Dear Caitlin and Devin,

Fourteen months ago, I left Gaza, and I thought I’m leaving Gaza forever. Fourteen months were enough for me to realize that no one will leave this city. A city that had been besieged for sixteen years, I discovered that it would follow me and besiege me forever. Just as Gaza is the city of life and love, it is the city of death. The possibilities of life are the same as the possibilities of death. It can be said that Gaza is an exceptional city, a unique and isolated small piece of this large planet. I can say this while I’m living with the feeling that the vast majority have abandoned this city.

Several years ago, my brother lived in Gaza. When he came home, I noticed a change in him that is difficult to put into words. As someone whose nose is usually buried in a book or online article, I was expecting him to share an impossible-to-remember string of facts at the dinner table. But instead, he talked about the fisherman he befriended who would share food with him even though my brother’s resources and liberty far exceeded the fisherman’s. He told us about a friend named Amira, her English was better than most people in Gaza, and she helped him navigate the city and better learn the local dialect.