My siblings and I frequently spent our pocket money on new books when we were younger. Our mother had a fervent love for books instilled in us. Reading was more than just a pastime; it was also a way of life.
I can still recall our parents’ surprise gift of a home library to us. They had placed numerous shelves in the living room, making it tall and wide. Even though I was only five years old, I immediately recognized the sacredness of its location.
My father had a burning desire to have books on philosophy, religion, politics, languages, science, literature, etc. on the shelves. He desired a large selection of books that could rival those at the neighborhood library.
One of Gaza’s most recognizable bookshops, the Samir Mansour Library, was where my parents frequently took us. Each book would be able to be picked up by us.
Our schools organized reading events, reading clubs, and panel discussions to foster this love of reading.
Our home library became our friend, a source of comfort during war and peace, and a lifeline during those dark, eerie nights surrounded only by bombs. We would recite the poems of Mahmoud Darwish that we had memorized from books in our library while chatting about the works of Ghassan Kanafani while reciting the poems from our library.
The blockade on Gaza was enacted at an intolerable level when the genocide first started in October 2023. There was no shortage of nutritious food, fuel, medicines, and water.
People started burning anything they could find, including books, tree branches, and wood from the rubble of homes.
This was the first time my brother’s family encountered this. Their family could use the heavy-heartedness of my nephews’ sacrifice for their academic future: they burned their newly printed schoolbooks whose ink hadn’t even dried. The same books that once fed their minds are now feeding the flames in search of survival.
My 11-year-old nephew Ahmed confronted me with the reality despite my horror at the book’s burning. Either we starve to death or become illiterates. I’ll make the choice to live. He said that education will resume later. His response completely shook me.
Even though the price of wood was skyrocketing, I insisted that we buy it when we ran out of gas. When the war is over, my father promised to buy you every book you want, but he failed. But for the moment, let’s use these. I resisted despite my best efforts.
Our ups and downs, our laughter, our tears, our triumphs, and our setbacks were all reflected in those books. How are they going to burn them? I began to read some of our books once, twice, three times, memorizing their titles, pages, and cover names, burying my fear that our library might be the place to make the next sacrifice.
Cooking gas was finally permitted into Gaza in January after a temporary truce had been declared. I sigh of relief knowing that my books and I had survived this Holocaust.
The genocide then resumed in the first few days of March. No food, medical supplies, or fuel could enter without a blockade humanitarian aid. In less than three weeks, we ran out of gas. Without other sources of fuel for cooking, due to the complete blockade and the extensive bombardment.
I had to accept that I had no choice. I glanced through the international human rights law books as I approached our library. They had to come first, I figured. These legal principles were taught in schools to us, and they led to our liberation one day. We were made to believe that our Palestinian rights were protected by them.
Yet, we were never protected by these international laws. We have been a victim of genocide. There is no international law, no ethics, and no value for human life there. Zaza has been teleported to another moral dimension.
I tore those pages apart in an effort to recall how numerous families had been torn apart by bombs in the past. The torn pages were set on fire as I watched them go to the dust, offering an agonizing tribute to those who had been killed in the attacks on Al-Aqsa Hospital, journalist Ahmed Mansour, and countless others whose names we will never know.
Next, my brother, a graduate in pharmacology, burned all of his pharmacology books and summaries. His years of hard work were the fuel for the preparation of our canned food. Still, it was insufficient. The fires devoured book after book shelf after book as the siege grew more suffocating. Before touching any of mine, my brother demanded that he burn his favorite books.
But the inevitable was present. Soon, my books were all we had left. I was forced to burn my dearly cherished collections of poetry by Mahmoud Darwish, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Samih al-Qasim, the voice of resistance, Abdelrahman Munif, and the Harry Potter books I had spent my teenage years reading. Then, my medical reports and summaries arrived.
My heart started to burn as I watched the flames burn them. Making the sacrifice feel commendable, we prepared a more decadent meal, including pasta and bechamel sauce.
My father went even further than I thought, and I believed that was my sacrifice’s peak. He burned the library’s shelves as wood after removing them.
15 books were saved by me. These are historical works about the Palestinian cause, our ancestors’ tales, and my grandmother’s books, both of whom were brutally murdered during this genocide.
These books provide my proof that my family has always lived here, in Palestine, and that we have always been the landowners. Existence is resistance.
In our worst nightmares, the horror of the genocide has compelled us to do things that we never thought possible. In order to survive, it required us to mutilate our memories and destroy the unbreakable.
But if we survive, we will rebuild if we do so. We’ll start a new home library and restock it with the books we adore.
Source: Aljazeera
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