Zana’s Reviews > Pizza Before We Die: An Eyewitness Account in Gaza > Status Update

“We haven’t adapted to this deadly routine, not even after all this time. We go to bed fearful, our minds racing with questions we can’t silence. Will we survive the night? Will our children? Who will die next? Who will be pulled from the rubble? Death isn’t something we avoid talking about anymore. Even the smallest children speak of it. Their games and dreams are full of bombs and martyrs.”

‘The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Whoever relieves a believer’s distress of the distressful aspects of this world, Allah will rescue him from a difficulty of the difficulties of the Hereafter” (Sahih Muslim).’

‘...There isn’t much, but I give her three loaves of bread and the rest of the food I have left.

She stands there, staring at it all like it’s too much to take in. Then she looks up at me, quiet for a moment, and asks something I can never answer.

“Can you be my dad instead of the one who was martyred—and give us food every day?”’

“Just hours before the Eid prayer, Israeli air strikes hit across the Gaza Strip. All night, Gaza’s skies rain fire. More than sixty people are killed, dozens of them children. Some die in the Eid clothes they were meant to celebrate in.”

“To prepare breakfast during Ramadan, you must first learn how to light a fire with any flammable material you can find or afford, even plastic. It doesn’t matter if it harms your health or the environment, if the ozone layer is pierced, or if the smoke rises to the sky and reaches the poles. The environment no longer matters to us, and we no longer care about the damage to our health.”

“Apartment rental fees have spiralled out of reach. The cheapest starts at $300 a month, with some reaching $1,000—and most apartments offer no basic services. No running water. No electricity. Prices overall have dropped from their peak, but they remain outrageously high for a population that has nothing left.”

One of the most fucked up things I've learned about this genocide

“Cooking gas is being sold on the black market at eight to ten times the regular price. Flour, tents, and most aid are being sold on the sidewalks at inflated prices that fluctuate based on supply and demand.

Frozen meat is sold openly on the streets, handled in filthy conditions. It’s barely edible, yet costs two to three times what it once did.”

“People’s salaries and bank deposits are being stolen by influential thieves who control liquidity and demand a cut of 5 percent, all in plain sight. The banks haven’t been operating for about two years now, so the same physical currency has been circulating all this time, and it has become worn out and damaged.”

“...The people of Gaza were once known for their honour. Now they force us to play victims. Now they force us to perform our suffering. This is what charity demands of us: humiliation. This is how the most honourable people are broken, one act at a time.”

“Time will pass, and Gaza’s wounds will reveal even deeper scars. People will realize the importance of the small things they never cared about before: a wedding ring lost in the bombing; a girl’s diary, which she considered her closest friend; a shirt a father gifted to his son before he died; a heart -shaped mug a boy gave to a girl before it was obliterated by missiles....”