Two Cat Stories from Gaza

These two stories both come from Palestinian writer and psychologist Dr. Hassan Al-Qatrawi.

Hunger’s Siege on Gaza

By Dr. Hassan Al-Qatrawi

Translated by Munira El Najar

Two hours of persistent efforts, all to convince the swarm of cats that had gathered around me—while I was cooking our single meal of the day—that today’s food was not to their liking. I told them, more than once, that it was molokhia. They didn’t believe me. The cats misread the expressions on my face; they kept up a ceaseless chorus of meows. Only one of them seemed to understand what I was saying, and she began meowing at the others, as if explaining that today’s meal was meant for humans. Even then, they didn’t believe her. The cats had taken over:  one sat beside the stove, another curled up on my worn-out chair, a third paced in circles, a fourth perched on the wall. The biggest, meanwhile, one stared directly at the food, occasionally turning to shoot me a resentful glare.

After much back and forth, we found a solution: We would serve the food to everyone and eat together. Whoever liked it could continue eating until they had their full, and whoever didn’t could go find something else. And that’s exactly what happened. We served the molokhia, and the meowing began again, as if it were a celebration. There was bread for all. Naturally, the cats didn’t care for the molokhia, but they did share our bread, each taking a share and scurrying off to its own hiding place. Cats in Gaza have taken to eating bread; truly it is one of the wonders of our time.

The cats have shed their tame natures. Before this hunger, they had been calm and docile, obedient in a strangely submissive way. Today, they have become wild creatures, fighting for their share of whatever scraps are left. And that is their right, given to them by God. Trust in the Provider. He who has not forsaken the cats will not forsake a people.

 

The Sound of Death and the White Cat

By Dr. Hassan Al-Qatrawi

Translated by Munira El Najar

 

It was no easy thing: to hear the sound of death and remain strong as I always tried to be. The sound of death hisses like a serpent; it coils around your soul and strikes terror the moment you hear it. I know snakes well, and yet seeing them fly through the sky was a horror I never imagined.

The war began, and my strength began to unravel. Death’s whistle echoed through the streets, chilling me to the bone. I pretended to be brave so my children could feel safe. But it was never real safety—only a counterfeit courage, the only fragile shield we had. I didn’t want my children to die a thousand times from fear.

You can see death, but I had never heard it until the fiftieth day of this war. I remember it well. A missile hissed overhead before crashing into the home of my kind neighbors. They died without ever hearing that hiss. They died once, but we died twice: once from the sound, once from the fear.

When the noise faded, I saw my little boy running in all directions, panic stamped across his face. I knew what he was searching for. His fear for his things mirrored my fear for mine. Mine are my children. His are his cat. When he finally found her, I watched his features soften as he gently stroked her back, like a father comforting his child. He smiled in confusion, as if he were the one who had survived. He had pulled her from the rubble even before checking on his siblings.

“We have to run, Dad,” he whispered with a heartache only a parent could know. “The cat will die.”

All the neighborhood cats were starving—except for his. He guarded her like an orphaned child. I don’t remember a single night she went to bed hungry. That’s the toll of friendship—it can rival love. Love might die when one is betrayed, but true friendship resists even that. My son was a faithful friend to his cat.

That day, we had to leave our loyal home, the home that had loved us more than itself. You can see love in the eyes of the places that house you. Our home sheltered us from a missile once, absorbing its death with a final smile. It let itself shatter so we could survive the cruelty of occupation.

We fled to a place that felt nothing like us. Everything there was harsh, with a cruelty that rivaled death itself. To be displaced from your home is a slow dying. You keep breathing, but every breath feels tighter, every day more grief-ridden. I came to understand that not all killing ended in death. Some deaths kept you breathing while your loved ones vanished.

Some cruelties are unbearable. The hardest loss, for me, was a friend I made in the camp. Every evening, we would gather behind our tents—tents like cells in a prison—talking about a homeland that had been lost in a blink, remembering laughter that had become sadness cloaked in shame. We lined up for water, huddling behind jerrycans, our lives reduced to a queue.

Before his final departure, he had lived through a bombing. Only he and his blind mother had survived it. The occupation had bombed his home, and he had lost his family in a single moment. Yet he laughed. He was steadfast, like a towering mountain. And I would wonder: how can he laugh with so much grief in his heart?

After he was gone, I understood. He was laughing his way out of this world. Out of this world that mourns a single flower but stays silent as a nation dies. His soul was already on its way to join his wife and children. That was the secret to his strange laughter.

He died without resistance, a man at peace. The occupation’s airstrike hit a car near him, as if keeping its appointment with the pilot’s depravity. The pilot didn’t care how many innocents would die—he just wanted his revenge. He did not realize that, while thinking he had triumphed, he had gifted my friend the reunion he longed for. In the language of love, it was my friend who won.

When I got the news, I didn’t tell his mother. I stayed by her side, serving her quietly. One night, she called out for him. I rushed over, only to find her weeping bitterly. I asked what was wrong.

“Diaa is gone,” she said.

“No, he’s not.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she said firmly. “I’m blind, but I see with a mother’s heart. He kisses me every night. You don’t.”

She was right. Two nights later, she joined her family in heaven. Her passing was as bitter as war.

The next morning, my son told me his cat had stopped eating. She was sick and frail. The tremor in his voice broke my heart. I tried to soothe him: “Maybe she didn’t like the food.”

“But it’s the same food she always eats!”

“Maybe she didn’t sleep well.”

He nodded, knowing I was lying.

Cats, like people, fall ill when they’re torn from home. Our house was hers, too. My son went to care for his cat, while I harbored my heartache for the old woman; it felt as though it were my own mother who had left. To lose your home is to suffer twice.

The next day, my wife was baking bread. She grabbed some sheets of paper to light the oven wihtout knowing they were from the manuscript of my next novel. I had written my story by candlelight, since we were without electricity. I stared at the flames devouring my heart’s ink. My wife looked horrified. I smiled bitterly and said, “Don’t worry. Bread feeds them more than my words. Writing is a long poverty.”

Later, at the market, I met an old man with a water jug. I helped him carry it. He had no one left, only his sick wife, who lay there, helpless and beseiged by swarms of flies, lying ill on an ancient sheet that looked a thousand years old. I rushed home, grabbed our mattress and warm blanket, and gave it to them. It was enough for two. When they lay down on it together, I felt like my parents had finally found rest. I stayed there until evening, then bade them farewell with dry eyes. I went back to my tent and slept.

The next morning, my phone rang. War changes even the sound of a ringtone. The only thing I can compare it to is the blast of a trumpet announcing doom. I prayed for good news, that it was merely a call to check in, but God didn’t answer. My brother was on the other end, sobbing. My uncle, his wife, and their children were buried under rubble. I didn’t know what to say; what words of comfort could possibly be enough? There is no solace for a broken heart, save silence. The pilot had bombed their home and flew on, killing them as casually as one might crush a colony of ants. That is how cheap our lives had become.

My uncle had refused to flee. He knew the safest place wasn’t on earth—it was in the heavens. I ended the call, my heart screaming its silent scream as I carried this weight of sorrow in my chest.

In this war, there were no goodbyes. Only temporary sorrows as we waited for the next wave of grief.

An hour ago, I went back to the market carrying the weight of death, and returned with food. We ate to survive another day in this slow death, and we dreamed of a better way to die. Being crushed under rubble is terrifying. I wondered—did my uncle’s family die quickly or slowly? I hoped it was fast. Dying slowly means dying a thousand deaths: of fear, of dread, and of the agony of waiting.

I slammed the door on memory. That was the only way to survive here; I had no capacity left for sorrow. Painful memories must be forcefully locked away, as they refuse to fade on their own. Death itself is not the defining factor. We’re all dead here. The difference among us is that some can still walk. I walked on, a dead man, and no one knew.

I returned to my tent to find my son crying. His sorrow filled the air; a child’s grief that darkened the world. He, too, carried burdens. There is a treasure in a child’s heart: a pure, healing innocence that was the remedy for a world rife with malice.

His tears burned like fire in my heart. I knew what had happened.

The cat was gone.

I searched for words of comfort but found none; I drew closer, trying but failing to offer a proper eulogy. I stood before him in silence. He looked at me and said, in a voice heavy with defeat:

“She died, Baba.” Then he burst into fresh sobs.

I held him in silence. Sometimes, silence is the only funeral prayer.

The cat, like us, hated exile. Home isn’t only where you live—it’s what lives inside you. The soul is vast enough to encompass home. And when a homeland is crushed, so are the souls that loved it.

Photo courtesy Dr. Hassan Al-Qatrawi.

Dr. Hassan Al-Qatrawi is an Assistant Professor at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza, Palestine, with more than 25 years of experience in university teaching and academic work. He holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology, and much of his academic work has focused on counseling, psychosocial support, trauma, displacement, grief, and the psychological consequences of conflict. He has also published several novels, including The Language of Adam, Rawan’s Café, and The Last Gasp; his writing has appeared in translation at ArabLit and ArabLit Quarterly.

Munira El Najar is an English teacher in Gaza, Palestine.