Another year later, life in Gaza remains caught between Israel’s killing machine and the world’s growing indifference. This year marks another addition to our unique calendar of loss, destruction, and death.
In March, I wrote about my concerns that Israel could move further toward genocide than it has so far. And it happened. Israel has surpassed even my darkest expectations and reached unimaginable levels of evil. This evil has been a hallmark of our year in Gaza.
I saw so many people posting recaps of their favorite moments of 2025 that I thought I’d share my own version. This year has been like this for me.
It began with a 45-day ceasefire. The brief respite from the bombing was not enough to mentally process the previous 15 months of constant murder and destruction.
In February, I met a number of Palestinian prisoners released as part of the cease-fire agreement, and they told me horrifying stories of their forced disappearances by Israeli forces. Among them was my high school teacher, Antar Al Agha. When I first saw him, I couldn’t believe it was him. He was so pale and thin that he couldn’t extend his arm to shake my hand.
He told me about spending long hours in the Israeli detention center’s so-called “scabies room,” a room designated as a scabies incubator. “One night, I was finally allowed to wash my hands, but it didn’t get any easier for me. When the water touched my hands, the skin started peeling off like a hot boiled potato. Blood spurted out all over my hands. I still feel the pain,” he said.
Israel resumed its genocide in March, killing more than 400 people in a single blow in the middle of the month. This blocked all crossings to the Strip.
In April, the first signs of mass starvation began to appear.
In May, the Israeli army forcibly removed my family and I from our home in eastern Khan Yunis.
By the end of the month, Israel had organized a new and creative form of mass murder and humiliation, ironically calling it the “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” The organization, which was launched with help from the United States, began distributing food to starving Palestinians in the form of a “Hunger Games.”
In June, due to extreme hunger, I also went to GHF Point. There I saw my friends crawling on the scorching sand in search of food. I saw a young man hiding behind people to protect himself from bullets. I saw young people stabbing each other to death over a kilogram of flour.
In July, the Israeli army leveled my house and my entire neighborhood.
In August, the Integrated Food Security Classification (IPC) officially confirmed that Gaza was suffering from famine. By that time there was nothing left to eat, not even flour. Red lentils and bird feed were ground to make thin layered bread. That was my only meal that day.
In September, the Israeli military ordered another mass evacuation from northern Gaza to the south, leaving hundreds of thousands of people forced to relocate again.
Another ceasefire agreement was announced in October. By that time, I no longer had the energy to feel anything. I was already grieving the loss of many relatives, close friends, my home, and my entire city. Unable to continue working due to the inhumane conditions of evacuation, I lost both freelance content writing contracts.
I knew deep down that Israel would not abide by its side of the ceasefire agreement and that this would not be its final loss.
My suspicions were confirmed in November. Israel continued to bomb us. Genocide has just changed from a loud and violent act of killing to a quieter version. Israel’s land grab continued, and the so-called “Yellow Line” constantly expanded, swallowing up more and more land, including what remained of my neighborhood. The world’s apathy was further revealed that month when the government refused to condemn Israel for violating the ceasefire, instead offering incentives such as a $35 billion gas deal.
A harsh winter arrived in December, causing tents to flood and buildings to collapse. The baby began to die from hypothermia.
If I could erase one of the harrowing events of this year from my memory, it would be a trip to the GHF site. I think what I saw there was truly the height of evil. I still feel a sense of dread when I pass through the same places on my way to the GHF site or on my way home.
I ask myself this question today as I walk through the narrow, rainy streets of my tent camp. Why do these people cling to life after losing their homes, jobs, and loved ones?
As far as I know, that’s not a hope. It is a mixture of helplessness and surrender to fate.
Perhaps it’s because time stands still in Gaza. Here, past, present and future occur simultaneously.
Time here is not an arrow and does not fly by. It is a circle that connects the beginning and the end, between which lie endless episodes of terrible suffering.
Just as the fundamental laws of physics do not distinguish between past and present, neither does the Gaza tragedy.
The movement of a pendulum from right to left is the same movement in the opposite direction with the same energy and momentum. The past and future cannot be discerned unless we begin the process.
Recently, I became interested in reverse causation in Gaza, the idea that the future influences the past, or that an effect precedes a cause. As we watch buildings collapse on their own, we imagine how Israeli military planes will bomb them in the future, but we are now watching buildings collapse.
Of course, some will argue that buildings in Gaza are still collapsing because they have already been damaged by Israeli shelling. But it is also true that Israel continues to bomb buildings rebuilt by Palestinians. As the same buildings are bombed and repaired over and over again, it is easy to imagine how the rubble of present-day Palestine might be destroyed by Israeli bombs in the future.
As the world looks to a new year and a better future, we in Gaza are terrified of what’s to come. We are caught between a past we don’t want to remember and a future we don’t have the courage to imagine.
We can’t even make New Year’s resolutions because we have no control over our lives.
I want to reduce my sugar intake, and Israel may do this for me by once again blocking all food from entering Gaza.
I want to learn how to swim, but if I step into the ocean I might be shot by Israel.
I want to replant it in my backyard, but I can’t even get close to it.
I would like to take my mother for Umrah and visit Masjid al-Haram, the great mosque in Mecca, but Israel does not allow us to travel.
Probably the only New Year’s resolution I can make is to get used to cold showers. With gas and firewood in short supply, that wish may be fulfilled much more easily.
You don’t need to plan anything in Gaza, you have everything you want.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
