As I was walking slowly down a street in Gaza. I moved past debris, shattered storefronts and bombed-out buildings. My steps were burdened by exhaustion, grief, and hunger. My once-firm stride, the stride of a university instructor who hurried between lecture halls, had turned into a limp. My shoes were worn and coated with much dust, my clothes tattered and stained, and my face—once animated by ideas and humor—had grown pale and gaunt. My body felt decades older.
Suddenly, a young man stopped and stared at me. In a trembling, disbelieving voice he called out, “Dr. Hassan!”
I turned toward him. He stood motionless for a moment, then hurried forward to shake my hand before pulling me into a warm embrace. “I’m happy to see you,” he said softly, “and also sad to see you.”
The young man was Ahmed, one of my former students from the Department of English at the Islamic University of Gaza (IUG). We talked briefly about the gravity of the situation in Gaza and then parted. Yet his simple statement—“I’m happy and sad to see you”—lingered in my mind. It captured perfectly the paradox of Gazans’ lives—joy in surviving war and sorrow in witnessing what survival has cost us. At that moment, I realized that even recognition between teacher and student, survivor and survivor, had become an act of defiance.
Dr. Hassan El-Nabih, before the war and genocide in Gaza.
Before Israel’s two-year full-scale assault on the Gaza Strip, I was healthy, energetic, and confident. My university, where I spent about three decades, was a place of creativity and collaboration. I drove to campus in the morning, taught linguistics with passion, guided students during office hours, wrote articles about language learning and advocacy for Palestinians’ right to education, and participated in curricular and extra-curricular activities, including conferences, workshops, symposiums, exhibitions, and annual shows.
I vividly recall the 2012 International Conference on Applied Linguistics and Literature hosted by my IUG English Department. Thirty scholars, including Professor Noam Chomsky, participated, and my paper from the event was later published by Routledge. I also remember my talk in October 2022, “How to Excel in Your University Study,” which drew about 1,000 university students.
IUG holding an MA thesis viva with Professor N. Al-Masri (supervisor), author (internal examiner), and Professor G. Motteram from the University of Manchester (external examiner by video conference)
I supervised and examined many master’s theses. I remember one viva voce in which an external examiner from the University of Manchester, Professor Gary Motteram, took part in the discussion via video conference. The session was vibrant, rigorous, and hopeful—proof that Gaza’s academic community could reach the world despite the illegal, inhumane siege relentlessly imposed by Israel for many years.
Author, center, participating in “Woman in Folk Tales Festival,” organized by the IUG English Department
My home was full of books, research papers, and laughter. I often went to the beach or the park with my family, enjoying our time and dreaming of brighter tomorrows. My life, though modest, was balanced and rich in meaning.
However, that life now feels like another century, another planet. Israel’s genocidal war has shattered everything.
Although I was never affiliated with any political group, my house was attacked and reduced to rubble. My family and I were forcibly displaced in a crowded UN shelter. My car was severely damaged in a nearby explosion. My university, and other Gaza’s academic institutions, were systematically targeted and lay in ruins, depriving tens of thousands of students of education. Even the UN school where my family sheltered was unexpectedly invaded multiple times, and we were forced to evacuate, sinking deeper into our misery.
As Israel tightened its blockade, starvation became a daily battle for Palestinians in Gaza. It was not a by-product of war; it was a deliberate policy, a weapon used to break the will of a people. There were many months when we had seen no vegetables, fruit, meat, or milk. We lost weight and color; dizziness and exhaustion became normal. Even the simplest chores—baking bread or washing clothes—required hours of searching for scraps of wood or paper to light a fire.
I was also devastated by the loss of many relatives, friends, and neighbors. Some of them were killed by Israeli bombs; others were lost due to forced starvation or lack of medication.
Amid all this wreckage, however, I didn’t give up. I remained committed to academic integrity and sustaining education for my students. When the IUG launched an emergency e-learning plan, I embraced it wholeheartedly. In bombed shelters and makeshift tents, I improvised alternative ways of teaching, using WhatsApp, Moodle, and recorded video lectures uploaded onto my YouTube channel. I consider education more than a right; it is survival itself. To teach under bombardment is to assert that we exist, and that knowledge belongs to us even when Israel denies our humanity.
My professional and personal worlds have intertwined into one narrative of resilience. As an instructor of linguistics, I once taught how language reflects identity and culture. Now I live that truth every day: the vocabulary of survival, the syntax of grief, the phonology of endurance. Each word, each story, each encounter bears witness to the contradiction of life in war-torn and besieged Gaza—where hope and despair coexist, and where even a simple greeting carries the weight of a nation’s struggle.
To outsiders, Gaza is often reduced to statistics: the toll of casualties, the tonnage of bombs, the kilometers of rubble. But behind every number is a story, a memory, and a language of endurance.
When I hear international leaders speak of “Israel’s right to defend itself,” I wonder: against whom? Against mothers with their babies? Against teachers with their board markers? Against students with their books? The global silence — or worse, complicity—amplifies our grief.
As a ceasefire agreement is now announced, Ahmed’s paradoxical words echo more strongly. I cling to hope: the “happy” will outweigh the “sad.” Justice will prevail. And Palestinians will live, teach, and learn in peace and dignity—not beneath siege and machinery of death, but beneath open skies.
