Muhammad Al-Zaqzouq in The Ideas Letter:
After much wrangling and back-and-forth with myself, alternately accepting and refusing, believing and disbelieving, asking what the point would be, I have decided to start writing. 106 days since we were suddenly, startlingly, swept into the vortex of war once again, I am writing so as not to become brutalized, so as not to be consumed by the pitiless machine of war and turned into a monster in a dark hole.
I have spent days paralyzed, disoriented, doubting the truth of what is happening, and all the while running the grueling course that is daily life under wartime conditions: endless queues and unimaginable humiliation for a few rounds of bread or a gallon of drinking water or a gas canister that will save us having to cook our meals on an open fire, and the constant struggle to keep up with fast-moving events, which spread dementedly from one part of Gaza to another. Running in these never-ending circles, with the convoluted details and heart-rending sights they bring, occupies all my days. There is never a moment to contemplate the turn of events that has made all forms of life in Gaza into a perpetual hell.
It came all at once, smothering every last comfortable and pleasant space I was blessed with before the war restarted. My summer of 2023 was overflowing with life. Between my various jobs, I was busy at all hours, but I still made time now and then to meet up with my friends, who were much less busy than me, to play cards on the beach at Khan Younis.
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