Summary
Author of Chapter 4, “A Gaza daughter in exile”, of From the River to the Sea (translated by Rasha Moumneh, Institute for Palestine Studies blog, 25 October 2023): a Gaza woman living in Lebanon who follows the destruction of her family in the Jabalia refugee camp through phone calls. The chapter bylines her “Reema Saleh”; inside the text her family address her as “Rima”, and both spellings stand as printed (From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, lines 353-391).
Details
- “It has been one year, one month, and seven days since I left Gaza.” (line 368) This is the first war on Gaza she has experienced from far away, and “the most ferocious war yet”.
- Her family at first refuse the order to leave the north for the south; her mother asks how she can leave and “repeat the mistakes your grandparents made when they fled the 1948 Nakba” (line 376).
- A neighbour’s house is bombed without warning and a whole family killed, Mohammad and his father the only survivors; her cousin Lama’s dialysis is performed by her sister with basic materials (lines 378-382).
- On 16 October the family evacuate south to a tent made of bedsheets and blankets; her little brother lost six kilograms in less than two weeks on one meal a day (lines 386-388).
- “I left my heart in Gaza when I came to Lebanon.” (line 382)
Related pages
From the River to the Sea: Essays for a Free Palestine, Jabalia, Gaza, Nakba, Institute for Palestine Studies