At the end of 2025, Jewish Currents reached out to about two dozen Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank — all of whom the magazine had previously interviewed after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 — to ask them how their lives had changed since they last shared their stories.

“The resulting testimonies are difficult to read,” says the introduction to these stories. “They show the effects of years of industrialized, live-broadcast massacres and colonization, particularly in Gaza, where more than 10% of the population is estimated to have been killed or injured in the last two years. The Gaza dispatches are a portal to a place where dystopian science fiction — the exporting of killing to artificial intelligence and robots, the shooting of children lining up for food aid, the crushing of people under air-dropped food parcels — has become reality.”

The introduction to this testimony is written by Tareq Baconi, a Palestinian writer who has also authored the book Hamas Contained:  A History of Palestinian Resistance.

“What all the voices share is disillusionment: with the Palestinian political parties Hamas and Fatah; with supposed allies like Arab countries; with international systems such as the United Nations; and with notions of international law and justice writ large,” Baconi continues.

“‘The targeting of civilians, the destruction of homes, and mass displacement happened before the eyes of the world,’ Sameera Wafi says from Gaza. ‘Everything was documented through photos and videos, yet international humanitarian law was not applied to us.’ Here, Palestinians are articulating a globally observable phenomenon: that post-World War II systems of international governance have failed, and what stands to replace them is a world structured solely by military and financial might. The stories below offer an early dispatch from this emergent global order.”

There is evidence showing, however, that the “post-World War II systems of international governance,” which Baconi says have now failed, never served the Palestinian people — or millions of others — well. The world was “structured solely by military and financial might” ever since the onset of World War II.

What made the world immediately after WWII different from today was the rise of the colonial revolution across the globe, the worldwide youth radicalization that began in response to that (and other events), and the existence of the Soviet bloc and other workers states —  despite their Stalinist leaderships, among other factors. Fundamental changes since that time include the restoration of capitalism in almost all of the former workers states — except for Cuba —  and the lack of any ultimately successful revolutions since the Cuban Revolution in 1959.

The political exhaustion of the bourgeois nationalist leaderships of the colonial revolution is certainly a factor that helps account for the understandable “disillusionment” Baconi refers to among Palestinians today.

Baconi’s introduction and the testimonies he summarizes nevertheless offer a truthful and heartbreaking account of the reality facing the Palestinian people in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank today.

What these materials present, originally published in the Spring 2026 issue of Jewish Currents, has been corroborated by other recent reports.

These include, Rats, Fleas and Endless Queues: Inside the Daily Misery of Gaza’s Tent Camps, by renown journalist Amira Hass, published in the April 28, 2026, Israeli daily Haaretz; and Rebuilding Gaza’s Healthcare Will Take $10 Billion Over Next Five Years, WHO Says by Ido Efrati also published in the same issue of Haaretz.

We publish the Jewish Currents dispatch below for the information of our readers. The headline, subhead, photos, and notes are from the original.

Due to the testimony’s length we are publishing the dispatch in two parts, the first of which follows.

— World-Outlook editors

*

(This is the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

Dispatches From Catastrophe

Twenty-three Palestinians reflect on the lives they have lost and the political futures that have been foreclosed in the wake of genocide.

As told to Maya Rosen and Jonathan Shamir.

Introduced by Tareq Baconi.

In November and December 2025, Jewish Currents reached out to some two dozen Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank — all of whom the magazine had previously interviewed after October 7th, 2023 — to ask them how their lives had changed since they last shared their stories.

The resulting testimonies are difficult to read. They show the effects of years of industrialized, live-broadcast massacres and colonization, particularly in Gaza, where more than 10% of the population is estimated to have been killed or injured in the last two years. The Gaza dispatches are a portal to a place where dystopian science fiction — the exporting of killing to artificial intelligence and robots, the shooting of children lining up for food aid, the crushing of people under air-dropped food parcels — has become reality. We see how Palestinians’ very fabric of life, of home and family, has been torn apart; we see a world where being killed may be more merciful than continuing to bear the indignities of living. As Saleh, displaced in the West Bank but watching his family live through the genocide in Gaza, puts it, “We’ve grown tired of life.”

I can’t help but read these dispatches through the prism of grief. Grief often manifests as a state of unreality: The world around the grieving person becomes a theater, a space where life plays out at a distance, somewhat removed. Survivors of the Gaza genocide seem similarly cloaked in disbelief at the lives they are living, unsure of how they got here, unable to process how much was taken from them. For all the crimes of the genocide, this is perhaps the most heinous: the theft of time; the erasure of the past recorded in Gaza’s land and cities, the blocking of any sense of future, the darkness shrouding the present. Reading these excerpts, one feels that the Palestinian condition of waiting — at checkpoints, for medical care, to travel — has been taken to a new extreme. Now, the wait is to bury the dead brought out from under rubble, to secure an elusive next meal, to survive the cold and rains of winter.

The individuals interviewed here shared their reflections weeks after the so-called ceasefire came into effect. There is no way to deny the relief that comes with diminished bombing. But the structural reality of genocide — that is to say, the concerted effort to erase Palestinian life — persists. Gaza has simply, according to Mohammed Zraiy, entered a “new chapter of suffering.” Aside from the ongoing killing, humanitarian aid barely trickles in, and if food is available, it is unaffordable. Borders remain impenetrable, with families scattered between the UK and Gaza, Egypt and Jordan. Just like time, space too is frozen, with Palestinians geographically suspended, unable to travel or reunite. Even those who have made it out of Gaza remain tethered to family members living in tents and are reliving the genocide over their phones even as their bodies are safe elsewhere.

This is the structure of the Nakba: fragmentation and dispossession; constantly searching for a return to one’s homeland amid the colonial quest for erasure. “The true homeland is one that protects the dignity of the person,” Adel al-Ramadi in Gaza reminds us. For now, there is no such place. There is a profound cruelty to the “choices” forced onto Palestinians along the way. Do they flee mass death, knowing that flight will then be used against them, weaponizing the prevention of return? How can Palestinians make the decision to whisk their children away from bombs when this may mean condemning them to homelessness, displacement, and destitution? Is the level of sadism on display in this genocide meant to break the Palestinian spirit of survival, or simply to torture Palestinians for it?

These are not questions limited to Gaza. These dispatches include Palestinians from the West Bank, who have increasingly faced land grabs, home demolitions, and growing dispossession after October 7th. The line separating the State of Israel from its colonizing apparatus in the West Bank was already illusory; now, even that pretense has disappeared. Soldiers turn into settlers, settlers into soldiers; in both guises, they terrorize inhabitants of pastoral communities as well as small towns and villages throughout the West Bank. Here, too, we see sadism: women forced to go into labor in cars parked at checkpoints, or surviving hours of contractions to avoid the terror of driving to a hospital at night; a father shot to death in front of his toddler while filming a settler.

Ceasefire or not, such violence continues with the full backing of the state. The apartheid regime and its mercenaries have internalized the correct lessons from Gaza: They can get away with anything. The half-hearted attempt to separate Israel and its “legal colonization” of 1948 from the settlers and their “illegal colonization” of the West Bank is now moot. Ghassan Najjar from Burin is correct; what was once under the table is now all above it.

Which is why it’s worth noting that these dispatches are missing the voices of Palestinians who remain inside the Israeli state. Ironically, they are possibly the people most terrified of speaking about their lives due to the level of surveillance and intimidation from the government and their neighbors; nevertheless, their experiences living amid a society responsible for genocide are an important part of the Palestinian story of the past years. Missing too are the Palestinians in Israeli prisons, who have been experiencing the horrors of torture, deprivation, and systematic sexual abuse for years, and who have mostly been blocked from the outside world since October 7th. Their stories exemplify Israel’s relentless push to crush any commitment to Palestinian life and resistance, wherever and however it might manifest.

And above these dispatches hover the spirits of our martyrs: those who have been murdered by the Israelis over the course of this survey, and whose loved ones’ lives will never again be the same. “They took away my heart,” Umm Khalil Abu Yahia says of her son Khalil, who was murdered on October 29th, 2023, before his brother Ahmad was also killed on July 2nd, 2025. She has had no time to grieve either son, or other family members; she’s barely surviving the incessant bombardment herself. “I didn’t have the chance to say goodbye,” says Hamza Salha of his best friend Yahya Obeid. “I am now without the people who are my home.”

These losses have not only irrevocably changed us as humans; they have also changed the nature of our political project. What is a home, what is the struggle for a homeland, when our people are being eradicated? The dispatches offer a snapshot of the diversity of opinion among Palestinians on these questions. Some would pay any fortune to escape Gaza, others can imagine nothing other than return to their homes, even if those homes have been destroyed. Some blame Hamas for October 7th and the ensuing genocide, others blame only Israel; some think armed resistance has been a fatal strategic mistake, others call it an inevitable response to the ongoing Nakba; some put faith in negotiations while others have lost all hope in the political track.

What all the voices share is disillusionment: with the Palestinian political parties Hamas and Fatah; with supposed allies like Arab countries; with international systems such as the United Nations; and with notions of international law and justice writ large. “The targeting of civilians, the destruction of homes, and mass displacement happened before the eyes of the world,” Sameera Wafi says from Gaza. “Everything was documented through photos and videos, yet international humanitarian law was not applied to us.” Here, Palestinians are articulating a globally observable phenomenon: that post-World War II systems of international governance have failed, and what stands to replace them is a world structured solely by military and financial might. The stories below offer an early dispatch from this emergent global order.

— Tareq Baconi

*

Gaza: “They have bombed us back into the Stone Age”

* Interviewees marked with an asterisk are not being identified by their full names due to safety concerns.

Ahmed Totah: Life used to be good. We had our homes, we had bread. But since October 7th, there is no life in Gaza. The streets are filled with rubble and garbage. They are not even streets anymore. We’re living in a jungle where the strong eat the weak. They have bombed us back into the Stone Age.

Umm Moin*: I used to live in my home with my family. Why was it bombed? Why was my car bombed? I did not harm anyone. Every day I cry over my home — my memories, my belongings that I loved. Everything beautiful is gone.

Ahmed Totah: My family and I are living in a tent in an area called al-Zawayda. The tent is broken and open on all sides, exposed to the wind. The conditions now in the winter are harsh: The tents flood, and water gets inside. You can’t find mattresses to sleep on, you can’t find bathrooms.

Sameera Wafi: After multiple prior displacements, we had to move to a tent in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis in February 2024. The bombardment never stopped all through that year. Tents near ours were repeatedly targeted, and danger was a daily presence.

With the beginning of the “humanitarian truce” in January 2025, we discovered that our house in Khan Younis was still standing. We worked on repairing it, and last February, two days before the start of the blessed month of Ramadan, we were able to return home. But after only a few weeks, the war resumed. On May 19th, our area was subjected to a large-scale attack by Israeli forces, which included airstrikes and heavy gunfire. We survived by a miracle. Hours later, evacuation orders were issued for our neighborhood, displacing us for the sixth or seventh time.

Later on, Israeli forces advanced and blew up what remained of the houses using robots.^[1] Our home was completely destroyed. I am now in al-Mawasi again, in a tent that is completely unfit for living. It does not shield us from the heat of summer or the cold
of winter.

Saleh*: My family was displaced from the city of Khan Younis to Bani Suheila and then to the sea, where they have been living in thin nylon tents. My grandchildren don’t have warm clothes and now the winter has come. Our house is gone. They don’t have a shekel to their name.

Mohammed Al Khatib: In mid-2024, I managed to send my wife and children to safety outside Gaza. I have now been separated from them for more than 19 months. In that time my overall health deteriorated. I was diagnosed with hepatitis and, later on, with a gastric infection that I am still being treated for. I have lost over 20 kilograms [44 pounds].

Ahmed Totah: I suffer from a heart condition, so I managed to get a referral from the World Health Organization for a medical evacuation back in April 2024. The backlog has been so long that we have not heard anything since.

My son Muhammad has cerebral palsy. When we were displaced the first time, we left his wheelchair behind. He is quadriparetic, so we — my wife, my other children, and I — have had to physically carry him. He requires constant medi The European Gaza Hospital was bombed by Israel on May 13th, 2025, killing 28 people and injuring dozens. The hospital has suspended services since the attack. As of October 2025, less than half of the hospitals in Gaza were functioning at all.

cal attention, but the circumstances have made that impossible. When there is bombing, he starts to scream; he buries his head in the ground. Even the sound of rain now scares him. It’s difficult to say this, but I have wished for death a million times because of his situation.

Mohammed Al Khatib: Since the ceasefire agreement, movement is easier, more aid is coming through the crossings, and my stress levels are lower. But my life at present can still best be described as survival, rather than really living.

Mohammed Zraiy: The food situation has improved a lot. It’s not like it was before the genocide, but it’s much better for a people who were starved to the brink of death.

Ahmed Totah: The main problem is that there’s no work—there is more food, but you need money to buy it.

Mohammed Zraiy: Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes are still ongoing, the cities are still destroyed, and people are still living in tents even in the harsh winter. For them, the war hasn’t ended yet. They’ve simply moved into a new chapter of suffering.

Saleh: At this point, I would want my wife and children to leave Gaza, whether that means going near or far — Egypt or Jordan, England or Belgium, I don’t care. We’ve grown tired of life.

Ahmed Totah: If they opened the borders and I had the chance to start life in another country, I would do so in a second. There’s nothing left here for us.

Adel al-Ramadi: I’m awaiting the soonest opportunity to leave Gaza so I can continue my literary and academic career. During these past two years, I have learned that the true homeland is one that protects the dignity of the person. This doesn’t mean that I’m letting go of Gaza; I will carry it in my heart wherever I go. I will write about it just as I used to.

“Despite the destruction and pain, I discovered that I cannot live  outside of Gaza.”

Sameera Wafi: At one point, I wished to leave simply to survive, but I later realized that survival alone is not enough. Despite the destruction and pain, I discovered that I cannot live outside of Gaza.

I am trying to hold on to my passion for photography. Almost every day, I walk about an hour and a half to the building of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in al-Mawasi. There, I charge my phone and follow the latest news. Sometimes I photograph emptiness, exhaustion, and worn-out faces. Other times I go to activities organized for children and capture them laughing inside a tent. My job as a photographer is to convey not only the pain of the people of Gaza but also their dignity. I try to tell the world: We are here, and despite everything, we are still living.

Exile: “A country that is not my own”

Yousef al-Akkad: I left Gaza briefly after October 7th to arrange university matters for my children, but the Rafah crossing was occupied and closed shortly afterward, and I have not been able to go back since. As soon as the crossing reopens and some minimally acceptable, safe level of life returns to the Strip, I will return from Nigeria to my medical work at the European Gaza Hospital.^[2]

Naila*: For the last two years, I have been stuck outside Gaza [in Israel’s Sheba hospital, then in Ramallah]. In 2025, I was supposed to fly to Cairo, where my husband was medically evacuated for back surgery early in the war. But there is no way for me to get there because I haven’t been able to get a travel permit.

These have been the worst years of my life because I am so far away from my family. My children’s lives, in particular, are very difficult with the harsh conditions in the tents in Gaza. I don’t know what to do. I live in a constant state of exhaustion and despair. I have lost hope in everything.

Umm Moin: I am in Egypt now, a country that is not my own, while the rest of my family, my siblings, and my mother — who has cancer — are living in a tent that does not protect them from the cold winter rains. I think about them constantly. I am unable to provide them with anything. My children lost their jobs, and their workplaces were destroyed. Their options have become extremely limited.

Jameel*: I hear the voices of thousands of people who would love to leave Gaza, and I can’t blame them. But life outside Gaza is not as simple as they might imagine. When we arrived in Egypt, we had no residency papers, and we could not register the kids for schools. I now receive only 30% of the salary that I used to receive in Gaza, which is not enough to cover our daily needs.

Aisha*: I got to Ireland before the ceasefire, and at that time I couldn’t stop checking the news. If I ever saw that a bombing had happened near my family, I would stay up all night trying to call them, and if I got through, I’d ask: “Are you okay? Do you hear heavy bombings or anything? Do you have food? Are you cold?”

When the ceasefire started, I thought, “Okay, now I can rest.” I thought I would feel relief that I’m in a different place, where I have this beautiful life that I always wanted. But that hasn’t happened because my family is suffering in Gaza; Israel is still bombing and I am always nervous. I pray for the border to open so my family can go to Egypt. Only then will I be able to live my life.

Hamza Salha: In August 2025, I got a scholarship to study in Ireland, where I am now. It is such a privilege to leave Gaza, but it hasn’t been easy. I’m physically surviving, but mentally, most of the time I’m still being chased by the trauma. I think of my family. I’m afraid that our house, the skeleton of which remains standing, might collapse at any time.

The people of Ireland are supportive, but they’re not the people I grew up with for 24 years. This is not my home; it’s not my land. Despite their compassion and generosity, I feel so lonely.

Dikla Taylor-Sheinman contributed reporting.

(This was the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

NOTES

[1] In May 2024, the Israeli army began using remote-controlled explosive vehicles to level infrastructure in Gaza. These “robots” have damaged or destroyed at least 19,000 structures in Khan Younis as of October 2025.

[2] The European Gaza Hospital was bombed by Israel on May 13th, 2025, killing 28 people and injuring dozens. The hospital has suspended services since the attack. As of October 2025, less than half of the hospitals in Gaza were functioning at all.

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