Translated Content:
Alaa didn't have a heart that could hold both love and war, but Gaza is a city that teaches you to walk with a funeral in your chest. In February, Naseem proposed to her, a young man whose name echoed his own. Light as a breeze, a good listener, and a loving person who held his heart in his hand at every meeting.
In June, he suddenly disappeared from her, like missiles that never knock on a door or leave time for farewells. The place was targeted while they were sitting by the sea, laughing, sharing ordinary conversation and extraordinary love. Suddenly, the laughter became an echo, and her hand, which had been in his, began to hold a sheet to stop the bleeding.
At that moment, not only did Naseem ascend, but all the possibilities of tomorrow ascended. Alaa not only lost her fiancé, who had loved her at first sight, but something indefinable was lost with her—the serenity that precedes the storm—which she thought she had been injected with long ago.
In this report, Sanad News Agency recounts the story as told by Ola: With a thread of blood, a thread of oppression, and a thread of an ever-pulsing memory, we recall the moment when life stopped, and the moments when she insisted on continuing. We recall him, as she loved him, and as he was martyred.
On June 30, Israeli occupation forces committed a massacre against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip when their warplanes bombed the "Al-Baqa" rest house west of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of 33 people. The "Al-Baqa" rest house on the Gaza beach is a refuge for many citizens who seek refuge there from the repeated Israeli shelling of their homes, due to its open spaces.
"Lighthearted"
Ola Abd Rabbo, a 22-year-old electrical engineering student, says she's still trying to learn about life after death snatched away everything she was. She lost her mother and brothers during the war, then got engaged in February to a young man she loved with all her heart. Naseem, the young man she met in a web design course at the BTI incubator, was unlike any other, as she describes him. He was well-mannered, kind, easygoing, and generous. He never let her get tired in his presence. He was always helpful, always present with his heart and laughter, and loved her details. He had a caring voice.
Ola expresses her memories of him with the eagerness of a longing person and the pain of a bereaved person. She says they were planning to get married after the war, talking about the small house they shared, a shopping list, simple furniture, and the quiet days that never came.
Naseem dreamed of traveling with her. He told her that a delegation wanted to take him with them to work in design and editing, but he kept repeating, "I don't leave without my wife," meaning her. Ola believes that his heart was attached to her, and that even when it came to his ambition, he didn't think only of himself.
She recounts his last day in minute detail, as if replaying a memory etched in her memory. She says that they headed together to the "Al-Baqah" beachfront rest house, the place they both loved and used to hang out. They laughed a lot, and Naseem took several photos and asked her, "Do you see how beautiful the photos are?" He held her hand, recounting his stories and laughing as he recounted his adventures in trying to reach her and propose to her, as if he had achieved a great victory.
When they talked about death, he said to her in a reassuring voice, "Don't be afraid. As long as we're together, we'll die together and we're not afraid." Only a few moments separated life from death, between laughter and an explosion. Alaa says she heard a loud bang and felt like she'd fallen to the ground. She raised her head and found her foot bleeding. She tied it with the tablecloth. She turned to Naseem and called out, "Please, you're still alive. Tell me you're okay." But he was silent. She looked closely, saw the severe bleeding from his back and leg, and reassured herself that he was still alive. She describes the following moments as the slowest of her life, even though time was running by. She sustained a moderate injury to her foot, severed some tendons, and was transported to the hospital with difficulty. She was unable to reach him at the time, but caught up with him minutes later. Through tears, she asked her father, "Is Naseem okay? Please tell me." But he didn't answer, and silence filled the room. Hours later, her cousin told her the truth, saying, "He was martyred. Here, we brought him to you to see him."
Ola says that when she saw him, she didn't see a dead person, but a full moon, even more beautiful than the full moon. She confirms that his features were calm, as if his soul hadn't yet departed him. She whispers, "Oh God, reward me for my affliction and replace it with someone better. I bear witness, my Lord, that he deserved martyrdom, for I have never seen anyone more compassionate to my heart than him."
When she recalls their posts and conversations, the words fall from her eyes before they even leave her mouth. She talks about the time she sent him a quote by Adham Sharqawi that said, "If I die in this war, will you mourn me?" She sent it laughing, but he responded with tears, writing, "My heart was not preserved when I was with you. Do you think it will be preserved after we part ways?"
She recites verses he used to recite to her and hymns that used to soothe her heart, words like, "Be patient, even if the oppressors get us, we will not deviate," and "Don't say no and never, it's fate. Oh love, don't cry."
She admits that she didn't write him an elegy because he hasn't died inside her. She says, "I wish, my soul, I could mourn you with some of what's in my heart, but I see you alive."