من أنغام إلى صواريخ: شهادة موسيقي من غزة

My name is Hamada Nasrallah, I am from Gaza. I am a traveling musician who has lived in Turkey, Egypt, the UAE and Jordan as well as some other countries. I decided to return to Gaza in order to pursue an artistic production for my band, SOL, but all our plans, dreams and everything we built has been bombed. The dream has become either to all survive, or we all die.

Two members of the band and I lived in Gaza city while our keyboard player, Abboud, lives in the south. My friends and I decided that to move to the south with Abboud. His family welcomed us warmly, a testament to the unity of the people of Gaza in times of adversity. Despite the hardships, the people of Gaza cherish life.

Before I became forcibly displaced to southern Gaza, I lived in the north, near the strip’s border. During escalations, we would relocate to the city center which we perceived as safer. But as the Israeli bombs rained down, they spared no one. 

The Israeli airstrikes began while we were asleep at home. The intensity of violence surpassed anything I had witnessed in previous wars. My family was scattered — I was in one location, my mother and siblings in another. My mother had urged me to find a safe place so that if our home was targeted, someone in the family would survive. The bombs did not discriminate between a child, a woman, an elder, a young man, or a civilian. We live in constant fear of whether the next bomb will fall on us or near us. I lost my home to the bombings — a sad event indeed but nothing compared to losing a family member. Like many others, we relocated to the south but bombings and death are omnipresent in the Gaza strip. Having narrowly escaped death twice already, I live in uncertainty about what will happen to me when the next bomb drops.

My brother’s wife was due to give birth during the last two weeks. We were all eagerly anticipating the arrival of my brother’s first child and my mother’s first grandchild. However, amidst all this joy was also fear for the unborn baby due to the ongoing bombings — a different kind of horror indeed. My nephew was born during these tumultuous times and our greatest fear is losing him at any moment.

We have had enough of being treated like animals! The bombing must stop; the genocide in Gaza must end.