Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

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As a 27-year-old English literature graduate and English teacher from Gaza, I have always been passionate about teaching. I enjoy helping my students learn to speak English by reciting stories aloud.

I connect with them through English, so I collected every English-language book my hands could reach. Before October 7, 2023, during my fourth year in university, I used to visit a bookshop in Gaza City to buy English novels for enhancing my linguistic link with my job and the students. In 2022, shortly before I graduated, I wrote a short story about our tough conditions in Gaza and submitted it to a writing competition. It ranked seventh out of 80 stories, and I received a reward. What began as a practice to improve my English turned into a way of life. Whenever I had money, I bought a few novels until I gathered a large collection and built my own English library. Sometimes I purchased novels I would never open, but it felt satisfying to have them on my shelf. I could sense linguistic progress: a future.

After lectures, I went to a park near the university where I enjoyed the shade from trees and a soft breeze. It was my place where I could sit on a bench under a big tree, a cup of coffee in one hand, a novel in my bag. The novels were all fiction. What I loved was the way the writers chose words. That gave me the literary sense to generate a unique language over time.

In that shady spot, I opened The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and began to read: “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.”

I recalled Gaza’s 50 percent unemployment rate. I would graduate after a few months and start desperately seeking a job, competing with tens of thousands of unemployed graduates who were also fighting over the same positions. Young men used to dream of building families and marrying the girl they loved. Now they watch their hopes crumble under occupation and blockade. I recalled the constant wars every two years, the terror and psychological traumas they inflict. The patient people who can’t leave because of the blockade and the exorbitant travel fees. The eight-hour daily electricity cuts that devastated us for years.

I Carry the Key to My Destroyed Home in Gaza to Keep Alive My Dream of Returning

Thinking about these forms of suffering is unavoidable. They deteriorate your life. But coexisting could be our only key to survival. We learned to carry the weight without collapsing. We learned to read between the lines of our own destruction. Knowing that everyone is suffering gives one a strange kind of comfort.

“And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because........

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