When Ziad, a Palestinian man living in northern Gaza, first sent me a diary piece in October 2023, neither he nor I anticipated that it would turn into a series, much less one he would still be writing five months on.
This week we published his 48th diary excerpt. I do very little editing, leaving his voice to come through the words he has written. Communication shutdowns and the problem of charging a phone in a besieged territory mean there are often long gaps between messages from him and they are worrying times, when I often find myself wondering if he, his sister and their host family are alive. I know from the letters and emails we get that readers worry too. Many have written directly to him and I’ve passed on their words to try and remind him people do care.
One email arrived during a particularly long period of silence. It’s from a woman in Canada who I hope will forgive me for quoting her here:
“Today, one of my clients and I were talking about gratitude. And I said, ‘Every time I turn on the tap and water comes out I feel grateful.’ I told her it was because of ‘the situation in Gaza’, but I really mean because of you. I have been following your diary since two weeks into the war, when I bought a Guardian subscription, and have been searching your columns out since.
When you do not post for a few days I get nervous. When there was a break of over a week I felt sick.
I don’t know how many of us there are that feel like we know and care for you, but I believe your voice and your sharing of your experience and heart is deeply important. You are not just news, and you make the entire situation and your fellow Gazan civilians known through you.
I wish I could give you (and your sister, and Ahmad ...) a break – to transplant you here to breathe and be free of your daily anxieties and trauma. I would borrow you a cat to lie in your lap. Make you your favourite salad. I’m so so sorry for everything that you are all experiencing. It is heartbreaking and I don’t know what to do. But do know that you are not just news.”
If you haven’t read Ziad’s Gaza diary then I really recommend starting at the beginning and following a very human story of what war does to those who had nothing to do with starting it.
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