What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
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Current Issue
A Day for Gaza
/ February 3, 2026
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
On Palestine and the geography of vanishing.
Alaa Alqaisi
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People inspect damage and remove items from their homes following Israeli air strikes on April 7, 2024 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.(Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
Ihave lived long enough with Gaza to know that it refuses to hold still. It recedes and insists in the same breath, a place continually pulled away and continually reasserted, as if caught in a struggle between erasure and endurance. Streets are redrawn, renamed, obliterated, and then remembered in whispers that rise like breath in the night. A path I once took toward the sea now halts abruptly in rubble or is swallowed by dunes that devour the horizon. A neighborhood once alive with the fragrance of jasmine in its courtyards has been pushed into the realm of memory, spoken of only in the past tense, its reality surviving only in language while banished from the ground itself.
Gaza does not vanish in a single strike that history can date and seal. It diminishes gradually, faltering and splintering under daily attrition, yet it persists with the stubborn rhythm of those who remain. To walk here is to step into a geography of vanishing, a terrain where disappearance is not an event that ends but a condition that settles into every gesture and every breath, making survival itself feel like a form of unfinished writing, lines drawn on a page that will never be complete.
A Day for Gaza
A Ceasefire in Name Only
Mohammed R. Mhawish
The Gaza Street That Refuses to Die
Ali Skaik
A Catalog of Gaza’s Loss
Deema Hattab
My Sister’s Death Still Echoes Inside Me
Asmaa Dwaima
What Gaza’s Photographers Have Seen
Huda Skaik
How to Survive in a House Without Walls
Rasha Abou Jalal
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
Alaa Alqaisi
What Happens to the Educators When the Schools Have Been Destroyed?
Ismail Nofal
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Engy Abdelal
“We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear”
Ola Al Asi
Displacement is the force that shapes this geography. It presses against every door and every silence, reshaping the city even as its ruins remain. From the beginning of the war, waves of evacuation swept through Gaza, driving families from the north toward the south. At first many believed that the ordeal might be temporary, that days or weeks would pass and they would walk back to homes left waiting for them. Yet the days …
This affects the entire country.
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Current Issue
A Day for Gaza
/ February 3, 2026
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
On Palestine and the geography of vanishing.
Alaa Alqaisi
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Ad Policy
People inspect damage and remove items from their homes following Israeli air strikes on April 7, 2024 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.(Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
Ihave lived long enough with Gaza to know that it refuses to hold still. It recedes and insists in the same breath, a place continually pulled away and continually reasserted, as if caught in a struggle between erasure and endurance. Streets are redrawn, renamed, obliterated, and then remembered in whispers that rise like breath in the night. A path I once took toward the sea now halts abruptly in rubble or is swallowed by dunes that devour the horizon. A neighborhood once alive with the fragrance of jasmine in its courtyards has been pushed into the realm of memory, spoken of only in the past tense, its reality surviving only in language while banished from the ground itself.
Gaza does not vanish in a single strike that history can date and seal. It diminishes gradually, faltering and splintering under daily attrition, yet it persists with the stubborn rhythm of those who remain. To walk here is to step into a geography of vanishing, a terrain where disappearance is not an event that ends but a condition that settles into every gesture and every breath, making survival itself feel like a form of unfinished writing, lines drawn on a page that will never be complete.
A Day for Gaza
A Ceasefire in Name Only
Mohammed R. Mhawish
The Gaza Street That Refuses to Die
Ali Skaik
A Catalog of Gaza’s Loss
Deema Hattab
My Sister’s Death Still Echoes Inside Me
Asmaa Dwaima
What Gaza’s Photographers Have Seen
Huda Skaik
How to Survive in a House Without Walls
Rasha Abou Jalal
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
Alaa Alqaisi
What Happens to the Educators When the Schools Have Been Destroyed?
Ismail Nofal
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Engy Abdelal
“We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear”
Ola Al Asi
Displacement is the force that shapes this geography. It presses against every door and every silence, reshaping the city even as its ruins remain. From the beginning of the war, waves of evacuation swept through Gaza, driving families from the north toward the south. At first many believed that the ordeal might be temporary, that days or weeks would pass and they would walk back to homes left waiting for them. Yet the days …
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
This affects the entire country.
Log In
Email *
Password *
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Forgot Your Password?
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What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
Magazine
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Subscribe
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Magazine
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Politics
World
Economy
Culture
Books & the Arts
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About
Events
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Current Issue
A Day for Gaza
/ February 3, 2026
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
On Palestine and the geography of vanishing.
Alaa Alqaisi
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Ad Policy
People inspect damage and remove items from their homes following Israeli air strikes on April 7, 2024 in Khan Yunis, Gaza.(Ahmad Hasaballah / Getty Images)
This piece is part of A Day for Gaza, an initiative in which The Nation has turned over its website exclusively to voices from the Gaza Strip. You can find all of the work in the series here.
Ihave lived long enough with Gaza to know that it refuses to hold still. It recedes and insists in the same breath, a place continually pulled away and continually reasserted, as if caught in a struggle between erasure and endurance. Streets are redrawn, renamed, obliterated, and then remembered in whispers that rise like breath in the night. A path I once took toward the sea now halts abruptly in rubble or is swallowed by dunes that devour the horizon. A neighborhood once alive with the fragrance of jasmine in its courtyards has been pushed into the realm of memory, spoken of only in the past tense, its reality surviving only in language while banished from the ground itself.
Gaza does not vanish in a single strike that history can date and seal. It diminishes gradually, faltering and splintering under daily attrition, yet it persists with the stubborn rhythm of those who remain. To walk here is to step into a geography of vanishing, a terrain where disappearance is not an event that ends but a condition that settles into every gesture and every breath, making survival itself feel like a form of unfinished writing, lines drawn on a page that will never be complete.
A Day for Gaza
A Ceasefire in Name Only
Mohammed R. Mhawish
The Gaza Street That Refuses to Die
Ali Skaik
A Catalog of Gaza’s Loss
Deema Hattab
My Sister’s Death Still Echoes Inside Me
Asmaa Dwaima
What Gaza’s Photographers Have Seen
Huda Skaik
How to Survive in a House Without Walls
Rasha Abou Jalal
What Edward Said Teaches Us About Gaza
Alaa Alqaisi
What Happens to the Educators When the Schools Have Been Destroyed?
Ismail Nofal
At the Doorstep of Tomorrow
Engy Abdelal
“We Have Covered Events No Human Can Bear”
Ola Al Asi
Displacement is the force that shapes this geography. It presses against every door and every silence, reshaping the city even as its ruins remain. From the beginning of the war, waves of evacuation swept through Gaza, driving families from the north toward the south. At first many believed that the ordeal might be temporary, that days or weeks would pass and they would walk back to homes left waiting for them. Yet the days …
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