Opinion

‘Reduced to dust’: An elegy for Gazan life

The experience of catastrophic loss is not new. One could say it has been integral to the experience of being Palestinian since 1948, when some 700,000 people were expelled from their homes and rendered refugees during the mass dispossession occasioned by the founding of Israel. Many of them ended up in Gaza, an ancient trading city on the Mediterranean Sea.

Gaza, which has been under a crippling blockade since Hamas seized power in 2007, is often characterized as the world’s largest open-air prison. The metaphor is powerful but misleading. Gaza is a hodgepodge of coastal villages, cities and refugee camps, home to 2.1 million people who live and work, study and worship, vacation and play. Despite everything, life goes on here.

Over the past weeks, I invited Gazans to share memories of places they have lost. The result is an oral history of buildings and locales that are at once iconic and sentimental. Some of these are many centuries old, built and rebuilt after earlier devastations. Some are new, emerging only in the past decade. All of them testify to lives lived against terrible odds. Places that have become unrecognizable; in the words of one resident, “reduced to dust.”

My father’s parents lived around the corner from Al-Ailat, the largest bakery in Gaza. Al-Ailat, which means “the family” in Arabic, is run by the Shehada clan, Christians who have been in Gaza for centuries. While the bakery started as a storefront in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, it has expanded over the years to occupy half of an entire block. Al-Ailat is more than a bakery; there’s a cafe with cute bistro chairs where you can eat sweets and drink coffee. The place is famous for its ka’ak, a kind of sesame-covered biscuit, as well as the mouajanat, a bread pie filled with spinach or cheese. When I was younger, we’d buy steaming hot pita bread there and then run across the street to Abu Talal, the popular hummus shop. The combination was heaven. The bakery was bombed on Nov. 4 and Nov. 9 and is now inoperable.

When I was a kid, the mishwar al bahar (seaside car ride) was a highlight of the week. My father would drive along the narrow meandering coastal road, flanked by dusty dunes carpeted with trees and shrubs, lettuce beds and the wild white beach lilies that emerged from the sand like ghostly exoskeletons. We would stop to take in the sea air, digging our bare feet into the beach as paper kites with sinewy tails filled the skies. The beach has long been a popular destination on Friday afternoons, a chance to bump into friends and family. Driving past the Muntada Beach Club, we would occasionally stop at an archaeological site. As visitors approached, the elderly caretaker would rush to lift a tarpaulin off the Byzantine-era mosaic floor, with its ornate beasts and birds. But the best part of our Friday mishwar was the final stop at Kazem Ice Cafe on Omar al-Mukhtar Street for its famous barrad — the Gaza granita that launched a thousand Proustian madeleine moments. Parts of the Gaza coastline have been repurposed as Israeli military stations. Countless cafes and homes have been destroyed.

In 1995, I was 15, the Palestinian Authority was newly in power, and my family had moved back to Gaza. My parents had moved around Europe when I was little — we’d last lived in Scotland — and after our return, my mother worked to make sure we maintained a connection to the English language. One summer evening, my sister Basma and I went to see a production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center. The modernist concrete building, brutalist in style, was named for a beloved former mayor of Gaza and was known for its public talks, dabke performances, and plays such as this one, performed by England’s Roehampton Players. I remember the lush set design, depicting the forest world and its magical creatures, fairies and nymphs. As a teenage boy, I was especially taken with Titania, the fairy queen — and also, perhaps, inspired by the tale of a young couple rebelling against the dictates of a ruling and imperialist power, even if only for a single, magical night. The Rashad Shawa Cultural Center was bombed on Nov. 25. Hundreds of people were sheltering there at the time.

Gaza had no institutions of higher education until the late 1970s, so Palestinians had to go abroad to study (if they were lucky). The Islamic University of Gaza, established in 1978, was a boon. By the time I studied there in the early 2010s, it was enormous, with faculties of medicine, education, sharia, the arts and much more. I was encouraged to study English literature by Refaat Alareer, the poet and Shakespeare scholar with whom I took classes during high school. Refaat, who also taught at the Islamic University, introduced me to “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and the diaries of the Palestinian writer and architect Suad Amiry, among other texts. At his urging, I memorized the monologues of Hamlet and was introduced to Pirandello, Petrarch and Dante. At Oxford, where I went next, I often thought back to those fateful days at the Islamic University. Israeli forces bombed the university on Oct. 11. On Dec. 2, the university’s president, Professor Sufyan Tayeh, was killed along with his family in an airstrike on the Jabalya refugee camp. Five days later, Refaat Alareer and his family were killed in a targeted strike.

The Gaza Zoo opened in 2010 on a repurposed garbage dump. It was where Palestinians of every age could get acquainted with more than 100 species of animals. Within its bounds are a small amusement park, gardens and a cafeteria. Among the animals were foxes, wolves, turtles, pheasants, peacocks, lions and a camel. Because of the Israeli blockade around Gaza, most of them had been smuggled in from Egypt through underground tunnels. A few years back, another zoo in Gaza made international headlines when, unable to acquire zebras, an enterprising zookeeper painted two white donkeys with black stripes. They looked as good as real. As the aggression against Gaza began, zookeepers had to abandon the premises. They were able to return only in late November during a pause in fighting — to find that 90 percent of the animals had starved to death.

Visiting the Great Omari Mosque, the oldest mosque in Gaza, was like going back in time. You could smell history there, the air perfumed by the wares of spice sellers and butchers. In ancient times, the site, not far from the gold market, is said to have housed a Philistine temple honoring Dagon, a pagan god of prosperity. In the 5th century, the Byzantines built a church there, which in turn was transformed into a mosque after the Muslims arrived in the 7th century. Ibn Battuta, the 14th-century scholar, wrote about it in his travelogues. The first time I visited the mosque, when I was in primary school, I was intrigued by the huge columns and the many doors. El Omari was a place where people went to pray or take a break from their stressful lives. Interestingly, it wasn’t segregated by gender as Gaza’s other mosques are, so men and women prayed together in the same hall. On Dec. 8, an Israeli airstrike leveled the mosque, leaving only its damaged minaret standing amid the rubble.

I’ve been riding horses since I was in the 8th grade. A lot of people in Gaza ride, especially along the Mediterranean Sea. I started at the Friends Club a few months after the Israelis destroyed my school, the American International School. Riding was an escape, a way to de-stress. My horse was named Tiger, a gentle orange-brown horse that loathed crowds. As I got better, I desperately wanted to take part in international equestrian competitions, but that was impossible because of the blockade. Still, the Friends Club served as a sort of community center for horse lovers, a sanctuary for me and for so many others. The Israeli military has bulldozed the club.

I was born during the first intifada, in 1991 — the year that Al-Azhar University opened its doors. I studied at Al-Azhar, graduating in 2013 with a degree in English literature. The university is a short walk from the sea, so in our off hours my friends and I would stroll down to the beach. On campus, I loved the murals featuring iconic Palestinians, such as the former militant Leila Khaled or the cartoonist Naji al-Ali. During each aggression by Israeli forces, the university was a place to mobilize and mourn. In my classes, I read books that changed me, including George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” which felt as though it had extra relevance to our lives as Palestinians. Remember the line “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”? Al-Azhar University facilities have been destroyed by Israeli missile fire.

Our family is old — we like to say that the AbuShahlas have been around since Jesus was a Jew. This orange farm has been in our family for generations. The oranges in Gaza are unique: at once sour and sweet, and always juicy. They taste better than oranges in the West Bank, which are overly sweet, if you ask me. My father is a nephrologist — a kidney doctor — but the farm has always been our primary source of income. Over the years, every time there’s been an aggression by Israeli forces, and there have been many, my father would start over, replanting the groves again. It was a ritual, you might say. We come from a Sufi background, so rituals are important. Every Friday morning, the family would gather in the garden to drink fresh juice and eat pastries laced with za’atar. The farm was struck by missiles in November, while the family house was bombed the previous month, on Oct. 9. Seven members of the AbuShahla family were caught inside; all were able to crawl out from the rubble.

There are probably 200 active tennis players in Gaza, about half of whom I have taught. We make do with four tennis courts, one of which I built myself a few years ago, with funds I raised from friends. Four courts for 2.1 million people. Imagine. My court is in the compound of the Al-Amal Institute for Orphans, a large orphanage founded in 1949, right after the Nakba. I believe that tennis teaches children discipline and self-reliance. It did for me — I was a table tennis player in my youth, and then picked up the real thing while attending university in the United States. When I came back, I won the Palestinian National Championship, then started coaching. Two years ago, the court at Al-Amal began to crack under the weight of Israeli bombardment. Still, the kids make do. Both the tennis court and Al-Amal were damaged by Israeli bombing. Children and orphanage staff had been sheltering in tents set up on the court and an adjacent soccer field.

One of my earliest memories is of going to St. Porphyrius on Palm Sunday, my siblings and I passing around palm branches until an adult asked us to stop. My family belongs to Gaza’s Christian community, which today is 1,000 strong, mostly Orthodox like us. Growing up, we were told that St. Porphyrius was the oldest church in Gaza, which was technically true, since the first church is now a mosque. Built by crusaders around 1150, St. Porphyrius is named for the 5th-century bishop who closed the last pagan temples in Gaza; his remains are buried there. Inside the church, a blue-domed ceiling is illustrated with biblical scenes, and a gilded altar is decorated with the faces of saints. In good times and bad, we go to St. Porphyrius. During the 2014 Israeli aggression, many people of all faiths sheltered there. The head of the church, a wonderful man named Alexias, is from Greece, so he speaks Arabic with an unusual accent. Israeli missiles struck St. Porphyrius on Oct. 19, killing 20 Palestinian civilians sheltering inside and injuring dozens of others.

My uncle Abdulrahman Abuamara opened the Italiano pizza restaurant after getting a master’s degree in Madrid. He’d studied engineering there but supported himself by working at a pizzeria, where he learned the tricks of the trade — especially how to make the perfect crust. When he returned to Gaza in 2013, work was hard to find, so he got a small loan from his father and started his own pizzeria in the Al Nasr neighborhood. Soon, demand for his pizza was so great, he moved to a bigger space nearby and trained his two brothers to make pizza, too. The most popular pie at Italiano was “the Siciliano,” stacked with salami and olives. Ask anyone: Italiano was hands down the best pizzeria in Gaza. The Italiano restaurant was struck by a missile on Nov. 6. Abuamara and his elderly parents were killed.

From the late 1960s to the early ’90s, my mother, Ferial Albanna, ran the obstetrics and gynecology department at al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza. She delivered hundreds of babies there. I remember running through the corridors wearing oversized lab coats and gloves, pretending to be a doctor. When my friends and I were a little older, al-Shifa became a sanctuary for kids hiding from Israeli occupation forces. We would hide in the hospital’s labyrinthine interior, which had served as British military barracks during the Mandate era. During the first intifada, when I was 13, I was shot in the leg during a protest, and al-Shifa’s emergency department came to the rescue. In mid-November, al-Shifa was encircled and closed off by Israeli forces, with thousands of Palestinians stranded inside. On Nov. 15, Israeli forces entered the hospital, claiming that a Hamas command center was located underneath it.

Most days, Jundi Park offered a reprieve from the soundtrack of our city — the honking of wedding convoys, the intermittent stream of artillery fire, the bellowing of donkey-cart vendors. Located on Omar al-Mukhtar Street in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, not far from the parliament building, Jundi was distinguished by luscious grass and a central fountain that was often out of service because of Gaza’s frequent power outages. Some people refer to the park as the Square of the Unknown Soldier, named for a man buried there who was killed during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Jundi was also my neighborhood park, where I used to take my son for evening walks. Some images spring to mind even now: the vibrant hibiscus flowers that line the paths; vendors hawking roasted groundnuts and handmade barrad, a slushy yellow fruit dessert popular in Gaza; picnicking families; elderly men playing backgammon. Jundi Park was where we could, for a moment, let go and forget the weight of the occupation. Jundi Park has been razed by Israeli forces, its trees felled.