Between Two Crossings, and a Third

Nour, Yasser, and Roshdi,
Their dreams collided in the streets of Gaza.

Nour Al Ghussein’s dream was to complete her studies in business to help build the Palestinian economy, as she so adamantly says. She embarked on an arduous journey when she received a letter from an American university informing her of a full scholarship to start her classes in the following term. She is on the verge of touching her dream with her own hands. Nothing stands between her and its achievement except for two crossings that dictate the movement of the people in Gaza. One leads to Egypt, and the other leads to the rest of the occupied Palestinian lands, and both could take her to a big wide world of which she has only seen pictures. Getting out of Gaza is no easy feat, it is contingent on the whims of either of two regimes, the Egyptian government or the Israeli occupation. In between the two crossings, there’s a world of its own. In her pursuit of knowledge, Nour says: “I have felt that I carry a heavy responsibility on my shoulders. To accomplish something for myself and my family and my country.”

Yasser Murtaja’s dream is crystal clear in both his journalistic coverage and social media posts. He has wanted, like so many others in Gaza, to travel the world, maybe to break the siege of the body and of the soul that the occupation imposes on over 2 million people. In March of 2018, Yasser shared a picture he had taken of the Gaza port with a wish as a caption: “I hope there will come a day when I can take this picture from the sky instead of the ground! My name is Yasser, I am 30 years old, I live in the city of Gaza, and I have not left it in my entire life.”

Roshdi Sarraj, too, had dreams and aspirations. Just like Nour and Yasser, Roshdi wove passionate ties to Gaza and its people and went on to express his love through his work as a journalist and photographer. Through the eye of his little drone, he observed Gaza from above and crafted pictures that echoed its beauty. Through his lens, he wanted to raise the city’s voice to all corners of the world. He wrote on his Facebook page on the 13th of October of the past year: “We will not leave… And we’ll get out of Gaza… to go to the sky, and only to the sky.”

Life decreed that dreams converge in the city’s streets besieged by land, sky, and sea. The journalists built a strong friendship woven by their passion for truth.. Together, they founded and, in partnership with others, the production company Ain Media and brought Gaza to the world through it. Serendipity and friendship brought them and Nour together, and they filmed in 2018 a documentary chronicling her journey between the crossings of the siege as she was trying to pursue her studies and her future in the United States. After a year of hopes and disappointments, Nour is finally allowed out into the world (not knowing if she will ever be allowed to return home), and the film finally sees the light (it will be shown on AFLAMUNA.online from the 7th to the 20th of March).

Nour left Gaza to pursue her dreams… and both filmmakers departed “to the sky.”

An Israeli sniper killed Yasser on the 6th of April 2018 while he was covering the Great March of Return protests south of Khan Younis. The bullet pierced right through his liver, ignoring the protective vest adorned with the PRESS sign. He has not seen his film finished. Roshdi continued the endeavor on his own, completing the editing of the film to honor his friend and peer.

During the current war on Gaza, on the 22nd of October, Israeli rockets killed Roshdi in a strike that destroyed his father’s house. He did not live to see his daughter turn one. He exited Gaza only to reach the sky.

While we prepare to screen the film “Between Two Crossings” by the two martyred filmmakers, we find ourselves standing in front of a mirror, forced to face our reality.
The siege imposed through crossings is not new to Gaza, for it has been besieged for over 17 years, during which the occupation was slowly starving its people, hoping they would leave, never to return. The daily killing of Palestinians is not new either, for the genocide had started years before the declaration of the occupying state of Israel in 1948. The only difference today is that the starving and the killing have been intensified in a short period of time – intensified to the brink of explosion. How harsh is this mirror, screaming in our faces: What are you doing for Palestine? How are you helping its people?

We don’t believe that the history and emotions our peoples are amassing will ever allow us to forget about Palestine. Still, today, we realize that it must be time to stop reacting and start creating – creation built on knowledge that could allow us to reclaim what we have lost of the essence, Palestine.
If we don’t look at the horizon, if we don’t start imagining and building – step by step – a future free of occupation and colonization, then we are surrendering to emotional reaction, which might lead us to evermore death. Emotion is ignited by the moment and extinguished by time.
Of the many weapons deployed by the colonizers in their genocidal campaign is the weapon of narrative. The occupation uses every tool of propaganda available to it and puts it at the service of its narrative of death, and if it needs to kill those storytellers who tell the story of truth and justice, it kills them in cold blood. That is why Yasser and Roshdi were killed, and hundreds of other Palestinian journalists, storytellers, and intellectuals (more than 120 journalists killed to date during the current war on Gaza). Can we forget the glaring example of Ghassan Kanafani?

In the face of the assassination of the narrative of truth, we must center all of our efforts on creating means to tell our story, weave our narrative, craft our picture, and spread it.
So that the only pathway is not a pathway to the sky.