A father in Gaza

A father's tale from Gaza.

I remember holding him in my arms for the first time — my son Ibrahim.

It was November 15, 2012. It had poured the night before — both rain and bombs. I was still at work when I got a call from my wife. She said that she was going into labour and asked me to rush home to take her to the hospital. An hour or so later, she was admitted to the maternity ward of Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital, and the wait began.

I paced the halls of the hospital corridor as my mother lay on a bench in a waiting room nearby, awaiting the news of the arrival of her first grandchild. Her excitement, tinged with nervousness, was palpable — the wait continued until the morning. It was good that Ibrahim arrived in the morning as it ensured that the obstetrician we had consulted for the previous 9 months would be present for his delivery.

It was smooth. There were no hiccups. I remember cradling Ibrahim for the first time in my arms right next to the delivery room. He was a healthy child with curious eyes. I said the adhan in his ears, handed him over to my mother, took his first photograph, and shared it with family and relatives. There were more explosions, but thankfully, they were distant. My minutes-old child must have heard them, but he wasn’t startled. I was grateful.

My wife and our child had to remain in the hospital for a couple more days before I could take them home. I spent those 2 days shuttling between home and the maternity ward — checking on them, looking after them. I couldn’t take my eyes off my phone either: to read congratulatory messages and to check for messages ordering us to leave our home in case it was next in line to be bombed.

I finally took them home — carrying my child in one arm and a grocery bag full of diapers and other essentials in the other — to a warm welcome from the rest of the family. My father, my siblings, my cousins, my grandparents, my aunts, my uncles had all come home bearing gifts to greet the newest member of our household. It was a chaotic time in Gaza, but thankfully, none of our immediate family received the dreadful message or call asking us to evacuate our homes before they became rubble. We had recently re-done our room to welcome our newborn.

Within a week or so of Ibrahim’s arrival, the bombings had stopped. Our family remained intact. God is merciful.

My life revolved around Ibrahim. Lying next to him, watching him scan all that came within his sight, hearing him produce myriad sounds, cradling him, consoling him, feeding him, bathing him, cleaning him, clothing him, playing with him — it was all-consuming, beautiful.

Soon, Ibrahim spoke his first words, tumbled for the first time, took his first steps, called me Baba. He was blessed with beautiful, piercing eyes. When he looked, he looked deeply, as if he saw more than what was apparent. A friend once remarked: “he has the stare.”

He was not yet 2 when the bombs started raining down again.

It was July 2014. We were not as lucky this time. Although we didn’t get any message, our neighbours did. We had evacuated nonetheless for the fear of shrapnel, flying debris, and the ear-splitting sound. We suffered collateral damage: the outer wall of our family home gave way, and the flying concrete and shrapnel shattered the windows of some of the rooms on the ground floor of our house.

The noise was deafening. We were at a relative’s house a reasonable distance away but couldn’t escape the ear-splitting din the bomb produced. We had shielded Ibrahim as well as we could, but he was startled, scared. He started crying. The hellfire missiles make one hell of a noise. Our neighbour’s house was reduced to rubble. They could barely salvage anything, but thankfully, no one died. The house they built in 1956, which had since grown up to 4 floors, sheltering 4 generations of the family, was gone forever.

The bombings, this time, lasted more than 6 weeks. The sound of explosions was near-constant. Eventually, Ibrahim got used to it. I hated the fact that he got used to it. But what could I do? Where could I take him? How could I shield him?

I began to take Ibrahim out after a 6-week hiatus. The park we frequented was now reduced to rubble, marked by a huge crater right in the middle. The same fate fell upon our favourite restaurant, the mosque I walked to for daily prayers. His favourite toy shop, from which I brought him grocery bags full of toys, was gone too. I hoped he was too young to have noticed the disappearance of these landmarks from his nascent life.

Relative calm prevailed for some time, and the affected people picked up the pieces and started to rebuild their lives. Our broken windows were replaced, the outer wall was reconstructed, and given a coat of paint — the same colour as the old one.

Ibrahim had started going to school. Every morning, he would be eager to meet his friends at school and equally eager to see his Baba take him home from school in the afternoons. He was bright and friendly. He made friends quickly.

Returning from work, I often grabbed a toy or two for him. As I would ring the doorbell, he would rush to the door, take the grocery bags from me, and start unboxing his toys. He would be elated to find new additions to his budding collection. He would line up all his toy cars — bumper to bumper — and tell me, “Look, Baba, there’s a traffic jam.” I would smile and nod at his ingenuity.

I used to take him to the beach. He loved the sea. He loved the sand. He loved filling up his toy trucks with sand, dragging the loaded trucks as far as he could, then bringing them back, pouring out the sand, and re-filling them. He loved nothing as much. Ice cream was a close competition. A day at the beach with ice cream was his idea of fun. He could do it all day, every day.

When he was excited, he would hug me tightly. I loved him to bits. I was very proud of him. He loved his grandfather dearly and would spend whole days with him, watching him work his hardware tools and enacting his activities as well as he could. He would ask to use his grandfather’s tools, not replicas, the actual tools: hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, drill machines, pliers. Sometimes, we managed to convince him that he was too young for such machinery, but most times, we failed. Ice cream was a good barter for his tools. I would dangle his favourite ice cream, and he would soon forget the tools and rush to get the ice cream from me.

Ibrahim was 6 when the bombings began again. But this time, the carnage wasn’t as extensive as in 2014. He was the curious sort. He would ask, “Why do they drop bombs?” We never had any convincing answers for him.

A year later, the familiar sounds of bombs returned. Ibrahim was 7. We again escaped unscathed. Our neighbourhood remained intact for the most part.

Two years later, in 2021, the ferocity of the bombing was similar to that in 2014. Ibrahim was nearly 9 then. He had started to understand why his life was confined to the house, school, the beach, and the restaurants. He knew why he couldn’t travel any further, why he couldn’t get on a boat to any considerable distance, why he couldn’t fly to different cities like the kids he saw in the TV shows. He was like a sponge: he grasped things quickly.

I told him the stories of his great-grandparents, their long trek to our present home, carrying their children, including his grandfather. I told him about the family members he would never see, the farmlands we hoped to get back to one day, and the pilgrimage we would make to Al Aqsa someday. Those stories would excite him; he would ask a thousand questions but also feel sad. Sometimes, he cried, cried like a baby that he was, with tears drenching his shirt, and would demand words of consolation to make him feel better. But he wouldn’t accept not knowing those stories despite the sadness they caused him: he would insist I tell him more.

Those stories would soon become all too real for him.

He lost 2 of his friends to the bombings in 2021: Muhammad and Maryam. They were both his age. He cried his heart out. He would barely eat. He would ask us questions about meeting Muhammad and Maryam again: “Will it happen?” “How will it happen?” “When will it happen?” “What happens once we are buried?” “Where do our souls go when they leave our bodies?”

Ibrahim returned to school that summer to a destroyed classroom. It was in desperate need of renovation after being the target of bombings. Still recovering from the loss of his 2 friends, Ibrahim had to also reconcile himself to the loss of the familiarity of his old classroom.

In the months that followed, Ibrahim became better. The top-ranking student in his class, he had started showing an aptitude for soccer. He would run rings around defenders with his dribbling abilities and had the nous to pick a good pass. It felt as if taking up the game more seriously was his way of coping with the loss of his friends with whom he played so much.

Then, the great bombings of 2023 came. Ibrahim was nearly 11.

This time, we weren’t lucky. Our house was directly targeted soon after the bombings began. There was no warning message. We lost 26 members of our family. Ibrahim and his mother survived, but his grandparents did not. He lost several cousins, uncles, and aunts. We quickly buried the dead. There was no time to mourn.

Fighting for survival, we rushed for refuge at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital. They tell us that hospitals are safe even during wars.

Today, I carried my Ibrahim — whatever was left of him — in 2 grocery bags.

---

Before you go…

Everything on this Substack will always remain free, but it wouldn’t be possible without your support. If you like my articles, please consider a paid subscription here or on Patreon (starting at $3/month) or Ko-fi ($5/month). You can also make a one-time contribution on Ko-fi. Thank you.

---