When I asked my 7-year-old cousin Ahmed if he missed his home, I was stunned when he said no.
Since October 2023 he has been displaced numerous times by Israel’s genocide, from his home in northern Gaza to his grandmother’s place in Rafah, and now to our home in central Gaza, in Nuseirat.
“I can’t remember anything about my home,” he told me. “Maybe it doesn’t even exist anymore. I miss my grandma’s house because I remember every detail of it.”
A whole year of displacements and he can no longer even remember his first home. He can’t visualize his bedroom, his clothes, his toys and coloring books. I can still remember, though, I remember that his mom would bake early in the morning as he watched his cartoons, Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny.
He also loved to play with his older brother Ibrahim, 10, and his sister Afnan, in her last year of high school, in the backyard. ….more
