The storyteller of Gaza was ready

to write her next chapter — but

war has changed the narrative of

her life and so many others

By Allan Woods

Sunday, December 31, 2023

侵权必删。

Hend Qattaa recently learned how to ride a bicycle.

The 32-year-old English teacher and volunteer storyteller from Gaza City found her balance fairly quickly, though she has yet to master a turn. She owns and drives a car. But a woman on two wheels is something of a rarity in the Palestinian enclave.

Qattaa was determined to learn after leaving the Gaza Strip for the first time in her life, to visit her twin sister, Marwa, and a brother, Basel, in the summer of 2022. There, in Heidelberg, Germany, she saw people pedalling everywhere during the month-and-a-half trip, which included stops in Paris and Vienna.

Qattaa also saw her future — a vision and a dream that is now in jeopardy for her, as for the more than two million other Gazans who are trapped in a territory that Israel and Hamas have turned into a battlefield.

“I was planning to leave Gaza to do a master’s in Germany, and preferably to stay there the rest of my life,” Qattaa told the Star in a series of recorded messages sent over the last three weeks, from the apartment where she and 20 relatives are sheltering from Israeli bombardments.

She has shared an intimate view of the effects of an Israeli siege that has made everything in Gaza scarce, including food, water, fuel, electricity and communications. Increasingly, hope is also running low as the fighting continues and expands, and the Palestinian death toll climbs past its estimated current total, 21,000. That includes hopes like the one Qattaa has, to start her life anew next summer.

She had begun writing academic proposals for universities. She hoped to do research on the effectiveness of storytelling as a tool of advanced language learning.She started studying German and was about to advance to a new level.

And she took on extra work to pay for her dream, so as not to be a burden to her siblings. But the bloody events of Oct. 7 brought war's return to the Gaza Strip, casting those future plans dangerously into doubt. “I’m going to try to stay positive as much as I can,” she said, “realizing that it’s really hard to be so with the situation we’re in now.”

Explosion, deep breath

In each of Qattaa’s messages, the engine of an Israeli drone buzzes in the sky above.She speaks clearly, in a soft, melodious voice. But her train of thought is frequently derailed by the sudden thud of explosions. Often, she explains, it is the sound of missiles being fired from Israeli ships anchored off Gaza’s coast in the Mediterranean Sea.

A typical message goes like this:

“As I mentioned earlier, my home is in the east of Gaza City (explosion, deep breath). I remember having spent a couple of days at home when the war started, before having to leave for the west of Gaza City (explosion) at my uncle’s house, as many areas in the east were notified at the time by the Israelis to evacuate their homes. My home wasn’t included, but it was very near to other notified areas.”

Qattaa and her family thought they would be gone from their home for just a few days. But shortly after arriving at her uncle’s house, the Israel Defence Forces issued evacuation notices, telling everyone in the north to move to southern Gaza.

“I will never forget that day (explosion, deep breath) … We didn’t believe it at first. We were extremely confused and not knowing what to do — whether to decide to stay in Gaza and die there in our home, or leave for no return at all (explosion).”

In her messages, she talks of her home and her large, loving family — which includes five siblings.

She talks of her students and her work at a United Nations-run school in Gaza City and of participating in The Hands Up Project, a British educational charity that uses storytelling and theatre to help Palestinian kids learn English and connect with students around the world.

Qattaa talks of her beloved oud, a stringed Arabic lute.

She taught herself to play the guitarlike instrument from watching YouTube videos, uses it to spice up her storytelling and describes it as “a really good friend” that she was forced to leave behind when she fled her home. Qattaa talks of her hopes, and she talks of her fears.

'Didn't want to stay in Gaza' 

Qattaa has a fear of explosions.