 We're going to begin by first hearing from Iman Aoun. Hello old and new friends of Ashdara Theatre in Palestine. I would like to thank you all for being with us on this call. I am Iman Aoun, co-founder of Ashdara Theatre, creator of the Gaza Monologues. When we did the Gaza Monologues back in 2010, we thought that that would be the first and last war on our people in Gaza. But alas, it did not work out. Therefore there was another war, and another, and another, and it continued on and on and on for the last 17 years. At the moment, with all that you have seen in the media, and all that you have done in your countries, in your cities, still nothing on the ground is being changed. We as a small company in Palestine, we're trying to keep the voice of the people of Palestine, and of the people of Gaza heard. And therefore, we are calling upon you that these monologues, they do not only go into your hearts and minds, but that these monologues will become a pave way for a real change, a real pressure on your governments to take action, action that will bring justice and long lasting solution for a sovereign state for Palestine, that the world will all agree to have and will all recognize the state of Palestine. Because through peace and with peace, we can all live as regular people. Thank you. Thank you for being with us on this call, and we are all together to save our humanity. Hello, hello, hello. My name is Claudia Alec, and I just have a few opening remarks I want to share with us before we begin the Gaza monologues. Please let me know if you can hear me okay. And thank you so much to Ghostlight Interpreting for offering ASL support. Calling up justice is producing the Gaza monologues in the spirit of cross movement, solidarity, ensemble, and abolition. We were only able to pull this off in a very quick turn around, rapid response, because our disability theater community said yes right away. Our theater community said yes right away. Howl around offered support immediately, Curiosity Paradox signed up immediately. So just thank you. Thank you to Kiana. Thank you to Jacinnia. Thank you to One Free Community. Thank you for your work. Cross movement solidarity is the disability justice idea that disability justice can only grow into its potential as a movement by aligning itself with racial justice, reproductive justice, queer and trans liberation, prison abolition, environmental justice, anti-police terror, deaf activism, fat liberation, other movements working for justice and liberation. This means challenging white disability communities around racism and challenging other movements to confront ableism. Through cross movement solidarity, we create a united front. And this isn't just about cross movement solidarity, because disabled artists and organizers understand that we share the struggles of the Palestinian people. In Gaza, the Israeli bombardment and blockades are creating a mass disabling event, whether it be by forced displacement, surviving continuous air raids, having loved ones and entire families murdered and missing and so much more. The colossal rates of individual and collective trauma create all types of disabilities ranging from mobility, psychiatric, sensory, chronic illness and so much more. Due to the Israeli government's destruction of Gaza, including constant attacks to critical hospitals and medical centers, all disabled people, including those newly disabled who survive, have limited to no access to needed life saving and life sustaining care. This is a direct quote from the CRIP call to action. That language I just said to you was written by a disabled Jewish person who is here for the cause. This is only possible because of all of us coming together. Iman Arun collaborated with Calling Up Justice. Iman Arun is the executive director of Ashtar Theater in Palestine, Ramallah Palestine. And they collaborated with us in 2021 for our Black Lives Matter Every 28 Hours Plays Project, where we were reflecting on a play that was about Palestinian activists coming to Ferguson to help us fight racial injustice where we are. The Gaza monologues, they were written by Ashtar youth in 2010 after the First War in the Gaza Strip. Since October 2010, more than 2,000 youth from around the globe in more than 80 cities in 40 countries have presented the monologues that are translated and presented into 18 languages. And we are among many, many different productions producing this reading on the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. This is a collaborative performance that is embracing the idea of diversity and ensemble by having multiple people embrace and embody one person. So this is collaborative. And this was also rapid response. This process was about immediate encounter and working within the constraints of capitalism and Crip time. So our colleagues had an hour and they were given the monologues, they were given the monologues in the last hour and they staged them in real time. We do this in the spirit of abolition. And I'm quoting from Cripping Abolition right now, the Cripping Abolition website. Abolition is not limited to ending spaces and practices of incarceration and policing. Fundamentally, abolition is about reimagining new ways of life, such that the world in which prisons, policing and other carceral systems as solutions to social problems become unthinkable. Abolition is not just about creating new responses to crises, but creating a new world in which we thrive. So such that less crises happen in the first place. What we are doing right now is an exercise in radical empathy and is an exercise in abolition. I would like to invite our first group of ensemble performers to our stage to share the Gaza monologues with you. Thank you so much for being here and thank you for leaving your comments in the chat. Just welcoming our first performers to the stage. Ahmed El Rosi, born 1993, Al Wachta Street. Before the war, I used to feel that Gaza was my second mother. Its ground was the warm chest I could lay on, and its sky was my dreams, without limits. The sea would wash away my worries, but today I feel it's an exile. I stopped feeling it's the city of my dreams. In the war, main electricity pole was hit by a huge rocket. All my uncles were at home with us, and the electricity went out. But there was another line working near the house. I went to our neighbor and asked him for an extension so we could connect on the second line. Once we were connected, our house was lit. He came to take the extension back. We had a huge fight. In a war, everybody thinks about themselves. During the war, a lot of people had 20 bags of flour and never had a shortage of gas, whilst others didn't have a piece of bread. They were asking their neighbors for bread, and they wouldn't give them any. Most people locked up their things under lock and key and decided not to give anything to anyone. But others were good and helpful. Back to our topic. We didn't agree to return the connection to him, even though it was his extension that we were using. And for the first time, I realized how bad we can be. We were punished on the spot. The house next to ours was bombed and split into two pieces, and half of it fell on us. We left the connection and electricity and everything and ran away to my uncle's house next to the municipal park. My uncle's house is so close to a government building. And in the evening, people started saying that building would be bombed. And if it was bombed, my uncle's house might disappear from existence. We sat there not knowing what to do or where to go. My dad kept reassuring us, don't worry, don't be scared, nothing will happen. We stayed like that till midnight. We kept hearing rockets and explosions. My dad kept saying, don't worry, don't be scared. But suddenly he said, follow me. We're going back home. And he started shaking. And all of us started shaking with him, with him. And my mom started screaming. And my uncle was in really bad shape. Anyway, all of us ran away in the middle of the night with my uncle's family. We ran home. We couldn't believe it when we got home. Till today, I don't remember where we slept or how. The important thing was that we were away from that building. We found that our neighbor had taken the electricity connection and we spent the night in darkness while his house was lit. I felt that he was right to take his connection back. After that, my dad got a connection complex. He bought three electric cables and six glass bottles, two electric pins, 20 neon lights, 20 packs of candles, six packs of cans, 10 packs of wires, six flashlights and two boxes of batteries. We're living in war and we have to be careful till things get better. I got a complex worse than all the others. It says, though, I was generous before the war, or maybe I didn't know the value of things because I couldn't believe that there would be a day when I wouldn't find a drink of water or a piece of bread. But after the war, I became super careful with everything and anything. I started barely sweetening my tea. And if I broke a loaf of bread, I wasn't allowed to finish it. I lost my appetite for food and I became really economical. My dad says, Ahmad always has his pocket money, of course, because I take it and save it in case there's another war. I feel like I'm married with 10 kids. I'm scared of life, of everything, of the smallest things, always worried. I feel that all of Gaza is sitting on moving sands. Any madness you could imagine can happen in a second in this place. And lots of dreams may come true, too. It's a strange city with no logic. China is now a third of the world. And they can work but barely make enough shoes and shirts for Gaza. Gaza consumes everything. And the world attacks it, but it keeps pretending nothing is wrong. Actually, Gaza is full of poverty. And there are people who pick their food from the garbage. The tragedy is that things keep getting worse. And the biggest tragedy is that there's nothing to stop that happening. Every pit has a bottom, except Gaza. A dream of living one day in freedom. And I don't think that's a big dream, but it's hard to come by. Come true. My dream is also to end the Palestinian division, which is giving us schizophrenia. I'm tired of thinking, but I can't stop it. But we have to pray and God will provide. And God will provide. And to you, folks, goodbye. Ahmed Taha, born 1996, Alderaj. All my life, I thought Gaza was the biggest and most beautiful city in the world. But once I went with my dad to Jaffa and came back with my head spinning. And after that, I felt that Gaza was the size of a needle hole and wasn't beautiful. And it keeps getting smaller and worse. No one can breathe. And on top of it, we're not allowed to travel. Every time I walk the streets of Gaza, I suffocate. Jaffa's picture won't leave my mind. I ask myself, where are we? We're so far from the rest of the world. That's why I'm always at the sea, because I feel it's not from Gaza. I keep writing my name on the sand and the waves come and erase it. Before the war, I wanted to be an electronics engineer. But since the war, I hate going to school. I feel I won't be anything important in my life. And even if I will, so what? It's all in it's all the same in the city. Am I going to be the prettiest flower on a garbage heap? When the bombing began, all the schools in Gaza went home, except us. The principal won't let us leave. The kids freaked out. And in a second, they all went on to the school yard. The weird thing is that I'm in the Zatunesh school, the one near the Ministry of Passports, which got hit first. With the first hit, a piece of rocket flew onto the biggest tree in the school and sliced it in two, like sugarcane. As soon as we saw that, no one stayed in school. Students, teachers or the principal, we fled for our lives. I thought the only martyr that I would see in the war is the tree. But as soon as I got home, there were four martyrs on our street, as though waiting for me to say goodbye to them. When I was done with that, there were when I was done with that, three more martyrs from the same family in our street arrived. As soon as we buried them and returned, our neighbor's house, two houses down the street was bombed by the army and the house was wiped off the ground. Everyone died. I felt most sad for the little girls. I felt the war was targeting me alone out of all the people in Gaza. All day, I'd been seeing martyrs. In the Shefa Hospital, I saw a site that I will never forget. Hundreds of corpses, one on top of the other. Their flesh, their blood and their bones, all melting on each other. You wouldn't know the woman from the man or even the child. Piles of flesh on the beds and lots of people screaming and crying, not knowing where their kids are, their men or their women. That night, I came home from hospital and was awake till morning from fear. I thought that it would only be that night that I couldn't sleep. But till today, I still see them in front of me and I can't sleep. Asraf is a soci. Born 1994, Al-Wahta Street. All the neighborhood, all the neighborhood kids loved him. He was a calmer. He was calmer than a breeze. He would take his pocket money from my father and give it to me. Everyone loved him. His friends came and he went with them to school. They went running out like butterflies, flying off the ground like the world was created for them. The Israeli planes were in the air. The sound of the helicopter was like a monster waiting to pounce its prey. A car of wanted men was driving along your Muck Street. And the butterflies were near the car. The butterflies didn't know that this car would be the fire that would burn them. A rocket fell on the car. My brother Tahrik flew five meters off the ground. He flew higher than the car, then came down walking. Nothing was the matter with him. The ambulance came and took the corpses. People told him to get into the ambulance, but he told them nothing is the matter with him. And he kept going to school. 100 meters later, he put his hand on his heart and fell down a martyr. I was in the street waiting for the school bus and my sister told me to see what's going on. I did, but I couldn't see Tahrik because I went on to school. When I was in class, my uncles came and told me, you will take three days off school. I didn't suspect anything. We got in the car. My uncle told the driver to turn off the news. Then I started getting suspicious because my uncle loves the news. We got home and there was a big crowd of people around. Before I went down, I saw my father sitting on the chair crying. It was the first time I saw my father cry and he was holding the picture of my brother, Tahrik. I asked him, Dad, was my brother murdered? He said, God have mercy on his soul. The ambulance brought him from the hospital. We all ran to say goodbye. He was sleeping like an angel with the book that he'd been carrying still in his hands. My father refused to let us go with him to the cemetery. But I got in the car and went and said goodbye and read him the fight, the prayer on his grave. And I kept going for three months. Every day to sit at his grave and talk to him. At night, I stare at his picture in the room with the hero, Tahrik, written on it. Since my brother was murdered, I got used to sleeping in the bed alone. We used to sleep one on top of the other legs on top of heads. Sometimes it felt like all our limbs were jumbled. But today I have a bed by myself. I'll never forget my brother. Allah hajj. Born in 1996. I feel like running, running, running, running in the streets. Till my head scarf flies in the sky and I fly after it. Sometimes I feel like being totally crazy. But I can't. It's the first time I say things like this. Maybe they're not the kind of things I say or maybe the things that I can't express. Or I'm scared to express. Why do my parents treat me like this? I look at the girls my age, how they're living their lives, and I envy them. I wish I could be like them in their confidence and their freedom. I wish a ship would carry me to a distant land and throw me on its shore, far away from the world, from everything. Especially the war. Speaking of the war, all the war was one pile. And mom was the other. I'll never understand why my mom kept describing things to me that I'd already seen. She and I were standing on the balcony. They bombed our neighbors' houses house and one of the neighbors died. We saw how the house was destroyed. And how the corpse flew on to the street. You can imagine what happened to the family after that. Did it end? No, it didn't. Mom started telling me about how the neighbor's house was bombed and how our neighbor flew from the house. Like she was talking to someone who hadn't been standing with her. And on it went stories from mom all through the war. And I was the only listener. We'd be sitting watching TV and they wouldn't even say there was a bombing or destruction in some place. The report would be 15 minutes long. But mom's repeated report would be two hours. She'd talk about the report like I hadn't been with her. I started to doubt myself. Had I been sitting with her or not? I swear I was there. I was there. I was really there. I was sitting next to her. Anyway, thankfully mom isn't here. Isn't with you. Otherwise she'd give you a headache with all her stories. Amani. Born 1992. Alramal. Gaza's a plane carrying people and traveling towards the unknown. Landing neither in heaven nor in hell. No one knows when it will land. Some people may say suspended like that for twice my lifetime. All days here are the same. There's nothing new. The simplest thing is that dreams and wishes are hard to make true in Gaza. Especially if they're like mine. To be an artist singing and acting and playing music. In Gaza. The only music is that of death. Dancing on wounds. If I go abroad and studying directing. How would society look at me? After I graduate would the country be like now or worse? Everything for me is foggy and unclear. Like people's faces on Friday at the Ferres market. And like the day the war began. The first hit was at the Ministry of Passports. My friend and I came out of an exam. It was the first day of the first term exams. We sat in front of the school gate talking and waiting for the rest of our friends. So we'd go home together. Suddenly there was a series of explosions. I was in shock and felt that I was going to die. We ran away and I was really scared. I saw the women running and screaming and beating their faces. And I had no idea what was going on. I felt I couldn't stand on my legs and the world started spinning. I fainted and stopped feeling anything. Then I woke up to my friend's voice shouting. Amani for God's sake wake up. When I woke up I started crying. Not knowing where to go or what to do. An older girl she helped me took me home. As soon as I arrived my mother took me in. I was very tired. But at that moment I rested. I needed to fall into someone's arms. The hardest thing to feel is that your mother's death is near. A black ghost that covered Gaza Day. It imposed its hell on people. On the earth and sky and air that we. After the war I had a breakdown. A big wild war took my soul. I was thinking I to come on out under it. It was like a hand was extended to me. Through the feet of the rubber ring that pulled me out. I'm under the weight. Today I feel I haven't felt in a long. A day before the war Gaza for me was joy and happiness. Trips and going to the sea life seemed to be happy and I wasn't thinking about anything. I had one dream that Gaza would develop in art and sports. I felt that everything was fine except these two things but it turned out nothing was fine. No art, sports, health or safety it's all the same. Gaza stopped being the city of my dreams because my dream is to be an actor. Am I going to be an actor for 20 people in Gaza and wait until the border opens? If it was in my hands I would try as much as possible to reduce war's death and violence. It's a shame for every drop of blood that falls on the ground. I hate the silence and the abnormal tolerance that people have. I wish all Gaza would wake up tomorrow and walk the streets loudly shouting. No. When the war started we were playing football and the atmosphere was strange. The sky was red. Suddenly we heard the sound of a plane. I never heard a sound like that. We were all scared and lay on the ground waiting for death. After that we heard the sound of a loud explosion meters away from us. We started looking in each other's faces and silently saying goodbye. It turned out the bombing wasn't meant for us. It was targeting a car of one to two people. We kept lying down waiting for the second rocket. All I could think of was my two older brothers who were with me. I was more afraid for them than for myself and I think they also felt the same way. I carried my sports shorts and ran away from the field. As I ran I stepped on a piece of shrapnel. I took it out of my leg and went out into the street and saw them. They were three murders and you couldn't make out their features. The first one's legs were on fire. He was looking at me and I at him. And among everyone there he was warning me about something I didn't understand. And I didn't understand. He was warning me about something I didn't understand. It was then I knew he was warning me about a car coming fast towards us. Then I knew the real meaning of death and instead of being three murders that could have been four. I was shocked at the scene. I stood there watching. And when I woke up after passing out I ran home. The war came and went and we're still living it. The victims are always the poor people who have nothing to do with anything. Even when there's an earthquake or a flood in any country the victims are the poor people as though there's a universal conspiracy against them. After the war everyone started lying to everyone else. Lies, cheating, dishonesty, deceitfulness. For positions and interests the leaders and powerful people commit slaughters and crimes without batting an eyelid or feeling any guilt. Poor people get poorer and the sick ones get sicker. I've lost trust in all mottos. The biggest speech from the biggest leader is bullshit. All speeches in the world don't warm up a cold person or someone sleeping in a tent after the war. The crisis is that the whole world is watching us as though there's nothing going on. And they're still making speeches. Anis Abuita born 1995. Ashik Redwan. Since I was a small kid I've dreamt of being a famous football player. I believed I would fulfill my dreams. But today there are a million obstacles in my path. Before there was no playing fields for adults or even kids. Then the siege came and made everything worse. If I was the prime minister I'd pay most attention to the ministry of youth and sports. I would build playing fields everywhere especially in schools and I'd let the students play freely. Not be kicked out by the school guard. I'd abolish all club fees and preserve all parks. But dreams, security, hope and the future are all words that lose their meaning in a city that kills the smallest dream possible. I was a goalkeeper but my friends Mohammed kept telling me I'm going to get a goal but I always stopped his goals. On the 7th of January 2009 a day in the war I was sitting at the door of our house and it was foggy. And someone came to tell me your friend Mohammed was martyred. Of course I didn't believe it. I went looking for my friend and I was really scared of the idea of death. I go to the mosque and I saw the closest friend in my life Mohammed wrapped in the flag of Palestine and torn into pieces. I cried a lot. A lot. And I was sad because I couldn't hug or kiss him and I started holding him. We took him to the cemetery and buried him and I kept sitting there telling him I loved him and I was really upset because he left me alone in this world. As I was leaving the cemetery there was heavy bombing. I felt that the angel of death was following me and not leaving me alone. But thank God I'm still alive. I have alien born 1994 Alice of time street. From when I first became aware of the world I've had limited thinking. Life for me was to be born grow up get married have kids work raise them feed them educate them marry them off and then die. But after the war I found that life was much harder than that. It turned out that every small step we take has a million knots behind it. I'm scared of not finding work when I grow up because wherever I go I see men sitting in front of their houses with nothing to do. It's what scares and saddens me the most. That's why kids in Gaza took responsibility and were denied their childhood since birth. My mother always used to say you know you have is one of my best kids because I was always at home never had any problems. When the war started my father locked us up at home because of how scared he was for us in two hours later I was bored I went out to walk around our house. But this time the walk was different. I was afraid to walk near the cars in case they were bombed and all the time I kept looking up at the sky. In case a plane would come and bomb me without me knowing it. I was terrified even though the Sattawi district doesn't see a lot of activity. I went back home running as though from something terrifying and stayed at home till the war was over. And after the war my life changed a lot. My relationship with people and the neighbors improved. I became known to the men of the neighborhood and I started playing checkers with the old people. I started spending all my time outside the house. I can't stay inside for a minute and my mother stopped saying you have is one of the best of my kids. I discovered that I didn't exist before the war but after the war here I am God protect me. In the city breathing its air I am singing and dancing and crying with it. And life is rolling onwards. Tamir Najem for 1993. Gaza is a match box and we are the matches inside it. When the war started on Gaza all the media focused on us Al Jazeera, Al Ubraia and all the satellite channels. Were focused on Gaza and the occupation wouldn't leave us alone. The whole world became busy with Gaza and what's happening in it. Suddenly Al Jazeera wrote breaking news. Death of Mohammed al-Kindi and it wasn't normal because that Mohammed he's my uncle my mother's brother. It was the first time I see the screaming move from the live broadcast on to the house TV. Screaming and yelling and tears all of it mixed up together and it moved from our house on to the street. And my mom fainted. A while later the phone rang it was my second uncle. Calling to tell us that Mohammed was martyred. He didn't know that the whole world knew the news. The television is awful before a person is shot as the bullet is on his way to its chest. The television has already broadcasted the news. But these days all the channels are sitting idle praying to God send another war on Gaza. So they have work. Anyway, we all started crying bitterly from my uncle and remembering him and talking about him. I was talking about him. We kept talking about him for a long time. Then it started getting less because death became normal in Gaza. After the war I stopped caring whether I live or die after what we saw in the war. I don't care about anything because I think each day I live is the biggest bonus and all the life I live after the war is extra because I could have died at any second. You know, I am sick of the city even though I love it and I am sick of the people too. Sometimes I feel that I know the million and a half who are in Gaza. There's nothing new. The same day is repeated every day. I feel like traveling like changing scene and faces as soon as I wake up every morning. I see the electricity pole in my face. I wish I'd wake up one day and not find it there. Each day Abu Ibrahim stands at the door of the supermarket and I bet the bean seller is selling his beans and Abu El Abid is sitting at the door of his house afraid that his house will run away. Um Ibrahim is standing with Um Hassan and I know the taxi drivers one by one. I know who takes you to the city and who goes to the beach. It's soul draining. The only hour that it's different in my life is the one when I come to the theater practice. It became my work, my mission. I wait for it impatiently. Without the theater I wouldn't have gone crazy when I grew up. I want to be an actor. I've loved acting since I was a kid. But any institution that I used to go to when I was a kid threw me out a few days later. But this time it's different. Aima Okasha. Born 1997. Atufa. Macaroni. Mujadara. Noodles and cans of all shapes and colors. Made in Morocco, China, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Somalia and the date of expiry doesn't matter. In the war all the streets were filled with empty cans. A lot of kids wounded their legs on the empty cans. The occupation was leading a war on us in the earth and sky. And we had declared a vicious war on food. We used to eat a hundred times a day. Whenever we opened our eyes from six in the morning until the next day, six in the morning, we'd be eating. I thought only our house was like that. But when I asked, they told me all of Gaza went crazy for food. I thought the state of war and the scenes of martyrs and destruction would affect people's appetite for food. But it seems that the state of fear, horror and worry makes people more hungry and they eat more. It can also be that the whole family was at our place, especially the girls. They competed on who could eat, who could make tastier food. And my poor father couldn't keep up carrying bags of food of all shapes and colors. The food we ate in 20 days of war wasn't enough for a year. And the problem was every time I said, I don't want to eat, I ate more. When I grew up, when I grow up, I want to be a journalist or a lawyer or a prime minister, a journalist so I could photograph the beauty and simplicity in Gaza because I love it. I love its salt, sand and air. And I can't imagine living anywhere else a lawyer so I could defend all the deprived and mistreated people in this city because I don't like seeing anyone suffer in it. And I wish I could be the prime minister so I could force law and order on the city. That's where the solution begins. Rowan Geror, born 1997, Alderaj. Relax, girls, don't be scared. This is just the sound of aimless shooting. That's what our teacher said as soon as the bombing started. After a while, her mobile phone rang and she spoke a few words only. 120 martyrs. She smashed her mobile into the floor and told us, go home, all of you. As soon as we went out into the yard, we saw our parents, some of them in pajamas, some of them in their undershirts and some barefoot. We were very scared. My two sisters and I kept waiting for dad, but he was really late. So we decided to go home by ourselves, even though it's a long way. On the way I saw something for the very first time. A martyr being carried on a coffin wrapped in the flag of Palestine with banners around him and people crying. But the weird thing is that the funeral barely had 30 people in it. Funerals of martyrs usually have thousands. Then I felt that there was some, there was really some big catastrophe going on in the country. I got scared for dad. I didn't want him to come get us because I was scared he'd be hit by a rocket. I was also scared of dying and I didn't want to die now because it would be a catastrophe if I died and no one came to my funeral. I started running home and people were running around us like it was doomsday. No one knew where they were going because the sound of rockets didn't stop. Every few seconds a rocket would fall and shake the ground. I felt that the streets were not the same streets, nor were the people the same people. Strange sights, sounds and smells. After the war, a lot of things changed inside me. I started hating going to the bathroom. From the second I go in, I can't wait to come running out because all the time in the war I was afraid they'd hit a rocket on our house when I'm in the bathroom. And there one would be in great focus and you know the rest. I also started hating the morning line at school. When the war started I was in the line. That's why today I feel that the minutes in the line are hours of fear and worry. All school for me is one pile and the line is another. I started having terrifying dreams. All night I have a conflict within myself between desire to sleep and fear of nightmares. Sleep became a monster hiding behind my eyelids. I stay like that till morning. I don't know when I slept and when I woke up. I want to become an actress. And this is a hard dream to fulfill in Gaza, especially for girls. I tell myself it's a shame for people in Gaza to be deprived of my talent because I could become an important actress. But if they don't want me to hell with them, I'll go to any country and act there. Gazans are deprived of everything anyway. It doesn't stop at theater. Sometimes I think people in Gaza can barely find food. How are they going to go to the theater? You know, I wish I could live in a civil democratic society with peace and 20 cinemas and keep watching movies and flying in my imagination and dreaming. Rima Fana, born 1996. Asaftali Street. When I was young, I used to feel that I was a happiest child in the world. But the more I grow and my mind grows, the more my worry grows because I start to understand things that I did not. I start to know the meaning of a deprived child. The thing that upsets me and makes me cry the most are children's tears. All children in the world, regardless of their nationality, religion or color. When I grow up, I want to be a pediatrician and that's the hope that gives me a big push in life. Even though I'm fed up, bored and sad because Gaza doesn't have a life anymore. Yesterday I was sitting in school and I heard the sound of planes. I got really scared. I wanted to run away from school. I felt I was going to die because I remembered the war. The scenes of war won't leave my mind. On the third day of the war, my family was sitting together talking about what was happening in the war and my grandmother was reassuring us so we wouldn't be scared. We were actually calmed even though the sound of rockets didn't stop but my grandmother's warm voice was calming us. The phone rang. The lines never caught in the war so when we heard the sound of the phone we were happy. Hello? Yes? This is the Israeli Defense Army. You have five minutes to clear the house. It's for your own benefit. We have warned you. I couldn't stand on my legs anymore. Everyone in the house started yelling. My grandmother was the first one to run away. It was the first time I'd seen her going so fast. My dad held me and my sisters and told us not to be scared. He was pulling me to leave but I was going to die if I didn't take my teddy bear with me. I felt that I would betray him if I left him under the bombing. I escaped from my dad's hands and ran to my bear. Took him in, my arms and left. We all got far away from the house and sat down to wait for the five minutes. They were the longest five minutes in history. They became ten. We felt like they were years that passed. I was in a world wind. Thoughts and dreams were thrashing about in my head and the world was spinning. I felt that the dream of being a doctor was very, very far away. I held the bear and remembered myself when I was small, how I was always laughing. I want to go back to being small and stay small. I don't want to grow up. But the only thing that comforted me was the love of people who didn't leave us for one moment. Gaza is full of love. Dream El-Sadi, born 1995, Ash Shake brought one. I was nine years old when we returned from the Emirates. It was the first time I visited Gaza. The car was moving along the street and I was looking out from the window. I didn't like anything in the city. When we stood at a traffic light, a lot of kids came to the car begging, selling gum and biscuits. Then I hated myself and wanted to go back to the Emirates. Since then, I have lived in Gaza and will not leave it even if they give me a choice between it and Paris. Because I discovered that the love inside it is enough for the whole world and that places are in their people, not in their buildings or views. Mom always talked to me about Gaza when we were in the Emirates. I liked it before I saw it, but once I lived in it, I liked it more. It has details that mom didn't see, but it's such a pity. All it needs is safety to be the most beautiful city in the world. In the war, the Takwa Mosque and the Norm Mosque were bombed, and after that the House of Abu Al-Khare. And the Abu Al-Khare's house is our topic. There are neighbors and the Israeli Secret Services threatened them with bombing. People told us to live on the bottom floor. It's safer. So when they bombed the Abu Al-Khare house, it won't hit us. We went down to the first floor and waited for the army to bomb Abu Al-Khare's house, but they bombed the Norm Mosque instead. All its windows, doors and stones flew on us while we were in our apartment, and I was very injured. All the doors fell on my head. Of course, there was screaming in the house. It was a total mess. The next day we had a family meeting and decided to go back to the upper flat, and we did. We moved to the top floor, but this time they hit the Takwa Mosque, and all the glass and stones flew on us in the top floor. So we decided to go down to the bottom floor because it's safer. And we sat and waited for the army to bomb the Abu Al-Khare's house, and that night they really did. They threw the first rocket and the second rocket, but it didn't explode. And if they threw another rocket and hit the one which didn't explode, the whole neighborhood would have been wiped out, and people would have said here was Abu Al-Khare's neighborhood. Samiel Jardawi, born 1994, at Tufa. The hour that I hate most in the day is 12 noon. Every time the exams start, I feel that the war will start again. I can't answer any of the exam questions and thoughts keep floating around in my head till I'm sick of them. I ask myself, is what's happening to me normal or am I sick? People say the sea of Gaza washes all pains, but my pain is bigger than the sea. Because the last time I was at the sea, I was with my friend. We swam, we played, and had fun. But now I can't go to the sea anymore. The Galatini Street is near the petrol station, and petrol was dear to people and expensive. It was a big deal to have a leader of petrol. There was a war going on and people were afraid to buy anything. My dad sent me to buy petrol. After I bought it, I went to the house of my friend Zaki who lives near the station. I was missing him a lot and hadn't seen him for days, for more than 10 days. I got to his house and I was in a hurry because my dad wanted me to return quickly with the petrol. I went inside their house without knocking the door. His mum considers me like her son and me too. I said hello to her and to my friend, hugged him and kissed him, said hello to his brothers and quickly left. When there were 20 metres between me and their house, I heard the loud sound of a plane, and after that the sound of a rocket falling on my friend's house. People started screaming that the house was bombed. I couldn't believe it. I looked back at my friend's house and saw fire and smoke coming out of it. I'd never seen anything like that. I went running back to our house. When I got there, my dad told me, your friend died. No, he didn't. Everyone started telling me your friend's a key died and I didn't believe them. That's why I didn't go to the funeral or the hospital or the cemetery because the key did not die. I always talk to him at night. Well, not exactly to him, to his photo. I'm very upset with him because he doesn't come visit me and I also stopped visiting him at home. I'm sure he's not dead and for sure there will come a day when we meet. Then I'll blame him because I miss him so much. I have another friend living in Russia. He told me about Russia and the freedom and safety that he lives in. I feel that I'm not living. I start wishing that I would dive in the sea and keep diving and diving until I come out and find myself in Russia. Sujud Abud Hussain, born 1995, as Sheikh Rawand. What I love most in Gaza is people's kindness and simplicity. And what I hate most is the political party fanaticism. Sometimes I feel that there's a contradiction between all this love and kindness that people have and this evil that controls the surface. And if it was in my hands, I'd solve the problem of the Palestinian division tomorrow. In the war, they assassinated a big Hamas leader. All the media in the world covered the incident. But the whole world was in one valley and we were in the other. Because Maldi and Saluma, my young brother and dad had gone to our land that's next to the Hamas leader. We called them a thousand times and as usual, the Jual mobile lines wouldn't go through, which stressed us out even more. Mom started pacing the balcony like a small bird from whom they'd taken her children. She imagined that the balcony would somehow rescue Maldi and Saluma and dad. And I was really stressed. I started crying and I went down to my aunt. My aunt started soothing me and she lied to me and told me that she had called them, spoke into them and I knew that she had not talked to them. But she was holding me and crying and I was crying too. And when I went up to the house and I saw that mom was still pacing the balcony, I forgot to tell you that Maldi and Saluma are five and seven years old. They used to sleep in my arms and my soul was connected to them. I felt at the time that my soul was going to escape and I would die. And honestly, only then I felt that there was a war on Gaza because I was busy with the computer all the time. And that day was the first time I lived the war. An hour later there was knocking on the door of our house and dad came back with Maldi and Saluma. And as much as I loved them, this was the first time I felt how much they were really dear to me, how much I couldn't bear to be parted from them. And I put them on my lap and I kissed them like it was the first time I held them. And mom stopped pacing the balcony and for the first time I felt that she loved dad like this. And after the war I started thinking, why are we like that? Out of the whole world, they took our land and threw us out of our homes. And because we are defending ourselves, all this happens to us. There's no water, no electricity, no phones, no petrol. And what are we to the world? Aren't we human? Every day Gaza changes. That's why my dreams always, oh, so sorry. Sudah al-mamluk, born 1995 at Tufa. Every day Gaza changes. That's why my dreams always change. And each time I make a step forward, I go a hundred back. In the first hit of the war, I was going home from school and didn't know the road. Suddenly a man stood in front of me and asked me, where is your house? I told him and he took me home. I went down to the house quickly and asked my dad, why didn't you come get me? My mom said, it is normal, dear. Go study. I told her there are no exams. We said the war started. In the afternoon they hit the government building near us. My mom said, it is normal. We are used to what is happening to us. We went running to the neighbors, each one looking out for himself. After minutes, the neighbors' relatives started coming and the house became packed with more than a hundred people in it. But still things stayed normal for my mother. In the morning, dad went to buy bread and stood in line for six hours coming home with one pack of bread. Each of us got half a loaf and my mom still said normal. In the evening my parents decided to go to the hospital and visit the injured and I went with them. In the hospital we saw many corpses and there were four on each bed under and on top of each other. Only then my mother said, this is not normal. The war isn't over. The war is big and my fear is to grow up with it. I am always scared of a new war. If a balloon bursts, I am scared. If a car hits a strong break, I jump twenty meters. And if a small kid yells, I start yelling with him. I stay up all night waiting for a new dawn. But each morning that comes does not offer, does not differ for the one that has passed. Ali al-Hassani, born 1995, al-Shifa'i street. The thing I love most in Gaza is that it's not like the other countries. Other countries have lots of problems, famine, siege, division, occupation, bombing, destruction and death. But we have none of these issues. That's why I love Gaza a lot, especially that the sewage and the streets are clean and people love one another. Prices are cheap. Everyone is happy. And the fish are healthy and do not swim in sewage. And that I definitely will not die of hunger, poverty, or a heart attack that half my relatives have died from. Because of so much happiness, I want to tell you a big secret that I'm holding in my chest and hesitating to say since I started speaking. The secret is, I, my dear folks, am the reason for the war on Gaza. You might be surprised as to why. Because I never had a dream that didn't come true. One night before the war, I dreamed that the war started and our house was bombed. And I was the only survivor. The next day at 1125, the airstrikes began on Gaza. The first shock I got in the war was when the strongest teacher in the school, the math teacher, hit under his desk in fear from the first second. I thought, if the strongest teacher hides under the desk, what do we do? A lot of kids peed themselves. I was screaming for our house that I was sure was destroyed and for my family that I was sure was martyred. I went out running in the streets, wanting to rush home to my family. But I waited for two hours for a car to take me and in the end I went home walking. All the way I imagined our house destroyed and my family dead. I got home and found nothing was the matter and my family were taking down the windows so they wouldn't break from their pressure. But till today I'm scared they will bomb our house. That's why, and you can ask my mom, I sleep with three mattresses under me. So that when there's bombing the mattresses will absorb the hits and nothing will happen to me. I hate dreaming, but dreams are not in our control. I think that Ali, that's me, before the war is different from Ali after the war. Who is new person that I am trying to discover? Before the war I didn't understand anything about politics. I didn't know the head of the state from the prime minister. I never listened to the news, but today I became a political analyst. Al Shazara this morning, midday this evening, harvest of the day, harvest of the week. I started following all these programs and discussing them. I started feeling that politics and news are very important in our lives. Because they are what kills us and what gives us life. And also because I want to be the first to know if there's going to be another war. Fatima Abu Hashim born 1996 Al-Jahaa Street. When I talk to Palestinian kids in Europe, I feel sorry for them. I don't wish to be like them because they're in a diaspora. They plant their dreams in a land that is not theirs. Dreams grow with the people and the country. I love life, love to play and love people. I wish I could be the president of Palestine for a day so I could enrich love and peace between people. End the hatred and spite in their hearts and end the internal division. The world would be, this would be my first presidential decision. But unfortunately I am not the president and that is why there is a war. The war opened up with bombing like rain. We came running out of school in fear and found, oh no, and found the whole world running in the streets. People were looking for their sons and sisters and mothers. Everyone was running. With their heads raised to the sky. Honestly, they looked strange. I saw one of them from a distance wearing pajamas barefoot and running. When I first saw her, I didn't recognize her. But when I got close to her, wow, that's my uncle's wife, the sheik one who doesn't leave her house without looking top notch. Then I was sure war had started. It's been more than a year since we've talked about the war. We've lived it and continued to live it each day in detail. Because the TV, the phone, the doorbell, all things remind me of the war and I don't like them, you know? I even threw away my mobile and I'm most scared of being alone. I think, what would I do if the war starts and I'm alone? Who will protect me? And when I'm with my family, I think, how will I protect them? I had a big dream to become an actress. But this dream started shrinking slowly because people in my country didn't like, don't look at an actress in a positive way. Even though acting is important and it allows me to relay my... It allows me to relay the picture of my suffering of my country and society to the world. I have a second dream is to become a journalist. And the third dream is to make a family I love and who love me. And the fourth is for us to be free and for the flag of Palestine to fly freely. And for the fifth is to see my people happy without death, destruction, deprivation or war. And the sixth and the last is for me to finish this monologue and get off stage. Fatima Attala born 1996 as Sheikh Rablon. Gaza's fish ran away. The people were not able to. They opened the sewage into the sea and if the sea could talk it would tell them. Shame on you for what you're doing to Gaza and me. Instead of music and acting schools, Gaza came a school for shooting and murder. I'm very scared by nature. I'm scared of cockroaches and birds and I worry day and night. The first day of the war, all the girls went home except for me. I was the last one to leave the school. I was sitting there shaking couldn't stand on my legs. Finally I felt that if I don't help myself, no one would. I gathered my courage and stood up shaking and walked like a tree in the wind, all of me trembling. People were walking near me, but no one felt me. The sounds of rockets got louder in the horror of my heart grew deeper. Usually the distance from my school to my house is half an hour, but that day I are home in 15 minutes because of my fear. It was the time I was most scared of in my life. Every second I thought I would die. It was the first time I feel this terrible loneliness, even though the streets were full of people. I got home and I stood at the window. A rocket fell near my house and I flew off the ground and landed on my back. For the whole war I couldn't stand at the windows. I started sleeping in an inner room that doesn't have a single window. I'm still scared today, but I pretend not to be. Mohamed Al-Amrani, born 1995, Al-Shujaye Al-Mantar. Gaza, the warm arms and the fire of hell, horror, fear, death and destruction, but this time our area was safe. Every time the occupation attacks they hit us first, but it looks like this time they got bored of our area and wanted to make some change, so we got lucky. I used to spend the whole day sitting on a chair, watching people running away from their houses toward the borders, carrying their belongings, sons, daughters and going west. Some of them were carrying their kids on their shoulders, their mothers on their backs. When they were going, where they were going, you don't know, till all of Gaza got squeezed into one area. Then the distance became tighter and they started running away from the mosque and it got tighter and tighter until they got to our house. And I said to my father, what, is it our turn now? But where are we going to go? My dad insisted that we stay at home and said, a person who leaves his house loses his dignity. I said to myself, kids, stay put. You're not better than the others and whatever happens happens. All day I would busy myself with food and sometimes we'd go fill water with my cousins from the pipes in the street. It was about a thousand meters away from the house. We used to take the donkey cart of Sabri. Him and his brother used to come with us to help. All the way he would tell us about his heroic acts and his horse and how he would go to the wilderness and hunt birds with a slingshot. I never carried a slingshot. It's scary. But the stories were nice. And in those days entertaining, despite our fear, we used to talk so as to lessen our fear from being in the streets. When daytime was over and night came, we would say, the night has come with its word worries. We couldn't even sleep. I used to sleep for 15 minutes and wake up for three hours. How can you sleep with the bombing going on? And we're lying in bed waiting for our fate. Sometimes I'd look at the sky from the edge of the window and find the world so red with fire and smoke everywhere. And I'd asked myself, why is the whole world at rest and we are living in an inferno? Muhammad Qasem, born 1995, al-Safdawi street. My grandmother and I were home alone. She was telling me stories about the days of our country. Funny stories and sad ones. But she never told me a complete story because she always had to go to the bathroom halfway through. My grandma spends half her time in the room and the other half in the bathroom. My parents came back at 10 30 at night and went to sleep straight away. I couldn't sleep. I was lying on my bed awake, writing my homework. Suddenly I heard the noise of a distant explosion. I went to my parents room and took the radio to hear the news. I woke my father up and told him I heard the sound of a strong explosion. He said, be quiet and go to bed. It's just aimless shooting. Anyway, I went back to bed and the electricity was out. Suddenly, there was a huge explosion that shook my world. I pulled my blanket and covered my face and something fell on me. I raised the blanket off me with all my strength and it was the frame of the window that had fallen on me. The blanket was full of glass and our entire house was full of black smoke. It was the day they hit the workers union right next to our house. But that's not the point. The point is the stupid things that happened and which I can't find an explanation for. First, the world was on fire and we all felt we would die. But my grandmother was looking for her false teeth. She was afraid that when she died, people would find out she had no teeth, like they didn't know already. Second, the house was full of smoke, but my father lit a cigarette and smoked as if we needed more smoke. Third, my uncle called to make sure we were okay and my father told him that we're all fine, thank God, but that all the windows of the house were broken except one. My uncle told him to break it and my father did. And I don't know why I'm telling this story. All I know is that we're living in a cage, a prison, like an engaged bird who wants to come out, but he's besieged. Kids are dying in front of their mother's eyes. Hearts are crying for them and screaming in the loudest voice, but no one hears. No one's heart softens and no one seems to care. Mahmood Abu Shaban, born 1996, Al Ramal. You're going to call me crazy. Nuts, cuckoo, go ahead. I don't care. It doesn't matter to me anymore. In truth, what's happening with me is not normal. I mean, losing trust in my friends is normal. Lots of people have lost trust in others. But what's driving me crazy is that I've lost my trust in shop windows and cars, in police stations and suspicious areas. In my personal philosophy, all of Gaza is a suspicious area. To make a long story short, everything that was hit in the war, I'm scared of going near today. I don't know how to walk down the street. I'd be walking on the right and get scared, and then I'd move to the left, but I'd be scared. So I'd go back to the right and stay in that whirlwind. Where am I supposed to walk? In the middle of the street? See, on the first day of the war, I was in my brother's shop that sells computers and mobile phone accessories. A metal fell on the floor, and my brother told me to hang it up. Suddenly, while hanging it up, I heard the sound of rockets, and the glass fell on me and injured me. I was scared. I wasn't scared for myself, but for my brother. He was also injured. He was worried about our family. He told me, go up to the house and make sure they're okay. I went up the stairs, and I wasn't scared. I made sure they were all right, and they were all fine, thank God. I walked up the street to find out where the explosion happened. We heard lots of explosions. Gaza became like a black knight because of the smoke, but I still wasn't scared. I forgot to tell you, my brother had a cup of tea in the first explosion, which fell from his hand and broke. Do you think it was because of fear? Muhammad B'alawah, born in 1995. Asha T. Camp. I want to write the most beautiful words about Chaza, but I can't. I can't not see the poverty, siege, famine, especially when all of Chaza's cities flooded into Al-Rish and emptied all from goods in two hours. I can't not see the deprivation in every house, the fear, the sickness. What do you want me to say about Chaza? From when I became aware of it, I was sad about everything inside it. Especially the kids, even the adults, youth, women, children, animals, stones, trees, everything in it is crying. I'm looking for nice words to say, but I can't find them. The sea is the only thing that helps me dream. When I stand on the shore, I can imagine Cyprus, traveled to Paris, fly to Rome. All while standing in the same spot. I go around the world and in the end I land in my bed in our house, in the middle of a refugee camp. I go back to the reality of Chaza and the dirty market overflowing sewage, the carts and what's on top of the carts, the suffocating smell and the silent people who can't speak. When I look at the clock and it's 11.50 fight, I start shaking and my heart beats faster. I feel that the war has started again. Not only the clock scares me, everything that flies, even the flies. I can't tell anyone about my fear so that they don't call me a wimp or a sissy. I'm most scared for my older brothers. When a fly lands on them, on any of them, I feel like it's going to kill. I start shouting and I run away from the place. That's why I'm now escaping outside the house all the time because of the many flies. Mahmoud El Turk born 1994, Al Jala street. Before the war, I was a child. But after the war, I discovered I'm not a child anymore and that Gaza, unlike all the cities of the world, doesn't have children in it. When the war started, I was playing in the neighborhood and I found all the neighbors running away. I asked what's going on. They told me the Israeli army told the neighbors that they will bomb their house. I went running home to tell my parents in less than a minute. We ran away from the house. We took nothing except the gas cooker because it's more expensive than gold in Gaza. I felt then that I'd never go back home. We went to my grandfather's house. The next day, the Israeli intelligence called my grandfather's house and told them they would bomb it. We ran out and went to my other grandfather, the father of my mother. There were five other families there. All my aunts. My cousins and I became good friends. We'd stay up all night and talk about the war. I was tired and scared and I wanted to go home and sleep on my bed and pillow. Three days later, they bombed our neighbor's house. After the bombing, all the inhabitants of the neighborhood returned to their houses and I went back to my room. But I couldn't sleep anymore. I've been wanting to travel for a long time. I have an uncle in Canada who always sends me video tapes with him of his family in Canada's parks, sea, shops, and in the background of the pictures are Canadian girls. Like I need that. It's like he's taunting me. I started dreaming of Canada day and night. That's why now I like acting. I tell myself maybe it'll work out and I'll become an actor and travel to Canada and become a Canadian, marry a Canadian and have little Canadian children. What language do they speak in Canada? Never mind. I'll learn Canadian. And anyway, I don't care. They won't know I'm Arab and Canada since I'm so blonde and blue-eyed. Mahmood Afana born 1995. Al Safthali Street. If you want to call me a coward, do so. Because after the war, I don't answer any kid who swears at me or even hits me. I'm just sad. I leave him and walk away. Before the war, I wasn't like that. The flying bird would avoid me. Why did this happen to me? Because honestly, after I saw so many kids dying in the war, I started to feel that all of us are going to die. It's just a bit delayed. I said to myself, kid, you're a lot bigger than that. I started to feel that I was 100 years old. The war ended on the ground, but it's still there in my head. I want to be like any child in this world, not in the world, at least in Jerusalem. When I chat to my cousins who are living in Jerusalem on the net, I feel that they are living their childhood and they don't think I'm weird. They don't think like me at all. I'm scared to tell them what I'm thinking so they don't think I'm weird. I pretend to be listening to them and I lie to them. They didn't live what we lived in the war. My family and that of my uncle and grandfather all went to live at my uncle and aunt's place because it was far away from the war and it was a safe area, or as we thought. The next day there was bombing on the street next to my uncle's house and the wall behind the house collapsed. The third day, my uncle, at whose house we were staying, went to buy foul beans and falafel for breakfast. When he returned, he parked the car at the door of his house and before he went down from the car, a rocket fell on him. The upper half of his body fell on the asphalt and when the ambulance came they took out the lower half from the car. The paramedics went and collected the upper half in a plastic bag and they took him to hospital. Everyone started wailing and screaming and my mother started asking God to bring him back safe. I don't know. Was she lying to herself or to us? Of course my uncle didn't come back and he won't come back safe. Mohamed Najim born 1994. Ashurik Radwan. For the first time the streets of Gaza were clean. There wasn't a paper or a cardboard. People were collecting the paper from the streets to use it for baking because the electricity was disconnected. My mom didn't bake and asked me to bring bread from the oven. The queue at the oven stretched from Gaza to the West Bank. People would line up for eight hours and take half a pack of bread. In seconds a Palestinian rocket launcher was erected in the area and in less than one second the Israeli planes started bombing it. People began running in all directions and the ambulances came. People started falling dead. Others were injured. I was in shock and the people in the streets started telling me thank God you're safe. Anyway I went back home without the loaf of bread. My mom yelled at me but till today she doesn't know why I didn't bring back the bread. When I was five years old we went to Tiberias one day. It was a very beautiful city like a paradise. As we were going home on the bus someone called the driver and told him not to take Jerusalem Road because Sharon had entered the Al Aqsa Mosque. Only then I realized the Tiberias is not ours. I'm in the Riemal school near the Ministry of Passports which was first hit by the war. All the ministry flew into the school. All the girls started crying except me. I was laughing. Until today I don't know why I was laughing. When I went home and turned the TV on I saw all the buildings around our school destroyed with corpses lying next to each other. I saw our school but I didn't see myself on TV and I thanked God. I hope there won't come a day when I'm on TV because we don't get anything from it except death. After the war I started knowing what people are thinking even before they speak and feeling from the look in their eyes what they want. I also started knowing things that I or someone of my age should not know. I became braver and started knowing how to speak properly and my trust in people grew. Turns out the war had benefits but anyone believed that. After the war I'm stronger and going to the future with more confident steps. How about Dawood born 1995 at the harbor? I used to go there three times a week. I would spend the whole day on swings laughing and playing with my friends. But during the war I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. I spent the whole day on swings laughing and playing with my friends. But during the war the occupation bulldozed it and destroyed it. I went to visit the place and started crying. I remembered where I used to play and where the swings weren't my laughter with my friends. I want to be a lawyer so I can defend the people that have been victimized. And you won't find more of them than in the empire of Gaza because I feel that Gaza is 100 countries and a million and a half presidents. The tanks got to our house at five in the morning. Mums started gathering things from the house and everything turned upside down in a few seconds. Everyone started yelling and carrying what they could and we went out running into the streets not knowing where to go. My grandmother said you can only go to the schools and the whole schools oh schools our school is more beautiful than all schools. A hundred of us used to sleep in one class from the first night I got into a fight with another girl about a quarter of a meter and who was going to sleep in it. And I don't know how we slept on top of each other like a mountain of old discarded forgotten clothes. Three days later we went back to the house in the neighborhood but a lot of things have changed. The neighborhood wasn't the same and the people weren't the same either. The biggest change in me is that I became a gossip. Honestly I can't hold my tongue. Our theater trainer told me that this is normal in Gaza. All gossips are gossips about each other. But the difference between me and the people in Gaza is that they don't admit that they are gossiping. Well I admit in my full mental capacities that I am a gossip. Sometimes I find no one to gossip about so I gossip about myself. Yasmine Jaror born 1996. Adiraj photo or illustration is an idyllic photo postcard illustration of far reaching rows of oranges in Palestine of orange groves in Palestine. Our future in Gaza is obscure and unknown like a calm volcano that can erupt at any second. As if we're on a boat without a captain in the midst of a raging sea we go right and left and no one knows where to leave. I hear that in other countries childhood is sacred and children live their lives without problems and fear. But Gaza's children are forgotten and outside the picture. They're the ones who feel the injustice the most because society treats them like they're not kids. When it wants it makes them adults and when it wants it returns them to being children and most people deal with them like their only bodies not minds. When I see a child peddling in the street or working in a shop I imagine how the children of the world are playing resting and feeling safe. Honestly my heart breaks for them and sometimes I cry. Gaza has no tenderness and no childhood. A boy is born a man here and a girl is born a bride. Dad before the war was a lot more tender with me. I wish he would take me in his arms like before but God help him he's probably worried too because in the war we lost five dunams of land in a second. The field that 60 years old was hit by a rocket from the Israeli army which burned all the oranges in it. My father my brother and myself could have also died by that rocket because we were so close to the window. If dad hadn't thrown me on the ground all the strapped would have hit me. After the war I visited Rafa crossing and saw the flags of Palestine and Egypt next to each other yet separated by a wire. I felt the difference between the two flags and that this wire is the border of this big prison that we live in. I felt how stupid and unjust is the world and I felt like breaking all borders and ending all differences between races and religion so that everyone in the world would be brothers. My dream became to live in a safe country even in a small village in a distant island at the end of the world. Yazmin Abu Amir born 1996. Al Shujayyeh view of a city with clouds of phosphorus falling to the ground. The clouds make the shape of a giant spider walking over the city. I want to be a specialist in the science of metaphysics what is behind nature. You know why? Because I think that Gaza itself is behind nature and I got so much from my presence here in Gaza that I'd like to transfer my skills to others. The Shujayyeh camp is always the center of events. Each time the occupation wants to invade Gaza they pass by our house. When the war began people left their houses thinking that the Shujayyeh would be hit. It's normal in this case to leave our house. Everyone was calling my dad to convince him to leave the house. My brothers from Algeria, my uncles from the states, my uncles from Ankara. The whole world was begging my dad and he wouldn't budge refusing to leave the Shujayyeh. Three days with my mom having packed the house stuff and we've been suspended at travel mode. We want to go to my sister's house because it's safer there. After we were exhausted from talking he agreed and said you go and I'll follow. How can we go and leave him? My mom was smart. She left bread at home and you know how dear bread was in the war. As soon as we got to my sister's house she called him and said, Salam we forgot the bread bring it for us. And Salam fell into the trap and brought the bread and we wouldn't let him leave. The next morning we woke up to a phosphorus bomb that fumed the street. We all started crying our tears falling because of the phosphorus. The bomb was easier on us than dad's taunting. He said I told you let's stay home it's better for us. There's no place like home and on it went. What added fuel to the fire is that the mosque and the house next to my sister's house were destroyed in the bombing and you can imagine what my dad did to us. He wanted to take us back home immediately. No sooner had he finished his words than we were told that the house next to ours in Shujayyeh was bombed and the front of our house ripped off. Then for the first time all of us looked at dad. We stayed at my sister's place. It became clear to us that wherever we were in Gaza in the war we were not safe. After the war I started to always dress in a very clean and tidy way so that if I die I would die in ice death. But it would be the biggest problem if I was hit by a rocket because I'd become 100 pieces and I'd like to die in one piece. Wow. Gaza and Gaza's dreams. Our dream has become to die a good death and not live a good life. Yasmin Khakbe. Born 1996. Ash Shiekh Radwan. Photo is a crowd of hundreds at a fenced in Gaza crossing. When the war started my mom, brothers and sisters and I were in Russia which made me always worried about dad. We wanted to leave Russia and return to Gaza among our family to live the events with them. As soon as the war ended and the crossings were opened we returned to Gaza and from then till today we've been hearing stories of the war. I couldn't sleep in Russia because of my worry about dad. Before the war when the mobile was used to ring and it would be from Gaza we'd be happy and we'd race to answer it. But in the war every time the mobile rang from Gaza any number whether we knew it or not we'd say dear God and start looking at each other to see who would answer. After the war a lot of things changed in me. I started seeing things differently. I began to like the city. Life became more beautiful and so did I. My friends changed and I made older and more mature ones. I became very outspoken and brave even in front of dad. I could face anyone. Mom and I became friends a lot of times we stayed up at night and talk about everything. In the future if I grow up and in Gaza it's an achievement to grow up because death is standing at your doorway. I want to be a children's caretaker and defend their rights because I feel that the children of Palestine are born as old people. A kid can be six years old and yet supporting a family. 31 monologues. 31 monologues from 31 children. This was all written by 31 children and this was all staged in less than an hour because you all had to meet in a zoom and then listen to me talk to you about for five or 10 minutes. The choices that you just witnessed those were the choices of the brilliant human beings who volunteered to join us on a moment's notice to stand up for Palestinian lives. So we are all living in lives. Inside the chat on HowlRound are listed all of the other productions that are taking place across the world. So just know that you are aligned and in collaboration with so many people speaking these truths today. I was so incredibly moved by the creative choices that y'all made. And I really feel like this production embodies the elements of disability justice and the idea that we are all one. We're going to be dropping some next steps, action steps into the chat and we are wishing you the best. Please keep working for justice. Thank you so much for joining us. This will be a recording on HowlRound so you can share this recording. You can do watch parties in the future. But thank you for joining us on Wednesday, November 29, 2023 for international solidarity with Palestinians. I'm going to invite everybody to turn on their cameras for our final moment as we say goodbye to everyone. So if you want to turn on your cameras, go right ahead. I'm so moved. I did not have a chance to drop all of the links of these amazing human beings. Like you don't even know how amazing these human beings are. You are all so good. And you all didn't see the chat. The chat here where we were just enthusing to each other. So many wows. That's beautiful. That's so moving. I was sitting here, y'all, so much tissues, so many tissues.