by W.D. Ehrhart
In recent years, I have been writing frequently in support of the people of Palestine. A few years ago, I was introduced to the poetry of Mosab abu Toha by my Jewish American friend and university professor Ammiel Alcalay, and have written about Mosab and his poetry on multiple occasions, especially taking note of his two books in English, Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear and Forest of Noise.
But my connection to what is happening in Gaza and the Occupied Territories became much more personal this past spring through another friend of mine, the American playwright Naomi Wallace, who introduced me to a young Palestinian woman she knows named Rawand Gawad abu Ghanem. Rawand originally came to Naomi’s attention as a teenager when she became the first girl to be part of the Gaza Surf Club about a decade ago.
Rawand is now married, and has two sons: Yamen, age 5, and Mohammed, born in June 2025. I have never met her, and have not even been able to communicate with her directly because she cannot e-mail and I cannot text, but we are able to be in touch through Naomi, who can do both.
I have written two previous pieces based on letters I’ve received from Rawand by way of Naomi. Today, I received this third letter:
I am on my mattress now (sleeping in a real bed is in the past).
On my way to my tent, you came to my mind as I was holding my little child, Mohammed. The weather is cold and Mohammed is sleeping, but I can’t leave him to sleep alone in the tent as it’s not safe.
Many insects can enter the tent easily, in addition to the rats and mice, and I can’t close the tent tightly because it’s not a new tent.
Yesterday, I go to sleep and, surprise, there is a big cockroach in my tent. I feel afraid to kill it and I don’t know how to remove it either. In the end, I hold a boot and I hit it. Then I start to think how to put it in a basket to take it outside. I take a napkin and put it into the basket. Then I wash my hands and try to sleep, but I feel disgusting and afraid all the night.
Tonight when I put my head to my pillow, suddenly I hear the low voice of . . . what ? It is a mouse eating from the cheese we want to eat tomorrow morning for breakfast. At this moment I start to curse the difficult circumstances that we are going through for more than two years. There is no safe place to sleep from bombing, and the insects are everywhere. There is no safe place to hide the food from the rats and mice.
And now the problem is that, again, there is no clean water to drink.
All the water is polluted in Gaza because the [Israeli Defense Forces] bomb the desalinization plants. And the bad water causes gastritis for me and Yamen and my family. So we are forced to buy bottled water, even though it costs a lot for both drinking and cooking. My health is the most important thing in my life. If I am not healthy, how will I look after my baby and five-year-old Yamen?
I am, like so many, living an unstable and displaced life, full of chaos and disease.
Until when? The ceasefire is not bringing in the food and water and medicine we need and were promised. Israel won’t allow it.
I am thinking: Will we live a decent life as we once did, or not?
I am thinking: Will my children be educated, or forced into ignorance as the occupation wants?
I am thinking: Will my dreams come true one day or will they settle into nothing but dust?
I am thinking: Will I ever rest my head again without thinking of tomorrow’s suffering?
And now baby Mohammed is starting to cry and I need to suckle him.
Salam,
Your friend, Rawand
This is truly heartbreaking stuff. We’re told there is a ceasefire in place now, and the current occupant in the White House even wants a Nobel Peace Prize for it. But Rawand is living in the midst of all this misery, and it doesn’t sound like anything resembling peace has returned to Gaza.
If you Google “the destruction in Gaza,” and then click on “images,” you will see the magnitude of the devastation the IDF has inflicted on the people of Palestine. The Israeli government blames all of this misery and destruction on Hamas, but—I’m sorry, folks—no thoughtful person can reasonably consider this level of retaliation self-defense. This is vengeance. This is a kind of blood-thirstiness that most of our media regularly attributes to Hamas, not Israel.
Moreover, I will again remind you that Hamas didn’t even exist when the First Intifada began back in 1987. In fact, the Israeli government actually supported the creation of Hamas, and provided funding for it, in a successful effort to undercut the political strength of the Palestinian Authority.
To oppose the apartheid state Israel has created and maintained for at least 80 years is not anti-semitism. To oppose the destruction of Gaza, and the pogroms perpetrated by Israelis taking place in the West Bank, is not anti-semitism. To decry U.S. support for the murderous policies of the Israeli government is not anti-semitism. To wish for the survival of Rawand and her young family, let alone a decent future for them, is not anti-semitism.
To support Israeli policy toward the people of Palestine, to favor the obliteration of every institution and necessary infrastructure of civil society in Gaza, to think that Rawand and her children deserve what is happening to them, or even that it is sad but necessary “collateral damage,” is simply inhumane and inhuman. Unconscionable. It is a kind of cruelty that beggars one’s imagination.
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W.D. Ehrhart is a retired Master Teacher of History & English, and author of a Vietnam War memoir trilogy published by McFarland.