Getting out of prison

A travel bag, a few clothes, pajamas and underwear, and one heavy jacket suitable for cold weather. We are now in January, the height of winter, the season that is dearest to my heart. Hours away from my departure time for the Rafah Crossing. This is the first travel trip in my life. I bought some things that didn’t matter much to me. I bought them to fulfill my obligation to have everything I needed in case the road was long and I needed something. Some molto pastries, biscuits, bottles of water, some dates, and other things that my wife said were good for me to eat quickly if I got hungry. “The road is very long,” she said, hoping it would be easy and simple for me.

I took my personal laptop, power bank, AirPods, and phone charger. Essential and emergency items for a trip like this. I was late in packing my bags, as even finding a suitable bag was not easy. No one travels here, people rarely travel. It is an impossibility or wishful thinking, as it was for me for many years. It’s happening now!

The destination begins with the city of Rafah, the famous crossing between the Gaza Strip and the Republic of Egypt. I paid two hundred and fifty dollars to pass this crossing, which is an additional amount on top of the other costs; From entry visas, flight reservations, and other official fees. I knew it would be a very long trip, and it would take me two days, or at least a day and a half, to reach my destination. My destination is Istanbul.

Oh! He is a human being of flesh and blood, from another country, from a place other than this prison. I am now in another land, my feet are stepping on dirt other than the dirt I have been walking on for twenty-nine years, a miracle!

The crossing is a waiting address, and exiting the sector is a long wait. I waited a long time to take the step to realize my dream and travel, and at the crossing I waited a long time in the Palestinian hall, thousands crowded together waiting for their turn. This is not ordinary travel between two countries, this is a release from prison, for those at the crossing. I also waited in the Egyptian terminal for more than ten hours. I waited on the deportation bus, I waited in the deportation room, I waited everywhere. It’s like the journey of life, it’s a long, long wait.

Egyptian officers, soldiers and military personnel everywhere. Get off the bus, turn to count, the officer makes sure that the number on the bus is the same, no one left, and no one entered. These are security measures; Young people alone are prohibited from entering Egypt without prior security coordination, and I am now on the deportation bus. The famous bus used by Palestinian youth.

This is the first time that I see a non-Palestinian or Egyptian person in front of me, speaking in their beautiful dialect. I saw it a lot in movies, we got used to it until we thought we could speak it. An Egyptian is standing next to me, or in front of me, oh! He is a human being of flesh and blood, from another country, from a place other than this prison. I am now in another land, my feet are stepping on dirt other than the dirt I have been walking on for twenty-nine years, a miracle!

Everything seemed strange, even the difficult deportation trip, and the bad crossing session full of security officers yelling at people, was different, strange, strange. The bus drivers, the workers at the crossing, and the cashier who saw a hundred pounds in my hand, old and worn out, marveled at it and considered it heritage. Even the road in Sinai, the deep semi-desert that borders the Strip, looks strange, beautiful, and exciting, even though I could not see it because of the darkness. Just being in another land makes me excited about something.

I want to sit by the window

The bus landed in a bright, spacious place. “Cairo International Airport” was written on its entrance. This was one of the entry gates to the airport. Immediately, I remembered the many films and series in which I had watched airports, Egyptian films that had this image. I am now emerging from the world of imagination into the world of reality, but who knows? Maybe I left my world and into the world of movies. Maybe this is just a dream, or another scene in a movie that may not be real.

At the airport, two o’clock in the middle of the night, a small number of people, foreigners, an Asian delegation that appears to be coming from a religious trip, security men, a closed telecommunications companies hall. I ask one of them: “Is there internet?” After a long trip that lasted ten hours, I have no Communications and no communication. I need to reassure my family about me, to tell them that I have arrived at the airport.

The sounds of calls at the airport suddenly appear, a woman with a soft voice speaks. There is a flight from Assiut to another city for “Egypt Air”, which was postponed due to bad weather conditions. This announcement remained broadcast for more than two hours. They put us, because we are Palestinians and young men, without families, in a large waiting room, from which we are prohibited from leaving. This is the deportation room, but it is a good and somewhat excellent room. There is something worse. I made a large chair, stretched my body on it, secured my things, and tried to sleep. But I don’t sleep, I’m thinking about everything, that I’m in an airport, that I’m waiting for my flight, waiting to fly to another country. Really exciting moments!

Will I ask someone to change their chair with me? How will I tell him that I am twenty-nine years old, without having traveled once? How do I tell him that after three decades, I will be riding a plane for the first time?

A few minutes and the plane takes off. I am in a long line waiting to enter. The security officer leaves us after completing our procedures himself. Because we are ‘deported’; Because for the same reason we are young Palestinians, he checked our flight reservations and brought us into the free market. Now you are free, now we are like all travelers, we have the right to everything, now we are outside the security grip, outside supervision.

Because we are Palestinians, we always support each other. Other young men came out with me from the deportation room, two hours before the plane was scheduled to take off. Their plane and destination were with me, one of them. They accompanied us and we talked. We went through the market together. We, the majority of travellers, are young people experiencing the experience for the first time. We marveled at the world together, and at other times we mocked it together, and we talked. About the women we see for the first time in our lives together. We stand behind the airport glass, looking at the planes lined up in front of us. Is it a dream?

How will I get on the plane? I want to sit by the window. This dilemma has always faced every child sitting in the car. He longs for freedom, the freedom to not remain trapped between two seats. To see the world, contemplate the sky, people, and life from behind the window.

I am now a child who wants to sit next to the window on the plane. There is a scene that I want to see, and I have always wanted to see it. I asked: How will I sit next to the window? They said I was supposed to ask for this when booking my final entry ticket. So, what will be my share in this? Will I ask someone to change their chair with me? How will I tell him that I am twenty-nine years old, without having traveled once? How do I tell him that after three decades, I will be riding a plane for the first time? How will he understand that for the first time in my life I am meeting people who are not from my country, outside the confines of the prison imposed by the occupation and reality on my body? How will he understand that I am still ignorant of airport and travel etiquette, and that I am now committing foolish things? I want to sit next to the window, this is what is important, it is my ticket to freedom.

The world really exists

Istanbul from the sky, beautiful. Is it beautiful because it is Istanbul, or is it beautiful because for the first time I see a city from the sky? The clouds appear, then distant things from above, before their towers, green lands, and other details appear that become clearer with time, and with them my happiness becomes clearer. Now I land in another city, in another world, I enter the world of joy.

There are also many people at the airport. I don’t know how to take my bags. Just to walk with the machines, maybe they’ll show us the way. Turkish officers, oh! What is this transaction? Many people, foreigners, from other countries, with all dialects, cultures, statures, shapes, colors… a long world. Do I discover the world only from the corridor of “Ataturk International Airport”? F; To return to Gaza, I knew the world.

But who will tell these people why I look at them? How do they understand that I do not look at them because I am an insect who likes to interfere, but because I am a new human being on earth? Because for the first time I discover the existence of the world…

It doesn’t stop here. This is a train, or a ‘metro’ as they say. It’s the first time I’ve seen a means of transportation other than a bus or a car. It’s amazing! This is “Taksim”, a famous square, and I wished I could set foot in it. I go to a hotel I booked while I was waiting at Cairo Airport. I tell it that I have booked, and my name appears. I wonder again, he recognized me, that person, who was in another country and booked a room in another country.

I get to know the city, I discover the world, I go around the metro, the buses, and the many means of transportation. I see people and walk while looking at their faces and marveling. No one interferes with anyone, no one asks anyone what they are doing. It is freedom; The freedom to be who you want, not what the world wants you to be. But who will tell these people why I look at them? How do they understand that I do not look at them because I am an insect who likes to interfere, but because I am a new human being on earth? Because for the first time I discover the existence of the world, and I know that there, outside the borders of the city in which I live, there is a real world, and it is not just imaginary conversations that my mother tells before sleeping.

I go back to it, and I love it

The car departs from the city of Rafah to Gaza City, reaching the heart of the city. Here are the “Legislative Council”, “Universities Junction”, “Meat City”, “Abu Talal Junction”, “Al-Shifa Hospital”, and the famous “Al-Nasr Street”, which intersects with “Al-Wahda Street”. Many faces, I forgot them all during my travels. I forgot wandering around this place when I was returning from work, or to shop and buy bread. A small moment that brought back many memories. I realized something I didn’t know before. Maybe I didn’t long for this city; I was only away from her for three weeks, full of bad and difficult details and tiring times, but I love her.

Bombardment, raids everywhere, the sounds of warplanes, non-stop explosions, artillery firing its shells, sound splashing on the roof, fragments of shells raining above us, a room crowded with more than thirty people; My mother, father, brothers, sisters and their children. Fear swept through us. We slept for a while, then woke up to the sound of artillery. We decided to flee the house. Tanks are not far away.

A few hours, one day, I decided to move south. The tanks are lined up opposite us, do not look back, carry your pain, fatigue and fear and walk. Many pictures emerge within days of Gaza City. Destruction everywhere. The long, famous Bahr Street, known as “Al-Rashid Street,” was destroyed. I saw the memories of yesterday, my trips in the car to the tunes of Abdel Halim Hafez and Umm Kulthum, the clapping and chanting behind the music before sunset, with the lights of Gaza’s small sea cafes, all of them, all of these memories, my memories, I saw them broken and piled up on both sides of the street.

“The Unknown Soldier” is a place I hate, where children, beggars, and annoying vendors are crowded, dirty streets, many people, Eid crowds, crowds returning from work, the streets of Gaza on the weekend, crowding in commercial complexes and markets. I never knew that I loved my city. I used to walk around it. I hate it more. I try to practice the habit of walking. I love it more, I don’t know. There is everything in the street except what makes it pedestrian-friendly.

I spent my life trying to get out of this city, I spent it in hatred and hatred for its details, for its restriction of my freedom (…) but in just a moment, I decided to return to it… I decided to love it.

I saw her as rubble, my memories and the details of my city, but in one moment, in one moment, I saw her love in my heart. I had never seen Gaza beautiful before, except after its happy details were stepped on by the chains of Israeli Merkava tanks. I did not see its lights and cheerful decorations, except after the soldiers cut it off by blowing up the streets and blowing up the houses, while they were giving it to their children.

I spent my life trying to get out of this city, I spent it in hatred and hatred for its details, for restricting my freedom, to know and discover the world, to walk relentlessly, without thinking about what would prevent me from standing. But in just a moment, I decided to return to her… I decided to love her. Now I love Gaza, I am not saying that I will not leave it; I see my future and my daughter’s future outside of a world full of war and death at any moment, but I will not say that I hate it, I will not forget its beautiful small details, I will not forget the port and its beauty, I will not forget Al-Bahr Street, and I will not forget “the sand neighborhood” and “the unknown soldier,” and there are people in it. They decorate it with their movement and widespread noise, instead of the screams of soldiers and the silence of death in the street.

A writer and researcher from the Gaza Strip. He writes prose and poetry. He has many studies and research in politics and international relations, and is active in civil society and the Palestinian media.