Gaza Was Not Perfect

Gaza City is not like any other coastal city. It carries the privilege of the sea in a place where privileges are rare. The beach becomes more than a stretch of sand and water under occupation and siege; it becomes the only open window Gazans have to the world beyond the borders. People in Gaza breathe something close to freedom when they stand by the sea. They look at the horizon and imagine another life, another possibility, and another shore. Gaza’s beauty was never only in its geography, but in its people. Gaza is small, and in its smallness, it is intimate. Everyone knows everyone, or at least knows someone who knows someone. Faces are familiar and names are repeated. People greet each other with warmth, share what little they have, and hold each other through the weight of everyday survival. Kindness is not an exception in Gaza; it is the rule. Generosity is instinctive. Love is seen on people’s faces.

Despite everything imposed on it, Gaza always felt safe in a way that is hard to explain. Not because danger did not exist, but because belonging did. No one ever felt alone. No one ever felt unseen. Gaza was home for the homeless, shelter for the tired, and a place where people knew who they were because they knew where they came from. Life there was simple, but it was enough. More than enough. It was a life built on routines, laughter, shared meals, familiar streets, and collective memory. The streets of Gaza City were once full of trees and flowers that bloomed despite the dust. Markets were alive with voices and movement. Schools echoed with children’s laughter and dreams, hospitals carried pain but also hope, and gardens offered small escapes from crowded lives. Public spaces, though limited, felt meaningful. Everything felt sufficient. Everything felt alive. Gaza was not perfect, but it was complete in the way it held its people.

For two years, I was unable to visit Gaza City. When I finally returned, I carried longing in my chest and memories in my hands. I expected change, but I was not prepared for loss. What I saw was not the Gaza I knew. From behind a cracked car window, reality revealed itself slowly and painfully. Collapsed buildings lined the streets like open wounds. Shattered homes stood frozen in the moment of destruction. A heavy, suffocating silence replaced the noise of life. It felt like driving through a city that had been erased. A city reduced to dust and rubble. The scale of destruction was impossible to comprehend. I had seen the images on screen, but reality was cruel in a way images can never be. Nothing prepares anyone for standing there. Nothing prepares anyone for seeing it with their own eyes. Nothing captures how final it feels.

As we moved through the city, time felt distorted. Minutes stretched into something heavier, almost unbearable. I found myself searching the ruins for traces of my past. A familiar corner, a street I once walked without thinking, a building that held a memory. But memory and reality refused to meet. Each breath felt so tight, as if the air itself was mourning. I realised then that grief in Gaza is not loud; it is quiet, settled deep in the chest. It sits with us, follows us, and makes even standing feel exhausting. This is what I always tell my friends: you will never understand what happened in Gaza until you witness it yourself. Until you smell the dust and see the absence where life once lived. My heart was bleeding. That day weighed heavily on my heart. Every corner carried a memory, and every memory felt like a loss. I wanted to cry, but my body was frozen, as if my tears were stuck somewhere between shock and grief. I kept looking, searching for something familiar, something that could tell me this was still my city. But Gaza stood before me unrecognisable.

That day was not just a visit; it was a farewell. A farewell to the Gaza I once knew, the Gaza that raised me, shaped me, and taught me what it means to belong. Gaza was once beautiful, vibrant, breathing. It was alive in ways that went beyond survival. Today, it is merely a ghost of itself. As if a curse has fallen upon it, stripping it of its colour, sound, and rhythm. Words fail in front of this kind of pain. Language collapses just like the buildings did. All that remains is grief. And yet, even in this devastation, Gaza still lives. It lives in its people, in memory, in resistance, in love that refuses to disappear. Gaza is not only what was destroyed; it is also what refuses to die. It is the stories carried by those who survived, the longing of those who were forced to leave. It is the city that continues to exist in the hearts of its people, even when the land itself is barely recognisable.

That day reshaped how I carry Gaza inside me. I left with a heart heavier than when I arrived, but also with a deeper understanding of what it means to love a place that continues to be taken from you. Gaza may look unrecognisable now, but it remains the city that made me, the life that was enough, and the home that still lives inside my heart even when my eyes can barely see it anymore.