Naheel Al Qassas Story 25

In the forty third morning of the war on Gaza…

A morning of dignity from the proud and resilient Gaza…

We have nothing left except a few hurting, shattered souls, bleeding pain and sorrow. You wake up every morning, open your exhausted eyelids, wash your heart and hands from the contaminated memories, and shake your thoughts and dreams off your mind… we check on our beloved ones… we check our drained stock of emotions, and the stock of sorrows that inflates every day as we try to grab an opportunity to smile between the tears… and you tell yourself “I’m fine”…

‏Yes!! I am fine, thank God. Whiplash in emotions, a break in thoughts, and some scratches on memory. The doctor says: “nothing deadly.” Only yanking of the soul and no room left in my heart for a new bullet!! It’s an accurate description to a T. We haven’t cried yet. When this bane is over, we will cry for long and we may just allow ourselves to sleep, be tired, and drift in thought. Words and letters fumbled, and the tongue stuttered. Our hearts are aching as we cry invisible tears, for there are details you can only disclose to Allah!And if you broadcast them to anyone else, that will only aggravate into embarrassment, heaviness, and hardship… the brave of those listening would tell you: “May God be with you”… “God will assist.” So take a short cut and go straight to the One who can actually help!

Who do I complain to when God has promised us that “after hardship comes ease”… hardship is followed with ease; this is a divine condition and not a mere possibility. You say to yourself “what is this major test?” It is but our faith in the book of God (the Qur’an) and its verses that we recite to ourselves during our moments of weakness. God says in His Holy Book: “And We will certainly test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but We give good tidings to those who are patient when a calamity befalls them and they say to Allah we belong and to Him we shall return.”

And we faithfully and steadily repeat “Dear God hasten our relief from every calamity and alleviate our distress.” With Allah, you will not feel embarrassed even your eyes shed blood.

I wonder how can one land absorb all this blood, and how can one life take all this injustice?! How can we not ask why… why all this obnoxious injustice for a people who has a right to the land, a right to life. It is the resilient Palestinian people that has been deprived of all their human rights!! How can humanity be forgotten! All those who died miraculously survived life. But we, the living, will not forget the pain, suffering, sniping, clashes, carnage, the sights of decapitated bodies on the sides of roads, and the humiliation, insults, and provocation we were exposed to from the occupying army soldiers during our forced migration!!

I am the one who works in the most humane profession… and the one who used to lift everyone else’s spirits in the past fifty days… I cannot forget. Who says we forget? We tolerate because we have no other honorable choice. We, too, have emotions and feelings, and we are impacted like other human beings get impacted! We feel sad and we cry, and we feel excruciating pain every morning we are awake and breathing… honest was he who said “the martyr is spared but the living suffers!” Even earth, soul, and rock hurt and suffer to our suffering. As for us, we have God, patience, and reparation of thoughts…

How can one lifetime heal all this pain… how can one heart take all this sorrow… and how can one memory forget all this loss!!

Naheel Al Qassas

Mental Health Professional, UPA – Gaza, Palestine
1 December 2023

To read all stories in the series: http://upaconnect.org/category/gaza2023