Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

Support justice-driven, accurate and transparent news — make a quick donation to Truthout today! 

After the so-called ceasefire was implemented in Gaza in 2025, I did not at first have the courage to return to Gaza City, which I had not seen since before October 2023. All the other Palestinians who went back described with deep sorrow the experience of reentering a city they no longer recognized. The beautiful Gaza City they once knew had become strange to them — unfamiliar to both their eyes and their hearts.

When I finally summoned the courage to face the devastation in March 2026, I was shocked by what I saw. Throughout my journey — from Nuseirat camp, passing along the coastal road, all the way to Gaza City — piles of rubble dominated the landscape. I was walking through a maze of streets I no longer knew.

I made that trip in order to apply for a press card membership from the Journalists’ Syndicate, which was operating out of a large tent set up in the courtyard of the Rashad Al-Shawa Cultural Center. The state of the cultural center itself reflected the scale of transformation the city had undergone: It was filled with displaced people who had sought refuge there from the destruction

When I reached the heart of the city — the place I used to know so well, around the university street, where I would leave campus and head to the nearby cafés — I no longer recognized where I was.

I stood in the middle of what used to be known as Telecommunications Street, named after a company building that once stood there, adjacent to the Rashad Al-Shawa Center. As I walked a little further, I was met with a suddenly incongruous sight: a large number of new cafés.

Gaza Reconstruction Is Hindered as Israel Restricts Aid and Building Materials

Every few meters, there was another café. And these were not makeshift or temporary places, as one might expect — they were built with expensive materials, carefully finished, furnished with elegant tables, sofas, and chairs, and fronted with glass façades that conveyed a sense of luxury.

Amid this widespread........

© Truthout