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"Palestine A-Z" by Mosab Abu Toha (2022)

Author: Mosab Abu Toha

Abu Toha, Mosab. "Palestine A-Z." Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear, City Lights Publishers, 2022, pp. 1-2.

An apple that fell from the table on a dark evening when man-made lightning flashed through the kitchen, the streets, and the sky, rattling the cupboards and breaking the dishes.

“Am” is the linking verb that follows “l” in the present tense when I am no longer present, when I’m shattered.

A book that doesn’t mention my language or my country, and has maps of every place except for my birthplace, as if I were an illegitimate child on Mother Earth.

Borders are those invented lines drawn with ash on maps and sewn into the ground by bullets.

Gaza is a city where tourists gather to take photos next to destroyed buildings or graveyards.

A country that exists only in my mind. Its flag has no room to fly freely, but there is space on the coffins of my countrymen.

Dar means house. My grandparents left their house behind in 1948 near Yaffa beach. A tree my father told me about stood in the front yard.

Dreams of children and their parents, of listening to songs, or watching plays at Al-Mishal Cultural Center. Israel destroyed it in August 2018. I hate August. But plays are still performed in Gaza. Gaza is the stage.

An email account that I used when the power was on, the email through which I smelled overseas air. I used it first to send photos to my aunt in Jordan, who we last saw in 2000.

How easy it becomes to recognize what kind of aircraft it is: an F-16, helicopter, or a drone? What kind of a bullet it was: from a gunboat, an M-16, a tank, or an Apache? It’s all about the sound.

Friends from school, from the neighborhood, from childhood. The books in my living room in Gaza, the poems in my notebooks, still lonely. The three friends I lost to the 2014 onslaught: Ezzat, Ammar, and Ismael. Ezzat was born in Al-geria, Ammar in Jordan, Ismael on a farm. We buried them all under the cold ground.

Fish in our sea that the fishermen cannot catch because the Israeli gunboats care about sea life in the Mediterranean. They once fished at the Gaza beach with a barrage of shells, and Huda Ghalia lost her father, stepmother, and five siblings in June 2006. I walked in their funeral procession to the cemetery. Blood was still fresh on their clothes. They had poured out some perfume to cover the stench. Over time my hate for perfume grew intense.

How are you, Mosab? I’m good. I hate this word. It has no meaning to me. Your English is good, Mosab! Thanks.

When I was asked to fill out a form for my U.S. J-1 visa application, my country, Palestine, was not on the list. But lucky for me, my gender was.

If a helicopter stops in the sky over Gaza, we know it’s going to shoot a rocket. It doesn’t see if a target is close to children playing marbles or soccer in the street.

My friend Elise told me hey is a slang word and shouldn’t be used. “English teachers would faint at what goes on today in written English,” she said.

Images on the walls of buildings, a child who was shot by an Israeli sniper, or killed during an air raid en route to school. Her picture was placed on her desk at school. Her picture stares at the blackboard, while the air sits in her chair.

I wake up ill when gloomy ideas about what might’ve happened to me come in my dreams, what if I had stopped for a few seconds at the window when a bullet from nowhere ripped through the glass.

Once I sent a picture of my desk in Gaza to a friend in the United States. I wanted to show that I was fine. On the desk were some books, my laptop, and a glass of strawberry juice.

When I sent that photo, I was jobless. About 47% of people in Gaza have no work. But while writing these lines, I’m trying to start a literary magazine. I still don’t know what to name it.

My grandfather kept the key to his house in Yaffa in 1948. He thought they would return in a few days. His name was Hasan. The house was destroyed. Others built a new one in its place. Hasan died in Gaza in 1986. The key has rusted but still exists somewhere, longing for the old wooden door.

In Gaza you don’t know what you’re guilty of. It feels like living in a Kafka novel.

I speak Arabic and English, but I don’t know in what language my fate is written. I’m not sure if that would change anything.

Light is the opposite of heavy or dark. In Gaza, when the electricity is cut off, we turn on the lights, even in broad daylight. That way, we know when the power’s back.

Marhaba means hi or welcome. We say Marhaba to everyone we see. It’s like a warm hug. We don’t use it, however, when soldiers or their bullets or bombs visit us. Such guests not only leave their shit, but also take everything we have.

My dad used to prepare milk for us with some qirshalah before school. I was in 3rd grade, and my mother was at hospital taking care of my brother. My brother died in 2016.

In 2014, about 2,139 people were killed, 579 of them were children, around 11,100 were wounded, around 13,000 buildings were destroyed. I lost 3 friends. But it’s not about numbers. Even years, they are not numbers.

A nail is used to join two pieces of wood or to hang things on the wall. In 2009, the Israelis targeted an ambulance with a nail bomb near my house. Some were killed. I saw many nails on our neighbor’s newly painted wall.

Yaffa is known around the world for its oranges. My grandmother, Khadra, tried to take some oranges with her in 1948, but the shelling was heavy. The oranges fell on the ground, the earth drank their juice. It was sweet, I’m sure.

In Gaza, we had a clay oven that our neighbor Muneer built for us. When my mother wanted to bake, I fed it wood stems or cardboard to heat it for the bread. The woody stems were made from dried plants: pepper, eggplant, and cornstalks.

A poem is not just words placed on a line. It’s a cloth. Mahmoud Darwish wanted to build his home, his exile, from all the words in the world. I weave my poems with my veins. I want to build a poem like a solid home, but hopefully not with my bones.

On July 23, 2014, a friend called and said, “Ezzat was killed.” I asked which Ezzat. “Ezzat, your friend.” My phone slipped from my hand, and I began to run, not knowing where.

What’s your name? Mosab. Where are you from? Palestine. What’s your mother tongue? Arabic, but she’s sick. What’s the color of your skin? There is not enough light to help me see.

We were watching a soccer match. Comments and shouts filled the room. The power was cut off, and everything became quiet. We could hear our breathing in the dark.

Al-Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem. I have never been to al-Quds. It’s around 60 miles from Gaza. People who live 5,000 miles away can move there, while I cannot even visit.

I was born in November. My mother told me she was walking on the beach with my father. It turned stormy and began to rain. My mother felt pain, and an hour later, she gave birth to me. I love the rain and the sea, the last two things I heard before I came into this horrible world.

I like to go to the beach and watch the sun as it sinks into the sea. She’s going to shine on nicer places, I think to myself.

My son’s name is Yazzan. He was born in 2015, or a year after the 2014 war. This is how we date things. Once he saw a swarm of clouds. He shouted, “Dad, some bombs. Watch out!” He thought the clouds were bomb smoke. Even nature confuses us.

In summer, I drink tea with mint. In winter, I add dried sage. Anyone who visits, even if it’s a neighbor knocking at the door to ask about what day or date it is, I offer them tea. Offering tea is like saying Marhaba.

They once said Palestine will be free tomorrow. When is tomorrow? What is freedom? How long does it last?

It wasn’t raining that day, but I took my umbrella anyway. When an F-16 flew over the town, I opened my umbrella to hide. Kids thought I was a clown.

In August 2014, Israel bombed my university’s administration building. The English department was turned into a ruin. My graduation ceremony got postponed. Families of the dead attended, to receive not a degree, but a portrait of their child.

When we moved from Cambridge to Syracuse, I looked out the window of the U-Haul van. What a huge country America is, I thought. Why did Zionists occupy Palestine and still build settlements and kill us in Gaza and the West Bank? Why don’t they live here in America? Why can’t we come here to live and work? My friend heard me. He was from Ireland. We both loved the Liverpool football club.

In Gaza, you can find a man planting a rose in the hollow space of an unexploded tank shell, using it as a vase.

One day, we were sleeping in our house. A bomb fell on a nearby farm at 6 a.m., like an alarm clock waking us up early for school.

In August 2014 after the 51 days of Israeli onslaught, the walls in my room had more windows than when I left, windows that would no longer close. Winter was harsh on us.

When I was wounded in January 2009, I was 16. I was taken to hospital and x-rayed for the first time. There were two pieces of shrapnel in my body. One in my neck, another in my forehead. Seven months later, I had my first surgery to remove them. I was still a child.

For Christmas, a friend gave the kids a xylophone. It had one wooden row. The bars were of different lengths and colors, red, yellow, green, blue, purple, and white. The kids showed it to their grandparents back in Gaza, whose eyes danced while the kids smiled.

Yaffa is my daughter’s name. I put my ears near her mouth when she speaks, and I hear Yaffa’s sea, waves lapping against the shore. I look in her eyes, and I see my grandparents’ footsteps still imprinted on the sand.

How did you leave Gaza? Do you plan to return? You should stay in the U.S. You mustn’t think of going back to Gaza. Things people say to me.

When I was in the fifth grade, our science teacher wanted us to visit a zoo, to see the animals, listen to their sounds, watch how they walk and sleep. When I went there, they were bored, gave me their back. They lived in cages in a caged place.

We use a zero article with most proper nouns. My name and that of my country have an extra zero in front, like when you call overseas. But we have been pulled down beneath the seas, do you see what I mean?

DMU Timestamp: October 24, 2023 13:53