Residents of Gaza city fear Israel's bombardment is not only destroying lives and homes, but the soul and memory of the place could be lost.
Israel is destroying tower blocks daily – another high-rise building was felled on Monday – as part of a campaign to seize the city from Hamas. Gazans are despairing over whether to stay in a city facing bombardment and famine, or leave for what they fear will be permanent exile.
Watching the city's towers collapse on television, 29-year-old Amal Serdah worries she may have said farewell to the home she left with her husband and family. “My house is not more important than Gaza. The whole city is my home,” she said.
She told The National: “It’s impossible for anyone to forget Gaza, its streets, its mosques. How could someone let go of their memories in Al Zawiya market, in Al Saha Square, in the Great Omari Mosque, or the Gold Market?”
Researcher Aziz Al Masri remembers the towers as landmarks and symbols of daily life. “The towers of Gaza city hold a large part of our memory,” he said.
“We used them as reference points, telling a taxi driver to drop us off at Al Wehda Tower or Mushtaha Tower. These were not just buildings. They were part of our social and professional lives.” Watching them fall, he says, is to watch memory itself collapse.
Palestinian news agency Wafa said 28 people were killed by Israeli air strikes and gunfire on Monday. Most of the dead were taken to Al Shifa hospital in Gaza city to be identified and prepared for burial.
Israel said Monday's tower block strike hit a building where “Hamas terrorists planted intelligence gathering equipment and positioned observation posts”. It has given similar explanations during a 10-day campaign against high-rise buildings.
The Israeli military has issued eviction orders and dropped leaflets as it evict the city's population and force it south, clearing the way for a military occupation. Many people have left Gaza city for the unknown.
Mazen Al Qahwaji, 37, has lived his entire life in Gaza city. “Gaza is not like any other place. Gaza is the soul,” he said. “Not a single day of my life has passed without a memory of Gaza. Since the beginning of the war, I have not left the city, because my heart, my mind, and all my senses are deeply connected to it.”
For him, leaving Gaza would mean abandoning everything, its cafes, markets, and streets that once pulsed with life. He admits he often wonders about the safety of his wife and two children, but still he cannot imagine parting from the city that gives him his sense of self.
The destruction is not only personal but historical. Mahmoud Al Shubaki, 28, an English teacher, worries about what the loss of Gaza means for Palestine’s cultural identity.
“The destruction of Gaza city is a loss beyond compare,” he said. It means the loss of a cultural identity for one of the oldest cities in the world, more than 3,000 years old, a city that has witnessed countless civilisations.”
For him, the ruins of Sayyid Hashim’s tomb, the Great Omari Mosque, and the Church of Saint Porphyrius are not just stones but “witnesses to the memory of peoples.” He fears that the erasure of Gaza would mean losing the stories, photographs, and life itself that the city has preserved for generations.
What ties all these feelings together is the same unshakable view: Gaza is not merely a city. It is identity, belonging, and home. For its residents, the loss of Gaza is more unbearable than the loss of houses, jobs, or even safety. It is the loss of self.
As Mr Al Qahwaji, still holding out in his Al Nasr neighbourhood, puts it: “The occupation knows how precious Gaza is to us, and that is why it wants to destroy it, to erase its history and leave us with an endless pain.”
