It feels as though time has folded back on itself. Israel renewed its bombing campaign on Gaza in the darkness of the night of March 18, and has continued for weeks since. It feels like a flashback — like the first day of October 7, when the morning broke with the same shock, the same uncertainty.
On one level, we expected the war to resume. In early March, the beginning of Ramadan, the first phase of the ceasefire deal ended. By March 2, Israel had closed the border crossings into Gaza, and aid — food — stopped entering.
In the middle of March, Israel resumed killing people with drones across Gaza. One attack killed nine Palestinians: four journalists, the others aid workers.
On March 18, after two months of ceasefire, the deal was shattered. At 2 a.m, I heard the deafening sounds of heavy airstrikes and violent explosions. Thunderous booms shattered our night, rattling windows in our apartment.
But these airstrikes evoked a strange new type of fear, coming out of a supposed ceasefire. For the first time, Israeli warplanes struck across the entire Gaza Strip at the same time. They targeted tents, mosques, schools, hospitals, and houses. After the airstrikes began, I smelled a suffocating, poisonous gas seeping into our new apartment in Gaza City. A ceasefire broken, and Israel killing sleeping civilians in the night.
From Ceasefire Back to Genocide
The shift from ceasefire back to genocide feels like an abrupt plunge into hell.
I have lived through multiple cycles of escalation. The transition from a temporary peace to renewed attack is the return of feeling unsafe and the trauma I never healed from. It’s the return to the panic of hearing a moving car and thinking it’s a bomb dropped. It’s the return to the sharp screech of ambulances rushing by, carrying the injured and martyrs, and the thuds of artillery fire, the echo of explosions, airstrikes, and the horror of fire belts — the Israeli tactic of bombing the same area again and again — that tear through our days. It’s the return to seeing the bodies, skulls, and remnants covered with blood and dust. It’s the return to the sounds of the screams, the wails, the cries that are still rooted in our minds, refusing to leave us. It’s the return to the news of loss, the lengthy list of martyrs killed by Israel, the funeral prayers, the mourning and sorrow, and the farewell. It’s the return to the atrocities and massacres committed by Israel.
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