It’s a warm evening in Cairo when I meet Zaid. The traffic on the main street outside the café is a constant hum – cars honking, motorbikes weaving between lanes, voices mingling with the aroma of grilled meat and strong coffee. But at our small table, the world suddenly feels still..
Zaid sits across from me, 25 years old, dressed in a simple T-shirt and worn jeans. He looks like any other young man, except for his eyes. They are older than his years, as if the months in Gaza have cast a shadow over him.
He talks with his hands, gesticulating sometimes violently, sometimes almost wearily, as if the words are too heavy to bear. As he describes the nights during the bombings, how he gathered his sisters in the same room, how he tried to make them feel safe until morning, I notice my own breathing getting heavier. I try to imagine what he is telling me, but something in his tone tells me that I will never fully understand.
“We didn't know where they were going to strike. There were bombings everywhere,” he says, his voice cracking a little.
I stare into my coffee cup, not knowing what to make of his words. It feels like a betrayal to just listen – but it’s the only thing I can do.
He talks about the day he left Gaza. April 27. Just a few days before the Rafah border was closed. He shows two short movements in the air with his fingers: a laptop, some papers. That's all he took with him.
– I left everything else. Literally everything.
His words linger between us, and I find myself hugging my bag under the table, a bag that suddenly feels full of luxurious necessities.
But the escape was not complete. His father remained behind. Israel Defense Forces, IDF, had said no at the checkpoint, without explanation. “Maybe his name was similar to one on a blacklist,” they had explained. Zaid shrugs, but it’s a heavy movement, more like a breakdown than a gesture. I see his knuckles turn white as he clasps his hands around the edge of the table.
And now he sits here. In Cairo. Waiting. In limbo. Not welcome back home, not welcome to start over here. “I’m just waiting,” he says. His voice is hushed, almost as if he’s talking to himself.
It's hard to meet his gaze when he says the world sees him as a terrorist.
– But they kill civilians, mothers, children. We are silenced, while they tell the world that they are defending themselves.
I feel my stomach clench. His words are not headlines or reports, they are flesh and blood, they are a person's life that has been transformed into a state of emergency.
When we part, he walks quickly, almost restlessly, as if he’s already headed somewhere else – even though he has nowhere to go. I stand for a moment on the sidewalk, watching the throng of people swallow him up.
What strikes me is that for Zaid, and for thousands of other Palestinians who have managed to escape Gaza, the war has not ended. It has only changed form. From the sound of bombs to the silence of a foreign land. From a night of terror to an endless wait without answers.
And I wonder: how long can a person live in that void, where all you own is a laptop, some papers – and memories you'd rather not carry?
More about Israel and Palestine:
Europe created the war in Gaza – now we must listen to those we betrayed
Ulf Carmesund has worked with three Palestinian civil society organizations for four years on training in good governance for officials in municipalities and ministries in Gaza and the West Bank. Now he wonders if they might not be the ones who should be invited to train leaders in Europe and the United States.
"While Gaza burns, hope is stifled in the West Bank"
How much can a heart bear before it breaks? How long can people live in an invisible struggle without the world seeing them? Gaza is burning, but in the West Bank hope is stifled – in the shadow of statistics and international silence, tells City Davrin as just returnt after a time as a companion i Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. She carries with her stories from Hannah, Mohammed and Love that would rather die than leave his home.
This is a chronicle. The author is responsible for analysis and opinions in the text.
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