can no longer afford cigarettes, nearly quitting smoking because the price of a single cigarette is now 250 times what it used to be. I must admit that I can’t afford new clothes or new shoes, and that I’ve repaired my sandals eight times so far. I’ve held onto these sandals as if they were the last thing left in my life. I must admit that I live a life that is both extremely limited and incredibly costly.

The despair caused by the length of this genocide pushes me to confess my desire to survive. My desire for times not threatened by the constant sound of warplanes flying above us. My desire to walk without fearing being targeted. My desire to sleep without panic.

The despair caused by the length of this genocide makes me long for the sound of cars and people in the center of Rafah on Saturdays, the weekly market day. I long for the days when that hustle and bustle used to frustrate me. I long to open the door to my home, the door to Gallery 28, and the door Al-Ghussein Cultural Center. I long to tell drivers the destinations I want to go to within Gaza: Al-Awda Roundabout, the Eastern Garage, Khan Younis, Gaza, Rimal, Family Junction, Al-Wahda Street, Al-Shuja’iya Intersection, the Square, Al-Saraya Intersection, Nuseirat, Rafah.

October 12th, 2024

Yesterday marked the third birthday of Nai and Majd—October 11, 2024. This means a full year for my twin children under the shadow of war. In such warped circumstances, my children are growing up without the conditions that allow us to gather around the same cake this year — Nai and Majd could not blow out the same candles.

This year, in Mawasi Khan Yunis, Nai celebrated her birthday surrounded by me, Hadil, her grandparents (Hadil’s parents), and three of her uncles. While Majd celebrated his birthday in a hotel in Ankara, with his grandmother and several other people who are not part of our household.

Nai blew out three candles and made her wish: “Dear God, please make Majd better again. Dear God, I want to go to Majd and Grandma Aida with Daddy and Mommy.”

Majd blew out his candles and made his wish: that he would never feel pain from doctors again.

When the cake arrived at my workplace earlier that day, after a friend of mine transported it from Al-Nuseirat Camp to Al-Rashid Street west of Al-Zawaida town, I carried it and walked down a long corridor. Every time a colleague or a patient in the outpatient clinic saw me, they congratulated me, while witnessing the tears streaming down my cheeks and onto the box. My heart was torn in two. A part of me was happy because Nai had been fixated on the idea of a cake for days; the other part ached for Majd. It brought up, once again, the void in my own life—the void of all the birthdays I’ve had without a father.

September 22, 2024

Do I coexist with war?

Do I ignore the genocide being carried out against me?

If my answer is no, how do I prove that to myself?

Many friends ask me how I live my days under this genocide. How do I manage to express my readiness to collaborate with anyone outside the siege to create artistic projects?

Before this war, I was the editor-in-chief of 28 Magazine, a magazine for literature and cultural, and the cultural program coordinator for Beit Al-Ghussein, a cultural center. I spent my days from morning until 10 p.m. between Rafah (Gallery 28, Sea Street, west of Ker intersection, Rafah), Gaza (Beit Al-Ghussein, the old town, Gaza City), and various cultural and artistic events. Occasionally, I would oversee a new phase of constructing my private home, which I began building in February 2020.

From the beginning of the war until March 25th, the genocide had entirely obliterated my previous way of life. I barely left the house, and the farthest I traveled during that time was to the Rafah crossing on February 8th, attempting to leave. I was sent back to Gaza without any explanation, denied the right to travel. This restriction on my freedom of movement, imposed by the Egyptian side, has been ongoing since the end of 2019.

On March 25th, I signed a three-month trial contract to work in the MEAL department at the field hospital of the International Medical Corps (IMC). Since July, I’ve been working on a monthly renewable contract. The hospital has moved twice since its establishment at the beginning of this year in northern central Rafah: first to western Rafah (Al-Mawasi) and then to western Deir al-Balah.

Since the war started, I have moved six times between various places after the army forced me to leave my home on May 8, 2024.

These days, I wake up every day at 5 a.m. to the sound of my alarm and the explosions destroying the city—its streets, infrastructure, buildings—and, of course, any human being inside them. It takes me about an hour and a half to prepare myself to leave for work. I walk for about 8 minutes from the apartment I’ve rented until I reach Al-Rashid Street. Around 7 a.m., a bus with 50 passengers takes me from southwest Al-Mawasi in Khan Younis to Deir al-Balah. Work begins at 8 a.m., and the hospital’s outpatient clinics receive around 1,000 patients daily, 80% of whom are children. My job at the hospital involves collecting patients’ tickets, entering them into the system, and monitoring the doctors’ performance and the daily operations. We finish work at 3 p.m., and the same bus brings me back home, arriving around 5 p.m. The return journey is a slow walk amidst about one and a half million people, all confined to the only road available in the entire Gaza Strip—Al-Rashid Street.

In truth, I don’t know how time passes from 5 p.m. until bedtime. Sometimes, I take Nai and we go out to the beach, though there’s nothing special there except tents stretching as far as the eye can see to the north, and what seems like a border when I look toward Rafah. Other times, I spend my time searching for internet access, or practicing my writing, reflecting, meditating.

Do I ignore the genocide when I test my ability to listen to music amidst the overwhelming fear of an incoming missile or the approaching danger, all while sensing the importance of staying attuned to the sounds of life around me? No songs, no films, no shows, no theater, no YouTube. It’s only the news and a persistent feeling that I hear screaming whenever silence falls.

Do I ignore the genocide when I try to escape the sound of drones by listening to the voices I love? But what if there’s an airstrike close to me?

I am rambling, coming apart, my writing losing its meaning, my words losing their ability to express, my language its ability to construct.

September 10th, 2024

Hadil and I were injured last night. It might have been a precise strike, as the army claims.

The three of us—Hadil, Nai, and I—went to bed at 10 PM, our bodies unharmed. We slept until around 1 AM. The first explosion hit, then the second, windows shattered, doors flung open, and I shielded Nai with my body, covering her, while Hadil covered both of us. The fourth, fifth, and sixth strikes followed. I checked Nai; she was fine. I felt the heat of the blood on my body. We waited. Hadil said, “I’m still alive.” I replied, “Me too.” Dust filled the air. Nai was unharmed, but I was bleeding. Hadil responded, “I can’t feel my body.”

We decided to leave. I carried only Nai. Hadil leaned on me, and we walked outside to the street. I was wearing just shorts and a tank top, while Hadil had her prayer dress over a couple of layers. So did everyone around us. Someone said, “Your face, it’s bleeding!”

I looked at Hadil, who was in shock, and said, “We’re all okay.”

We treated our wounds and returned to our room, which now looked like a scene explaining what had happened. The glass from the windows had injured us, and we discovered we were just 30 meters from the strike, right within the so-called precise target zone, according to the army.

I am wounded. My body is not as whole as it was at the start of the night. I have two cuts above my left eyebrow, my hands are covered in multiple cuts, and my right foot has two deep, painful wounds. I am wounded and cannot wash my body or remove the dried blood for fear of infection. I am wounded, injured in the humanitarian zone, along with my wife Hadil, on September 10, 2024.

I am in the humanitarian zone, and you are in Ankara. I look at you through a smallscreen as if I were a soul in a grave, thinking that if my attempt to leave in February had succeeded, I would now be the one taking all these pictures of you. I would be the one carrying you out of your hospital bed, walking you toward the windows, the corridors, the gardens, the streets, and the signs of life.

I am in the humanitarian zone, and you are in Ankara. I hear your voice as if I were a soul in a grave, thinking that if I had made it out in February, I would be by your side now. I would see you, and you would see me. I would be the one helping you get dressed, and the one you lean on to get out of bed. I would be the one accompanying you to hospital appointments. And, my dear mother, I would be the one staying with Majd for four nights in the ICU when you can’t even stretch your hand to comfort the terrified child surrounded by wires, tubes, and the constant beeping of the monitors.

I am in the humanitarian zone, and you are too. I kiss you. I see you. I carry you. I walk with you on sandy streets between tents, and I watch as your language forms, as your body and awareness of the world around you grow. I stand in front of the alphabet of annihilation that you are learning as if I were a soul in a grave. You say: sand, tent, bombing, plane, missile, bullet. I stand before your knowledge of fear and its emotions. I watch you grow with big questions: Why isn’t Majd with us? Why can’t we go to him?

I ask you: Who is the sweetest? You answer: Nuno and Majd.

Who is my life’s love? You answer: Nuno and Majd.

Who is my soul’s love? You answer: Nuno and Majd.

And you ask me: Baba, where is Majd?

I am in the humanitarian zone, and you are here with me. I watch you look through our belongings every time, asking after every missing item, how will we continue? But we do. I watch you stand at the threshold of new places, when all you expected was to stand at the threshold of our home, the one we were about to finish building. I watch you look at me, at Majd, and at Nai, and I can’t fill any of the gaps in the picture, as if I am a body without meaning.

I am in the humanitarian zone. I look at my language, my experience, what I have built, and I see that I am a body without meaning. I search for meaning and find only pain. I search for hope and see my friends bringing news of loss again and again. I search for meaning and find none. There is an alphabet of annihilation with words that need explanation for anyone who hasn’t lived in what the army now calls the humanitarian zone.

I am in the humanitarian zone, and you are reading or hearing these words.

Your solidarity is like batteries for energy; your words light up the dark times and prevent me from succumbing to depression and the feeling of isolation. Every bit of help you offer extends the time I feel human.

Your solidarity and engagement with me have made me feel like my words are seeds spreading on the ground, breaking free from the chains of this war of annihilation. Please continue to liberate me by using my words and sharing them, in whole or in part, without needing my permission. Just talk about me. Tell the people around you about my story and the story of my people, who have been living through genocide for 340 days.

Please keep spreading the word, quoting and reusing the text however it fits for you.

Please support Mahmoud Al-Shaer in any way that you can. In his words: “ I ask you to share our story, to spread the word about the ongoing devastation in Gaza. Let the world know that we are still here, still fighting, still in need of your voices and your support.

I urge you to keep providing support. Your interaction and conversations with me are a lifeline for dealing with the crises that I am experiencing. I will always remain open to creating any shared projects with artists and writers, or simply for reflection and conversation. New levels of this genocide have begun, which I observe and contemplate, recording them consciously or unconsciously. And every time I look around and compare the streets walked by anyone outside this siege to the streets here, I see nothing in common. Everything is different within this massacre.

Come closer to me, speak with me, convey my words, speak about me, and free my words and voice from this overwhelming siege.”

Editor’s note: You can contact Mahmoud via his crowdfunding campaign.