We will sit together on Srifa hill, Qassem

On April 8, Israel unleashed one of the deadliest single-day assaults on Lebanon in years. In what has been called Black Wednesday, Israel killed at least 350 people and injured more than 1,000 others, though the final numbers are not yet clear as bodies are still being pulled from under the rubble and Israel has continued its assault on the country. My friend Karam and I were in Beirut, each in a different part of the city. Here, we try to convey to you a fragment of what we witnessed and lived through in the hope of carving something else out of that day other than what was carved into us.  *** As I have done for over 40 days, I am spending Tuesday trying to ease the burden of the harsh conditions the displaced along Beirut’s waterfront are enduring — pitching tents for people who just arrived, repairing others, reinforcing some with wood planks and securing roofs with nylon sheets, all while fearing the wind might tear them away or the rain might flood them. I say “fearing” and laugh at myself. The tents have been blown away and flooded again and again. But we go back and try again — not out of defiance toward the rain and the wind, but out of defiance in the face of the Occupation and state neglect and so that the displaced might find someone willing to extend a hand amid everything they’re going through. Along the way, I have learned people’s names and become friends with many. On this day, after we finish our work, Mohamed invites me to a sahra, a late-night get-together.  “Come on, Karam, we’re hanging out at Essam’s,” he says.   When I get to Essam’s tent, I find him and Qassem trying to light a fire. I laugh and think to myself, “So where is the sahra exactly?” They are trying to light damp wood. I go back to the car, bring some dry firewood and a can of igniter fluid, pour it over the wood and we get the fire going. What kind of luck is this? Cold, rain, wind, fear, anxiety. Since the very first night people fled here, the weather hasn’t let up. The displaced have endured days and nights of extreme hardship. I have seen them, young and old, standing in rain-soaked clothes, trying to hold down tents that were nearly whisked away by the wind, while people, just a few meters away, were sleeping under the roofs of their homes. The three of them, Mohamed, Essam and Qassem, are from the town of Srifa in the Sur district of south Lebanon. They had been forced to flee as the bombing intensified. I sit down, and Qassem comes to sit on my left. Qassem Saeed Qassem’s family has been scattered across shelters in Beirut. He sleeps in a tent in central Beirut, which has become a refuge for dozens of families, forced out and displaced. The area has nearly 600 tents, each sheltering at least four people. I ask for a cigarette. Qassem quickly offers me one. I refuse at first, noticing that he only has two left in his pack. But he warmly insists: “Just take it, man!” I take a cigarette.  Close by, Essam is hacking at the wood to prepare it for the fire, sending pieces flying. Qassem turns his face away and warns him in a gentle voice, “Careful.” “Hey, why won’t you just let a man get some work done?” Essam replies.  I think they are having a row and I try to calm them down. But after a few minutes, it is clear I am wrong and they are back to playful banter mixed with some light cursing. I understand the depth of their friendship. They are fellow craftsmen who have worked together in furniture carpentry. Each of them launches into a conversation filled with longing for a past that might never return, for home, for the town, for a life that has since changed. They reminisce over the days they lived in their homes, with their families, before the Israeli aggression tore them apart. They seem to be trying to pluck fruit from a withered tree — the future. I can hear the heavy roar of Israeli drones above us, and it fills me with a sense of bewilderment and loss, which grows stronger and stronger as we follow the news of the aggression on the south and Beirut, and we anxiously await what the coming hours might bring after Trump’s threats to destroy Iran: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” I take the oud that I have with me from its case and think to myself, “Let’s give this bewilderment a melody and turn this noise into music.” I begin strumming the strings, trying to harmonize with the jarring note emitted by the Occupation’s drones. It is an attempt to reclaim our right to what we hear and to resist the occupation of our ears. كرم محاولا تخفيف إزعاج المسيرات الإسرائيلية بالموسيقى .mp4 “Let me play for you and you play for me,” Essam says, switching places to sit beside me. He falls silent for a few minutes then spins a few lines of verse about the promised return to Srifa. He seems to be a natural zajal poet. Suddenly, the door of a nearby car opens, and a man steps out and begins walking toward our gathering. He has been lying inside his car, where he usually sleeps. He walks as if he is chain-bound, dragging his feet — the gait of all the displaced people who sleep in their cramped cars. Before he reaches us, he calls out the good news: “It’s over. There is a ceasefire.” They all spring to their feet and start cheering as they circle the fire, their cars, their belongings: “What? It’s over?” Just a few minutes earlier, they had been dreaming of returning home. And, now, here they are, facing the possibility that the dream may be coming true. At a loss, Essam asks, “Do we wait until the morning, or do we go now? What do we take with us? What do we leave?” Mohamed shares the uncertainty. “Do we go on our own? I need to see if my family wants to go too.” Qassem, meanwhile, is already close to a decision: “I’m thinking of going now.” Essam responds cautiously, “Let’s wait until morning. To confirm the news.” Qassem remains silent. Essam looks at him. He seems like he is trying to convince him with just his eyes. And then he says, “Besides, the roads will be jammed, and you’ll be going to a destroyed village, with no electricity.” Qassem replies in his firm southern accent, “I’m leaving now!” I drift off for a moment as I watch them, circling, debating, circling. My God, how the get-together has changed! We had gathered to spend some time together, and suddenly it became a farewell. Some of the other displaced join us, and on hearing the news, they too are caught in the same uncertainty: Should we go back to the village now?  Some say, “I’m going back now,” yet don’t leave.  Others say, “We’re not going,” and suddenly we see them gathering their belongings. Despite the doubt wringing my heart, a fragment of joy slips in. Here I am, witnessing the moment these people will return to the homes from which they had been forced out. Like me, they are filled with doubt, unsure what the right decision is. But in that moment, doubt and bewilderment are the truest emotions one could have. Their confusion comes from a reality shrouded in uncertainty, a reality teetering between pain, hope and illusion. Qassem stands by his decision. He starts his car and turns on the headlights so we could tend to the firewood. He checks his tires and pumps air into one of them. He then walks back to the fire, throws the last piece of wood into the flames and sits down. “Alright, I’ll see you in the village. See you up there. We’ll go back to work with furniture, rebuild and all that. Alright, salam and bye,” he says. There is no room for anyone to disagree with or question the idea that the war has finally stopped, that nothing stands between them and their homes and towns but the road. Return, and nothing else, is on their minds. As for me, I am pondering the very meaning of return, after the Israeli strikes had destroyed the town. I think about Qassem’s insistence on going back and then about his comment, and on what, in my mind, could make returning an impossible idea: the house! None of them is sure whether their homes have been spared or have been bombed, yet that will not deter them, I know. Qassem will pitch a tent if he finds his house destroyed. He will not deny himself and his friends the joy of hanging out on the hill of Srifa at night. That hill had not left their conversations for a moment. And it is the prize Qassem had promised me: that we would hang out together on Srifa hill. The tents, a reminder of hardship, take on a beautiful meaning in this moment — as though they were becoming a fond memory left behind. As one of them said, “Come on and leave these tents for whoever wants to stay in them. It’s over. We’re going back home. But well, it was nice. We got to know each other.” Before getting into his car, Qassem says, “And why would we work with furniture? We’ll just sit on Srifa hill and enjoy ourselves. Really, we can set it up the way we did here. Tents and all that.” At last, we say our goodbyes. It is the final hours before dawn. “We’ll see you in Srifa,” Mohamed and Qassem say to me.  I reply, “I’ll see you in Froun,” my village. The last thing Qassem says is: “We’re going to rebuild, yeah?” He drives off toward his town. The darkness is still complete, the first light of morning yet to break. I stay with Essam until sunrise. When the sun’s light begins to shine, we hug each other and take a few photos to remember the night. Essam takes his motorcycle and follows on after Qassem. I return home, haunted by the same question: Is it really over? Karam in a keffiyeh in Essam’s tent, a displaced man from the town of Srifa. The morning of April 8. Hours later, I wake up to the bombing that shook Beirut. My phone rings. I look. It is Mohamed, another displaced man from the Biel area. I answer. “Hello, Karam.” “Hi, Mohamed. How are you?” “Karam, you know Qassem, the one we spent the whole night with?” “Yes.” “He’s been martyred.” “What, no! That’s impossible. What are you saying!” “Yes, I swear. They struck him after he arrived.” I don’t understand how this could happen. We had been together just a few hours earlier, saying goodbye, that we would meet again soon. How had it become a final farewell? Stunned, I pick up my phone to check the news. As I scroll, I see the news, then his picture, then his shrouded body. My God. Qassem has really been martyred. He was among the first to return to Srifa, the town that had not left his thoughts for a single moment. And they killed him. *** That night was the first time we had ever sat together. I hadn’t known Qassem before that. The sahra that brought us together, at the invitation of his brother Mohamed, seemed like the beginning of the road for our friendship. He was from the south, like me, and he worked with wood. I had been looking forward to the moment when I would return to my village after the aggression ended, to meet Qassem, Essam and Mohamed on the hill of Srifa and to see the others I had come to know in the places they loved in their own villages. I think of the dawn Qassem made his way through, or the dawn he set out for, and of the darkness that cut across his path. The Occupation military named its aggression on Lebanon Eternal Darkness. Qassem, and his dreams, and our friendship were among its targets. The assault killed at least 357 people and wounded 1,223 others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry, which noted that this was not a final toll, “as the rubble clearing operations are ongoing and there is a very large number of remains. [More] time is required to conduct DNA testing to confirm the identities before a definitive count can be established.” I reproach myself. Should I have stopped him from going? But how can you prevent a person from returning to their home? Qassem, I think of the friendship that we were denied. Two days later, I meet Mohamed, Qassem’s brother, and Essam in their tent in central Beirut. They have survived the aggression and returned to the tents. Mohamed says to me, tears in his swollen eyes, “You spent the last night together.” I think now of all the roads that might have brought us together in life, before the Occupation unjustly decided to separate us forever. _______________ I am supposed to meet some friends for the first time at a coffee shop on Hamra Street in Beirut on Wednesday afternoon. We had agreed on the time, but they could not make it because of the assault. About half an hour after the bombing, I am walking along Hamra Street, watching the layer of sadness and worry that has clouded people’s faces. I stand by the roadside, trying to listen to the unsettled voices passing in front of me and behind me. In that moment of stupor, two friends walk past. One is saying to the other, “Man, they bombed all the places I pass through: Ain al-Mraiseh, Basta …” His voice fades before I could hear the rest of the names. I want to say to him: “I pass through those places often, too. I have memories there.” But I hold back. And so, I take it upon myself to interpret his words. It is as if this young man was marveling at the miracle of his survival, telling everyone who had walked through those same places and heard him: We survived, because, by sheer chance, we weren’t there when they were bombed. But there was sorrow in his voice, as though he was suddenly made to forge a forced, aggressive memory with familiar, beloved places, places that are part of his everyday life. Drawing on the tremor in his voice, I will rephrase what he said, “Man, they bombed all the places I pass through,” into: “The memory we make, and the memory we are forced to carry.” In the shadow of those words, I try to trace the relationship between the Occupation’s aggression and our memory, to sketch just one scene of what it means to live under the threat of annihilation. First, I want to say to him: I’m exactly like you. Here I am, forced to carry the memories of the aggression in Beirut, a city I’m only starting to grow familiar with, a city I was forced to stay in after the Occupation launched its genocidal war on Gaza and which is now living through the same genocidal aggression. This afternoon, my friend Karam called to check on me, then spoke to me about Qassem. I offered my condolences and then told him he made me think of Hamza Abu Qenas. Hamza was a munshid and an artist, the last person I met in Gaza before I left. I had interviewed him about inshad and his work. He was so friendly and warm that it stirred in me the desire to meet him again. Hamza earned his place in people’s memories because he could speak to them in their hardest moments. His inshad was a form of solace for them. In the first weeks of the genocidal war, his voice hardly left me. It kept me company in my anxious exile while my family endured a brutal war in Gaza. Whenever Karam visited me, he would find Hamza’s voice present. That was how he came to know him and admire him, to the point that we began setting aside time to listen to his inshad together. نشيد ( صورة الذكرى ) حمزة أبو قينص HAMZAABUQENAS2024 ألبوم ( القابضون على الجمر ) As had been the case since the beginning of the genocidal war, the moment I picked up the phone was a moment of fear and worry — what news awaited me this time? I often learned of the loss of friends and acquaintances by chance, and that is how I learned of Hamza’s martyrdom. The Occupation killed him on October 14, 2024, after killing his father and two brothers. When I told Karam, he grieved as though he had lost a close friend. I return to “the memory we make, and the memory we are forced to carry.” I have two memories of Hamza: the first we made together when we met at a coffee shop on Wehda Street in Gaza City, the second, the Occupation’s crime lodged in my memory. Among all of my acquaintances, Hamza was the last I got to know in Gaza. I had wanted to see him again, return the favor and buy him a cup of coffee. After the crime the Occupation committed against my family, my relatives, my friends and neighbors, Hamza came to occupy two places in my memory: one of my own making — Hamza the artist — and another driven into it by the Occupation — Hamza, a martyr of the genocidal war — which I invoke to illustrate the depths of my loss in this war. And so, every conversation about my family reminds me of Hamza, and whenever I speak of him, I feel compelled to describe him as the last person I met and got to know in Gaza, as though I’m trying to say that the brutality of the Israeli genocidal war did not stop at killing those closest to me, but extended even to a face I saw just once. Hamza never met my family, my relatives or my friends, yet somehow they have all become intertwined in my memory and in my telling, as if we all shared mutual memories. I think of what Karam said. “I had been looking forward to the moment when I would return to my village after the aggression ended, to meet Qassem, Essam and Mohamed on the hill of Srifa.” The Occupation didn’t just kill Qassem, it annihilated the future of their possible relationship — the promised meetings, the memories waiting to be made. That is why they said goodbye. They were meant to meet again soon. In Karam’s memory, Qassem now occupies two places as well: one — a memory the two friends made together around the fire, and another — the Occupation cut into his memory with its crime. I think, too, of what Karam later said: “Qassem, I think of the friendship that we were denied.” And then of what he told me — that he would visit Srifa the moment the aggression ends, to spend time with  Essam and Mohamed, Qassem’s brother. What are we to make of Karam’s hold onto this desire? Is it a defense of the legitimacy of the friendship, or a refusal to concede to the two orphaned memories of Qassem? When Karam visits the hill of Srifa, he will sit with Essam and Mohamed, cementing the legitimacy of a friendship targeted by Eternal Darkness, defending Qassem’s presence against annihilation. So what do we do with “the memory we are forced to carry.” The one the Occupation cut into us with crime? And how do we hold fast to the memory we made ourselves, as a battleground on which to confront the Israeli genocide? Karam used to say “our friend” when referring to Hamza, whenever he wanted to listen to his inshad, even though they never met. I feel the same about my friend Qassem, though we never met either. It is, then, a sense of responsibility toward “the memory we are forced to carry.” Perhaps in doing so, we will reclaim our right to a possible future, and not one carved into us by the Israeli genocidal machine that targets our memories, our lives, our friends, our families and our places.The post We will sit together on Srifa hill, Qassem first appeared on Mada Masr.