War Will Never Be Over – by Nermeen Hwaihi

Read the story of Palestinian student Nermeen Hwaihi from Gaza, who lived through the ruthless Israeli bombardment of her town Beit Hanoun in Gaza, and shares her experiences in this heart-wrenching piece. Such personal accounts are of great value in order to help those who are unfamiliar with the cruel realities of Israeli occupation, siege and bombardment, understand what was really happening in those days. We are thankful to Nermeen for sharing her story with us.

I have lived through the most difficult and painful experience in my life, which I have decided to refer to as ‘the Displacement’. My story begins when I was forced to leave my home because of Israeli attacks against us during the war on Gaza in July 2014.

The day before I left my home, was the most fearful day in my entire life. There were bombardments everywhere. The first raid was on my neighbor’s home, who escaped with his family, and the second one was aimed at the Beit Hanoun Municipality which is located in front of my house. The third one hit the area directly beside my home, which was when the electricity fell out, and life became dark and silent. All we could hear was the sound of drones and IOF bombs, and the ground artillery never ceased to pound the houses around us.

All of my family members left their bedrooms to sleep in one room which we thought was the safest room at my home. However, no one was able to sleep; there was the sound of drones and F16 warplanes, and the weather was very hot, while there was no power available to help alleviate the heat.

Eight persons were trying to sleep in one room, fearing never to be able to wake up again. In the morning I returned to my room to try and sleep a bit more, since I had been unable to sleep the entire night. The situation seemed to have become a little safer, with a decreased intensity of air raids.

At 8:30 am, my mom suddenly woke me up to leave the home because the Israeli army had warned us by telephone that they would kill all of us. I felt heartbroken, because I love my home and I did not want to leave it. I opened my eyes, looked at the window, and to my shock I saw that the street was filled with fleeing people, who were carrying some of their belongings and leaving their homes. It recalled the images of the forced expulsion of Al Nakba in 1948, as if it had returned again in 2014.

I started to talk to myself: what did I see just now? What is happening to my life? Where are people going to go and live? Is this Al Nakba of 2014? What will happen if we stay at home? Shall Israel kill us? Then my mom came again and screamed: “Nermeen, what are you doing at the window, hurry up we should leave now!” However, I was in the deepest shock of my life.

Mom shouted again: ”You should bring with you only your most important things!”.  Now I had no idea what to do. What were the things that I should bring with me? All my belongings were important to me, I loved all of them. I put on my clothes, opened my closet, and took a look at my clothes. Then I looked at my books, my gifts, and my memorabilia. I told myself that all of it is important to me, so I couldn’t leave these things, nor could I take everything with me. I cried and only took my bag with my pen, one book, and my diary, then I convinced myself that it would be just two days before I would return to my world again. By my world,  I meant my room including my books, my bed, and my belongings.

My mother and my siblings had already finished and were ready to leave, all they were bringing with them were just important documents. I looked at the window again, and saw the ‘1948 exodus’ again. I had to cry, I had to shout, but a sudden huge sound of renewed bombardments shut me up. People were hasting away, and we were still waiting for my father to come so that we could leave too. Eventually he arrived, but there no longer were any cars available, so we left by ambulance.

My father rented a small home just for two or four days to cope with our displacement. When we arrived there, I felt very sad. Our temporary home was bad, I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  My mother tried to comfort me by telling me that it would just be for two days. She said that I had to be patient until we could return to our home. Unfortunately, it turned out that we were unable to do so, because my city was totally closed off by Israeli forces. We understood that anyone who would go there would be killed, so we were forced to wait for another two days. After four days into our displacement, news sources declared about eight hours of cease-fire. When I heard the news that night, it was the loveliest night because I felt that I would go to my home and see my room in the morning. What a wonderful dream for this night it was!

On the next day, the 26th of July 2014, during Ramadan, I was fasting and feeling happy because I would have Iftar at my home. I went home at 9:30 am, but to my shock, I found that there no longer was any home!

It was the biggest and most painful shock in my entire life. I looked at our home from the street: it was black, it had no doors, and no windows … then I ran into my room but I couldn’t find it. It seemed that there was a room, but it had no bed, no clothes, no books, no memories, no world, and no life. It was bombed to bits, and totally burned out.

I felt like I couldn’t talk, couldn’t breathe, I even couldn’t cry – and my throat became dry.  All the rooms of my home were destroyed, all the furniture was burned. I knew that there had been a home there, but now it was turned into ashes, and had become some destroyed heap of black stones.

After that, I sat alone and cried. Then I went to see what had happened to my family members: all of them were crying, we had lost everything. At 4 pm we returned to that so-called temporary home, since there were no other places for us to go and live. We remained there for sixty days, which were the worst days of my life.

On many days I lost hope, and I wished that I would die because I couldn’t handle the situation.

Finally the war ended, or supposedly so. When I heard the news about the end of the war, I cried again, because I had lost my home, so I didn’t have any place to go. We spent a lot of days searching for a home to rent,  and we finally found one, but it was bad and uncomfortable, not even having any windows because they were destroyed during the war.

We had to live there because there were no alternatives. I started my life again, searching for a spot of hope. I tried to rebuild some parts of my own world but I couldn’t, because most of it had been in my room. Every night when I went to sleep, I would remember my room before it was destroyed, and remember all my happy memories there,  like when I spent hours laughing with my siblings. I recalled reading my books, and tried to remember my clothes and how I would try to find similar clothes in the market. I remembered how we used to have fun all night there because it was spacious, and I couldn’t forget my personal notes, which I forgot to take when I was forced to leave.

My heart has been broken, and for me, the war will never be over. It will stay forever in my memory.