Tuesday 13 May 2025.
As you know, some 110 Gazans arrived recently in France, evacuated at the end of April with the help of the French consulate in Jerusalem. Some were beneficiaries of family reunification schemes, some had been granted scholarships, some were artists, others had various connections in France and simply wanted to get away from Gaza. Soon afterwards, I received many calls from French friends, some of them journalists. All had the same question “Why didn’t you leave ?” Some even offered to ring the French consulate, under the assumption I had simply been forgotten when the list of people who wanted to leave was drawn up. I told them that since the very first day of war the consulate had offered to help me leave Gaza with my family and arrange for my acceptance in France. But I refused.
My friends say :
“Rami, why are you staying? You can see it’s getting worse and worse in Gaza. The only way out is to die, under the bombs or from starvation. You can help your country and your cause from abroad. Staying alive is good for Palestine."
I understand these arguments and I respect them. And I know that most of those people are telling me to leave because they’re fond of me and don’t want to lose me. They want a better life for my family and me. And it’s true that I regard France, where I lived from 1997 to 1999, as my second country. I turned eighteen in France. It was a great period in my life and I learned a lot. And not just the language, but also many values: liberty, equality and fraternity. It was in France that I encountered the world, not just the French; my stay there enriched my life. In the Cité Universitaire where I lived, there were wonderful cultural exchanges, I rubbed shoulders with students from all over the world. I also learned to like chocolate and cheese. At the end of the day, the sense of belonging to a country is not necessarily linked to our origins and a person can feel French just as well as Palestinian.
For a long time I dreamed of going back
I wasn’t sure I wanted to write these words. But I wanted to explain to my friends why I have made this choice. It’s not a suicide note and I don’t want my family to die. I am against armed resistance, even though it is our right as it is the right of any people under occupation, and even if the Israelis have changed the rules, calling resistance “terrorism”, and even if the whole world is using the vocabulary of the oppressor. But my way of resisting is to remain in Palestine.
I was born in Lebanon. My parents went through the Nakba. My maternal grandparents left for Libya, my paternal grand-parents went to Jordan. I have no family roots in Gaza so I have no uncles, aunts or cousins here. But for many years, living in the diaspora, I dreamt of the day I would return to Palestine. Until the Oslo agreement made it possible. And that is why I don’t want to leave.
Now, that is Rami, the Palestinian citizen speaking. For Rami the journalist, it’s simple: if I decide to leave, there will be no French-speaking reporter left in Gaza. It’s true that I don’t weigh much in the midst of this genocide and this mediatised war. I know I’m just one small voice at the bottom of the abyss, one tiny pen against a huge media arsenal. But I believe I should describe what is happening in Gaza.
I’m a religious man; I don’t think we are the ones who make our own life and death decisions. If we are going to die, it will be at such and such a time and in such and such a place, but we do not know where or when. Nor do we know how.
Have I made the right choice for me ? For my family ?
During this war, friends of mine have left Gaza City for Khan Younes. They were killed in Khan Younes. Others left for Rafah, they were killed down there. Still others were determined to get to Egypt and were killed over there. No, we are not the ones who decide. But it’s true we can decide to stay, trembling with fear under the bombs, risking our family. Have I made the right choice for myself, for my family ? I asked myself that question two days ago, when, for the first time, I saw tears in my wife Sabah’s eyes. She doesn’t cry often. The tears left black streaks down her pink cheeks, on account of the smoke from the makeshift stove where we burn everything combustible.
When I saw those black drops on her pink cheeks, I said to myself that they were the faithful reflection of what we were living through: the beauty of her pink face and the black of the ashes of our homeland and the harshness of our lives. I started reciting a poem by Nizar Qabbani1 : “And the black rain in my eyes falls, squall after squall...”, and I managed to make her laugh a little.
Actually, it broke my heart. I didn’t ask her: “Why are you crying ?”, rather I asked her straight out: “Do you want to leave, Savvouha ?” (diminutive for Sabah). She answered: “That’s out of the question. If you leave, we all leave together. If you stay, we all stay together. If we survive, we all survive together. If we have to die, then let us all die together.” I took Sabah in my arms and tried to stop that black rain running down her cheeks. She said to me:
“I know that few people in Gaza lead the life I lead. I know that you do all you can to give us a subsistence level and that this subsistence level is more than most of the others get. Me, I have everything I need, even if it is a bit of a hassle. I see how my friends are living, my family, in what hellhole. I can’t bear this injustice any more. That’s why I’m crying.”
Killed... for a bag of flour
I still asked myself the question: leave or stay ? Should I spare my family this misery, this pain ? I was torn apart inside. I can’t bear all this suffering in Gaza, these massacres, this daily butchery, this famine, this humiliation inflicted on all these people who have to live in tents, in the street... Recently, Sabah was personally affected by these massacres. One of her uncles was killed with two of his children... for a bag of flour. He lived in the Shujaaiyya district2, in a zone the Israelis had ordered people to evacuate. The family left without taking anything, and Sabah’s cousin and his wife tried to go back to their house for a bag of flour, what with the famine setting in. An Israeli sniper shot them both. The man was lying on the ground. His wife was injured but was able to run and tell his family. The father, Sabah’s uncle, and another of his sons, rushed to the spot. The sniper shot them down one after the other. They lay there in the street for three or four hours, bleeding to death. No one dared go to them because of the snipers and the armed drones prowling overhead.
Sabah had already lost another uncle, who was also killed by the occupation army. One of her cousins had a leg amputated. Her father died, as I have already written, not in a bombing but from sorrow: he could no longer bear the humiliation of living in a tent. Sabah’s heart is full of grief, but she thinks that staying here is the right decision to take. It’s our way of resisting this challenge. She said to me: “We’re going to hold on to the end. And the day all this stops, I’d like you to keep your word, your promise to go away, get a change of air, especially for the kids.”
Those words reassured me a bit. I’m perfectly aware how exhausted Sabah is, she has to take care of a toddler and a baby, cook over a fire we keep lit by burning everything we can, when she is asthmatic. Fortunately we still have some medicines sent by our dear friend, the journalist Marine Vlanovic who also rests in peace now.. I hope we’ll have enough to last us till the end.
Don’t hold it against me if we lose our lives
Many of my friends here want to leave, they work for a French NGO, or have children in France. They asked me to find out if the French consulate can help them. I also have friends who have delivered messages from people who were evacuated by France, saying: “I love my country, but I didn’t want to lose my family.” I don’t want to lose my family either. I don’t pass judgement on anybody. I too want my family to have a good life, a beautiful life. But this is my way of resisting.
If we are among the survivors of the genocide, I want Walid, Ramzi and Sabah to be proud of me. I hope she’ll go on approving my decision, and that one day the children will understand why their papa made this choice: so that a tiny pen in Gaza, a small Gaza voice, can do something for Palestine. One day, when all this will have stopped, I hope I’ll be able to take my family to France - Sabah, Ramzi, Walid, and Sabah’s children whom I regard as my own. I hope we’ll be able to have a change of air, to get together with all our friends who hope to see us safe and sound, and I shall see again my second country, France. And we’ll turn the page on this genocide.
Don’t hold it against me if we lose our lives, if one day our names are added to the list of victims of this genocide, if we go off to rest in peace. I don’t want my friends, who are very dear to me, to hold it against me for having decided to stay in Gaza. It’s a hard decision to take. But sometimes dignity is worth more than life itself. I hope everyone will understand me, whether we survive or not. But I hope we are all going to get together again, turn the page and start a new one, a page of joy, courage and especially of dignity.
Translated from French by Noël Burch.
Journal de bord de Gaza
Rami Abou Jamous
Préface de Leïla Shahid
Présentation de Pierre Prier
Éditions Libertalia, collection Orient XXI
29 novembre 2024
272 pages
18 euros
Commander en ligne : Librairie Libertalia