Leaving Gaza was never a choice, but a matter of survival. Last year, the roads leading south were already clogged with families carrying what they had managed to salvage from their lives. For us, leaving meant saying goodbye to my grandfather's house, the house that held the memories of generations, now standing alone amid the rubble.

Because of my university studies, I often moved within the Gaza Strip, between the south, north and the city center. Life was beautiful back then, surrounded by relatives in my grandfather’s house. Every month, when we visited the Zeitoun neighborhood, we would pass along a long road lined with groves of oranges, tangerines, and olives. I always carried that sight in my heart on the way to my grandfather’s house, the place where my aunts, cousins and siblings gathered, where laughter and stories filled the air.

But in Gaza, joy is always fragile and fleeting, overshadowed by the fear that something terrible is just around the corner. And so it was: the day came when my grandfather's house was swept up in the wave of displacement to the south. The family scattered, the houses were destroyed – all except for my grandfather's, which stubbornly........

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