Letter from Gaza City II

Yousef Abdellatif

I am Yousef Abdellatif and I live in the Gaza Strip.

In November I turned 25, the second birthday that has passed during this ongoing war.

I am a graduate of information technology and specialised in mobile computing and smart device application programming at the Islamic University. I once designed fundraising apps, now I am using them to try and escape from this genocide.

These are the things I love. I love life. I love each and every moment. I love discovery and I love challenges. I love sitting amongst my family with a cup of hot tea prepared over the fire we gather around to give us warmth in cold weather, eating, entertaining and exchanging pleasant conversation and laughter.

I love my beautiful room and my warm bed, it embraces me after the hardship of long working hours, working in Administration and Public Relations at one of the largest Malls in the Gaza Strip. I love football, I am an excellent football player and I used to play in a local club in Gaza.

I love watching European football matches as I am a big fan of Liverpool and Barcelona. I would love to watch their matches from inside the stadium, to get signed T-shirts and take pictures with the players.

I love playing PlayStation games with my friends, especially Pro Evolution Soccer; there were always great games between me and my friends and a strong competition to win our matches. I love running on the streets in the early morning hours.

I love barbecue parties in rainy weather. I love going out with my friends, walking on the seashore and swimming.

My days were once full of fun and excitement, but now, many of my friends with whom I did the things I love have been lost in this cruel war.

A beautiful memory

Now, imagine. Suddenly, everything I mentioned to you became a dream that I long to return to, a beautiful memory that was completely destroyed.

I ask you now to close your eyes for a moment. Imagine with me that you are sleeping on your bed, and then, suddenly, in the late hours of the middle of the night, and without awareness, you wake up to the sounds of bombing and destruction shaking throughout the area.

The whole house is filled with the smell of gunpowder and black smoke. You can hardly see your hands. You feel blood draining from your feet. You discover you are sleeping on a pile of shattered window glass and stones scattered as a result of the bombing. You do not understand. You do not know what happened.

How? Why? You run like a lost man through the house. You do not see anyone because of the darkness of the smoke. You ask with fear and terror: “Is everyone okay?”

Then you wait.

You wait for someone to respond.

You wait for reassurance that they are fine.

This is what happened to me at the beginning of this war, and after that, I never saw the light.

News continued about the destruction of homes, residential facilities, schools, universities, hospitals. The destruction of everything. Then the greatest tragedy.

The displacement of my family and I from the home we grew up in, we had such beautiful memories in it. We were forced to go to the south of the Gaza Strip under the illusion that it was a safe place. There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip now. A new chapter of our lives began. A chapter where we lived in tents that did not protect from the heat of summer or the cold of winter, nor from bullets and shelling.

I began a new struggle to provide the minimum necessities of living for my family and I.

I stand for long hours at the water line in order to get some water for my family. I stand for long hours in line at the bakery in order to get bread for my family.

I stand for long hours in line in front of the place that serves food to get food that is not enough for my family. My life has become tasteless and purposeless.

Every day I hear the sounds of bombing, the screams of the injured.

I see martyrs and destruction.

Will we be next?

My imagination has become like a horror movie that no one can watch and every day I ask myself, will my family and I survive, or will we be next?

I began to suffer from insomnia and did not know the taste of sleep. I became afraid of the night, because the night brings sounds of bombing and destruction.

I began to need a psychiatrist to treat me for what I was in. Now, after all this we are exposed to severe famine and I have come to wish for the simplest types of food. We face an indescribable high cost of living in light of the lack of income and work.

Diseases have spread among us due to environmental and water pollution. I live through very difficult times that a human cannot imagine. I had many ambitions that were destroyed. I dream of travelling and discovering the world. I love nature, greenery, watching birds and animals.

I dream of going on a cruise on a ship, catching fish, making a wonderful barbecue. I dream of completing my Master’s Degree in a prestigious University abroad.

I dream of experiencing mountain climbing and bungee jumping. I dream of many beautiful experiences and challenges and I hope that the nightmare I am living will end.

I hope that I will survive this war, and I hope that all my dreams will come true soon.

Lastly, a message to the free people of the world and to everyone who considers themselves a human being:

What are you waiting for?

I have pleaded with you for more than eight months.

We plead with you to help our families, we plead with you to help us to survive this war as soon as possible.

Some of the biggest names in Welsh music including Charlotte Church, Dafydd Iwan and Mari Mathias have joined together for a musical project to support Palestinian fundraisers including one for Yousef.

‘When I Survive’ is a musical compilation and project that was created following Israel’s war on Gaza in 2024. Find out more here.