Ibrahim Badra has a bachelor’s degree in both English literature and translation from the Islamic University of Gaza. He was due to be awarded with the diploma on October 7th 2023, the day of the Hamas attacks against Israel when his world was turned upside down.
His family were originally from Jaffa. Following the 1948 creation of the state of Israel, and the ensuing displacement and dispossession of Palestinians, they set up home in Sabra, a neighbourhood just west of Gaza City. Badra had lived through seven Israeli-Palestinian conflicts before the war that began in October 2023, following the Hamas attacks that month which left more than 1,200 Israelis – mostly civilians – dead.
His interests focus on literature, politics, education and translation. His work activities over the past year and a half have consisted mainly of defending human rights in Gaza, documenting the daily lives of the local population, and making their voices heard.
Below is his third contribution to Mediapart, sent from the town of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, is published here in its original English, and in a French translation here.
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When hope dies again in a language only Gazans speak
Should I begin with the moments when I lost hope or the moments when hope returned and brought me dreams of a near future? Should I start with the sad sight of homeless children wandering the streets in search of food scraps or with the impossible heartbreak of a mother who lost her only child after fifteen years of trying to conceive?
Should I begin with Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar from Khan Younis who was treating wounded patients when she lost nine of her ten children all at once? Her husband, Dr. Hamdi Al-Najjar, had just dropped her off at work when, minutes after his return, a missile demolished their home, killing nine of their children: Yahya, Rakan, Raslan, Jubran, Yves, Revan, Saydin, Luqman, and Sidra. Adam, the only surviving child, sustained severe injuries to his head, hand, and foot and needs urgent treatment outside Gaza. The bereaved father, Dr. Hamdi, was admitted to intensive care, but joined the martyrs a few days later. Last month Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, was a mother of ten children and a wife. Today, she is a mother of one injured child, and a widow, without a home.
Or should I begin with the artist Amna Al-Salmi, who went by the nickname France, and who was martyred in the bombing of the Al-Baqa café? Before being martyred, France drew a self-portrait streaked with blood.
Or should I begin with the man from Gaza who visited the Sheik Ajlin area to check on his home after two years of displacement, only to find a skeleton there? The remains of a person who had tried to save himself by bandaging his injured leg.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
I had hope when the truce began. Food became available. I saw the joy of children in the displacement camps. I looked into the sky and did not see rockets. I inhaled and did not breathe the smell of death or gunpowder. This was before the façade of "American aid" that is just a decoy for a collective trap.
During the truce we weren’t forced to spend the night in a destroyed street without protection, without walls, without a roof. We were not fragile bodies silently waiting for a carton of canned food or a kilo of flour. We believed the birds would return to sing. We believed the scent of fresh bread would overpower the stench of gunpowder. But fate had different ideas and the truce ended.
It was as if life gave us just one minute to catch our breath, only to drown us once more in blood. Everything was temporary. Now we go out in search of food and return as martyrs. Wrapped in shrouds. Carried by the hands of the remaining martyrs. A martyr bids farewell to a martyr. The days are farewells to our families, friends, and children.
I lost my father, two uncles, and fifteen close friends. We still have not retrieved my friend Saeed’s body. He was shot by an Israeli soldier while picking grape leaves to feed his family. We tried many times to retrieve his body, but every time we get close, they shoot at us. One day, we returned to the site and found his body had completely disappeared. Gone. As if it had been snatched away with the wind. It was stolen, just as his life was by a sniper's bullet. To this day, we still don't know where he is.
What is our crime? Why do we endure so much massacre, blood, and destruction? Why do we live in a tent, under the deadly summer heat and the harsh winter cold? Are we numbers? Are we breathing coffins? Why is the world silent? Where are the governments? Where are human rights organizations? Why is everyone standing by idly? Don't we have the right to a truce? As happened between India and Pakistan? As happened between Yemen and America? As happened between Iran and Israel? Hasn't our turn come yet? Don't we deserve a break after two years of killing, destruction, and displacement?
Two days ago, the occupation targeted a beachfront café. People were sitting there, breathing in a moment of survival, sipping coffee. Hope mingled with the scent of the sea. The café wasn't a military target. It was a café. But an Israeli missile doesn't read signs or inquire about souls.
An elderly man sat next to a lifeless body. He didn't cry. Perhaps it was his wife, or his daughter, or his spirit on the opposite bench. All that remained was the wreckage and a man speaking silently to a lifeless body. The sea sat helplessly, bearing witness to yet another crime.
“The word "massacre" passes through the ears of Gazans like a morning greeting with a dark tone.” “We ask "where is so-and-so?" knowing already the answer. The word no longer arouses astonishment or shock. It has become part of our daily lexicon.” It passes by mothers as if it were a doorstep, by children as if it were part of the school curriculum, and by the elderly as if it were their life story. It passes...but it does not pass peacefully. It leaves a dagger in the heart, a postponed cry for salvation in the soul, a tear in the eyes suspended in the air, and an indelible wound in the language. This language is understood only by Gazans.
We do not have planes or armies. We do have names. We do have dreams. Dreams buried amidst rubble. The question is not why doesn't the ammunition run out? But rather, when will the silence end?
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Editing by Graham Tearse
- The French translation, by Lénaïg Bredoux, of the above report can be found here.