A young Palestinian woman in Gaza addressing Israelis in Hebrew
I remember what impacted me most, and my reality, and what a political opinion might be as a child, were the Israeli army tanks that I would see when they entered our area. The booms, the sights of people who were murdered, especially seeing children who were killed. Because when I would see that even children were being killed, I would always imagine it will happen to me. Palestinians weren’t dealing with Israelis daily, face-to-face, to form an opinion of them. Perhaps my only way of relating was through the fighter jets that would take the lives of our loved ones, like they took the life of my father.
Translation from Hebrew by Keren Rubinstein
Layla Luka is a 29-year-old woman now living in the displaced persons camp in Mawasi. How many times have you heard someone who’s never left Gaza speaking fluent Hebrew? Her words below are taken from an hour-long episode of our podcast, “Kan ze Sham” [Literally: This here is the Shami [Damascene] region (where Shami Arabic is spoken), but it’s a Hebrew pun: Here is There.]. Huge thanks to Ahmed Mustafa for putting us in touch, Neta Talmud for leading the conversation, and Lihav Erez for editing. Link to the full episode [in Hebrew] at the end.
It’s a bit hard for me but I feel like I want to talk to you. My name is Layla Luka, I’m 29 years old and I’ve lived in Rafah all my life. I studied psychology and sociology at university. I was born in Rafah, grew up there, lived there all my life. But I was always connected to Ashkelon. My parents are refugees. My father is from the Palestinian village of Ascalan upon which Ashkelon has been built]. So I’m from Ashkelon. Is that a political opinion? Yes. To say I’m from Ashkelon today doesn’t mean I’m against political solutions. We have a political opinion from birth because reality around us has made us feel that way.
I love to paint, like my mother, and I love writing. I love a lot of things in life. But I really love the sea. Maybe the most influential thing in my childhood was not being able to go to the sea, which was right there beside us. Because one of the Gush Katif settlements was nearby, so then, you know, there’s zero freedom of movement if there are settlements. This would eat me up inside. I want to go to Rafah beach. And it’s the very first thing I did the day after the Disengagement. I took my little sister Fatma. I was in Grade 5 and she in Grade 3. I persuaded her and said we have to go there; it will be great. So I took her and we started walking and I went the wrong way. We left early in the morning, and I got to the beach, I saw the sea just in time for sunset. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt. The best. Truly perfect.
When I started reading about the history and the conflict, out of curiosity I decided to learn the Hebrew language. And there are people who live with me in the same country, but I have nothing to do with them, and I know nothing of them, nor their language. And so, I want to know. I love knowing things in life. I feel like I know a lot, like how much Israelis love life and love living and enjoying themselves. And that we Palestinians really love living, even if there’s a stereotype that all Palestinians don’t love living. But the thing that I learned, and I wouldn’t have known beforehand, was how much Israelis and Palestinians are alike in so many ways. They share a lot of similarities. And I don’t know why, but maybe because there’s a lot of Israelis who are originally Arabs, Jews that came from Arab countries. They’re Arabs originally, and that’s why there’s a lot of similarity, I noticed. Or maybe because of interactions with Palestinians, and of Palestinians with Jews. And so, there’s a similarity. Maybe in jokes, in the spirit. And the two people are stubborn, and always beat their heads against the wall. I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing. Not always.
I think it’s hard for me to go think back on a life, that when I think about now, I want to say it was perfect, but it wasn’t perfect. But when I remember it now, when I’m in the tent, in a camp, I don’t want to close my eyes and go back in time. Wow, it’s really hard. So, much as I’m remembering really beautiful good things, there were none. But there are a lot of good things. It’s like when somebody dies and then we can’t remember the not-so-good things. We only remember the good things that he would do. So the hardships that there were, perhaps the first thing was freedom of movement. After the Disengagement, it was really hard to go from the Gaza Strip to Hebron to the West Bank. And also inside Israel, because we have relatives and friends there. But you can’t go there, because even the United States is closer than the West Bank. Personally, I was in love with a man from Hebron just about 10 years ago. And he managed to get here once through Egypt. So he went from Hebron to Jordan, and from Jordan, that’s in Asia, to Egypt in Africa, and then to the Gaza Strip. So he arrived. And we got married, and he went back to Hebron. And there was some hope that I’d follow him. I tried everything. I tried doing anything possible, but we were unsuccessful. And then we broke up after all those years.
I remember what impacted me most, and my reality, and what a political opinion might be as a child, were the tanks that I would see when they entered our area. The booms, the sights of people who were murdered, especially seeing children who were killed. Because when I would see that even children were being killed, I would always imagine it will happen to me. Palestinians weren’t dealing with Israelis daily, face-to-face, to form an opinion of them. Perhaps my only way of relating was through the fighter jets that would take the lives of our loved ones, like they took the life of my father. My father was killed in an operation in 2008–2009 because Israel attacked all the police centres in the Gaza Strip and killed many police officers. My father was there in the centre, and he was killed.
Gazans really loved working in Israel, but alongside that it was as though there was no coexistence on the horizon because there was no such plan, and it was also dependent on generations, because the generation that had interactions with Israelis hold different opinions to the newer generation that’s never seen Israelis at all. You must have seen kids in the streets celebrating what happened on October 7. So those kids, whenever they think of Israelis, it’s not families with kids and food and kindergarten and school, no. All they know about Israel is tanks, death, rockets, siege, that sort of thing. And that’s what I as a child would think. I was surprised when I learned that there is an Israeli child because Israeli or Jew was just a soldier with a weapon who wants to hurt me maybe. So that’s why I understand. It’s really difficult for Palestinians to have an opinion about it when they have no interaction with Israelis and don’t see them. I remember when I would be writing in Hebrew my niece Nada said, what are you doing? That’s the language of Israel who’s killing us. I told her I have some good friends. She said, there are good Israelis? You don’t say. Because in her mind the only Israelis that exist are soldiers. So I told her, no, there’s families with kids and there’s good people who want to live in peace. So I know it’ll take time and it’ll take some knowledge. And we want information to understand that the Palestinian issue is not just between nation and military, it’s also between two nations. So to know there are two nations, we might reach a solution.
What have I been through? I’m not myself. I’m now in a tent. Now I’m living a life that not even my grandparents had lived. And from the beginning of the war, it was really clear this is a genocide. Even from the sound of the bombs, it really was obvious there’s something crazy going on and there’s a massacre, and I’m going to lose a lot of people. And a lot of people I know. And that’s exactly what happened. I’m still alive, but I don’t know if I’ll stay alive, because it’s a genocide. There’s no other word for it. What’s happening now is a genocide. Our neighbours. They’re not just neighbours, they’re our friends. My entire childhood is connected to them. We’re really, really friends. Their house is really close to ours, and I still remember the attack, the bomb that fell, it was really big. It felt like it was in our house and that we’re dying now. But when we saw that it was still standing, we saw the house across from us, our neighbours’ house, the Mahimar family, it’s all exploding, and they were all inside. I was at the window, and I saw it, and I was in shock. I saw it, and I was saying, maybe they can survive. Where are they? What is this? It’s just ruins. And all the men in the neighbourhood went there to get them, and I was crazy. I didn’t really know what an Israeli rocket is. I was still hopeful they were alive.
But no one survived. Not one survived. Uncle Ahmad Mahimar, the lawyer, and Aunt Amal, his wife, and their son Musa, who was injured, and we all hoped it would be okay, but he was killed. And Salma, who was in Jordan, married with a really young child. Before the war, she came to visit family, and ended up under the rubble. And the little boy, I remember seeing it and feeling as though, Iman, you’re going to make it. And then Iman didn’t make it. She was in my class and we were friends. And Fida, who was disabled, didn’t survive. And their little son, Muhammad, he was really handsome and had energy and dreams. He didn’t survive. Only Iyat survived because she wasn’t at home that day. And after some days, we lost Musa who didn’t survive. The whole family, all their memories. Even now, I still can’t. I’m still lying to myself. And when they want me to look at maybe a clip they’re in, I can’t watch it because it really, really hurts me. They were such good people.
Life has been really hard. And it’s like you can’t actually describe it. Life wasn’t really life. There’s no food, there’s no water, no electricity, death everywhere, explosions, terrible things, really scary news. It’s like we’d look at each other and it’s like we’re in a death march. We’re going to die one after the other. Now we’re in Mawasi Khan Yunis in a tent. I hate the tent. The worst thing here is there’s no cleaning products. There’s no shampoo, no soap. These things are blocked from getting in. It looks like biological warfare. There’s a lot of diseases here. All the kids here are really sick. Everyone’s got infections. Everyone says we want to go home.
The people are not the same people. It’s not the same Gazans. Gazans aren’t like this. This isn’t the Rafah that I know. Everything is really different. I would hold my guitar, and my sister has her bird. And it’s like we are detached from reality. And I saw a lot of people with all their stuff on the truck. And they’re also on the truck. And then I saw an old man falling off. And all his things fell on top of him. It was really hard to watch. Destruction everywhere.
I chose to be interviewed in Hebrew because I know how few Israelis know Arabic. And I’m really keen for my voice to reach all Israelis, even the extremists. Because maybe they’re just extremists because they don’t have the big picture. And I’m really keen that the war, this genocide, will stop as soon as possible. That there will be proper humans to say no to the killing. Because when I was at home, and I had better internet, I’d see a lot of clips on the Israeli media, and on social media, a lot of Israeli influencers saying that we have to annihilate, there are no innocent people in Gaza, not even children are innocent. We have to kill them all. Destroy Gaza. All this gave the people doing this now the legitimacy to do it. Because the public wants it. Maybe they just say that we’re not innocent. Maybe they want to really destroy Gaza. Maybe they really believe that we’re not innocent so that they can sleep at night. I don’t know.
You want me to talk about the future? God, that’s really hard. There’s no way of talking about the future without stopping the current bloodshed. A message to Israelis? I don’t know, that’s hard. I asked a number of friends, and I told them if they want to pass a message to Israelis, and most of them said, we don’t have one. Maybe because what we’re living through now does not permit us to think about anything other than stopping the war and the killing.
