By Dr Ibrahim Alwawi
Imam Masjid Alhikmah, Aberdeen
Three hundred thousand displaced Palestinians have so far made the journey back to the northern regions of Gaza. They walked through a land that no longer embraces them, a land torn apart by fifteen months of relentless war, massacre and devastation. Every step forward is a step into grief, pain so deep that it drowns the soul, sorrow so heavy it bends the back. The air is thick with loss and tears stain the dust-covered faces of those who return. They come barefoot, carrying the remains of a shattered life, searching for homes that no longer exist, unrecognisable streets and memories buried under endless mountains of rubble. They search not for the living, but for the bones of their parents, their children, their siblings – hoping, at the very least, to hold what is left of them.
My Family… And What About My Family?
Once, we laughed together and lived. Our home was warm with love, filled with the innocent chatter of children, with dreams we built upon every sunrise. Now, that home is dust. The walls that carried our stories are shattered; the rooms that held our prayers reduced to debris. My family is gone. The children who ran through these halls climbed into my lap and called me their own are no more. My beloved mother, my kind and caring sisters, and my protective brothers are all gone. The echo of their voices is drowned beneath the weight of concrete and silence.
I was told that beneath the wreckage of a four-story building, three bodies remained trapped. Three souls – dear, cherished, beloved buried under the unforgiving weight of destruction. I cannot give them a farewell, cannot hold them one last time, cannot even lay them to rest with dignity. The rubble is too heavy, and I am too broken.
I look around me, and there is no one left. My brothers, the pillars of strength who carried the burdens of our family, have been taken away. My dear sister, whose smile once softened the hardest of days, is gone. Their children, the little flowers of our lineage, have perished. My uncles and their families have been wiped from existence as if they never were. My entire family vanished in an instant.
They did not leave alone. Our neighbours are gone too. My childhood friends are gone. The Masjid where we once prayed, where our fathers and grandfathers bowed in submission to our Creator gone. The sweet shop where I bought treats as a boy gone. The clinic that healed our wounds, the hospital that cradled newborns, the schools that shaped our minds – everything is gone.
All that remains is grief. Pain. The bitter taste of patience, of enduring God’s decree while my heart crumbles. And yet, we hold on. We have no choice but to hold on.
A Mother, A Child, and the Weight of Survival
From my wife’s family, twenty-three souls were lost. Only two remain – her cousin and her baby. This child, born into war, has never known the sound of laughter, only the deafening roar of bombs. He has never seen a playground, only the ruins of homes. Today, he is fifteen months old, the same age as the war itself. His mother carried him in her arms, walking mile after mile through destruction, through scorching sun and freezing rain, through hunger and exhaustion, just to reach the man she had not seen since this nightmare began. Their reunion was not a joyous embrace but a meeting of two survivors, clinging to each other in a world where nothing else remained. They wept, holding onto the ghosts of those they had lost, standing in a place that still smelled of them, that still carried the whispers of their voices.
We Will Endure
The return is relentless. In the coming days, the number of returnees is expected to reach one million, five hundred thousand in just twenty-four hours. Despite the dangers, despite the struggles, despite the wounds that have not yet healed, we return. Because no one – no force on this earth can uproot us from our land.
We will rebuild, even if it means starting from nothing. We will rebuild, even if we must do it again and again and again. We will rebuild, not just the homes, but the spirit of Gaza. They can take our families, they can shatter our homes, but they cannot take our faith, our dignity, or our love for the land that birthed us. We are Gaza. And we will endure.
