We started talking in 2017, I didn’t know her, she didn’t know me. We have never met, I’ve never seen her face to face.
Dania is my second cousin, her father my first cousin, I’ve also never met. They all live in Gaza, a city about
the size of Las Vegas, with three times it’s population. The Gaza strip has been under a complete blockade since 2007. This suffocating blockade imposes movement of goods and people into and out of the city. Israel imposes this blockade and Egypt supports it by closing the only way out of the Gaza strip into the world, the Rafah crossing border, not allowing anyone out and letting very few people in, sometimes after days of waiting at the border.
It’s a form of collective punishment that Israel imposes, a strategic apartheid system that it practices as it pleases. This blockade has led to the term that is frequently used to describe Gaza “Open air prison”. And since exit and entry into Gaza is strictly prohibited, naturally there is no airport and no travel through the Mediterranean. The majority of people in the Gaza strip have never left it, have never been on a plane, have never seen the outside world. For this reason I have never met Dania.
Despite this illegal and brutal siege of Gaza, they were able to flourish, they were able to use the restricted resources that were mainly smuggled into Gaza to build a whole functioning civilization. Defying all odds, literacy rates increased substantially over the past 20 years to having one of the highest literacy rates in the world. Gaza is filled with highly educated individuals; Professors, doctors, engineers, teachers. Gaza was able to build itself; hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, resorts. A fully functioning city despite that its blocked from the rest of the world, despite having zero control over their electricity, water, resources or travel.
I don’t remember how or why Dania and I started to talk, but sometimes Allah puts certain people in your path for a reason and I know Allah introduced Dania in my life because he knew that our hearts would connect. He knew that distance did not matter and that we would build a friendship together despite the miles and restrictions between us and despite the blockade that may never allow us to meet.
Our friendship was solely built on the basis of helping those in need in Gaza, a cause so dear to my heart. Dania was my gate to helping others and elevating some of their pain and suffering, she was actually my gate to heaven. Allah brought her in my life to help me become a better version of myself, to allow me to do the good that might just save me and allow me to please Allah. She was my angel.
For close to a decade together with the help of Allah, Dania and I entered many homes in Gaza. We worked like a team to help those in need, the sick and the poor. It was as if we knew each other forever, as if we grew up together in the same place. We built a friendship based on trust and a friendship that was so sacred.
This continued right through the current genocide. Despite the almost impossible and dangerous way to get to funds, Dania continued to ask me to help her help those that lost everything. She continued to look for blankets to cover people that were in the streets after losing their homes. She continued to buy whatever vegetables she can get her hands on in bulk to distribute. She wanted to continue doing our work, so that in the event that she dies, she can meet Allah knowing that she did all that she could to help others. I remember very well how happy she was when she found blankets in bulk, she sent me a picture of them.
She had a heart of gold, never did she lose hope or trust in Allah. Together, we dreamt of her leaving Gaza with her family so we can meet, we talked about meeting in Turkey. We talked about going back one day and praying in Al Aqsa side by side.
She wanted to live, she wanted to live so much. In one of our last conversations she finally had the courage after all these years to ask me how old I was, she was shocked to find out I was more than a decade older than her. She said “I thought you were young”, we laughed.
On February 18, 2024, Dania decided to join her husband who she had been separated from for months in Deir Elbalah. I asked her why she wanted to go back there, she said its better this way, its time for us to be together so that if we live, we live together and if we die, we die together.
On February 23, 2024, Day 140 of this genocide, Israel made the decision that Dania’s life was not worth living and with a single air strike, Israel killed her, her husband, her two year old daughter along with over 30 members of her husbands family. She fulfilled her wish and left this world together with her family, but she left the rest of us broken. How will I find another Dania in my life to help me get to where she is now? With over 30,000 people slaughtered, imagine how many potential Danias the world has lost. How many more Danias will they be allowed to kill without any consequences? How many Danias are buried under the rubble? How many families has Israel destroyed? How many hearts have they shattered?
Every life lost is a story, is a dream, is a past and a future that didn’t happen. We are not numbers nor are we less human. We are the victims of this unjustified genocide and this occupation.
Rest in power Dania.
Inside My mind ... 