In this project my peers and I collaborated together and worked to create a short story that helps invoke feelings of empathy in the reader. We debated for a while and came up with a story of a Palestinian student called Omar. Omar is originally from Gaza, Palestine. He fled the 2008 Israeli war on Gaza and came to America as a refugee. Omar still has relatives in Gaza, leaving it left a dent in his heart that nothing could ever fill. This story takes place in the aftermath of the October 7th, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. Omar is in deep distress because of the ongoing conflict that has his relatives in danger. In this story we explore Omar's past and how he ended up as a refugee in the US.
The news of the Gaza conflict breaking out on October 7th broke the illusion of normalcy I had been living. Ever since the 7th of October Hamas attacks and the subsequent response by Israel, I’ve neither been able to sleep, nor have I been able to get any work done. Hello, my name is Omar, and this is my story.
I can proudly say that I am Palestinian, my family comes from a long line of farmers. We come from a village that borders the Gaza strip. My family were not originally from Gaza, as were displaced by Israeli militias around the time the State of Israel gained independence. In an event known as the “Nakba” meaning catastrophe in Arabic around 750,000 Palestinians were violently thrown out of their homes and forced to relocate to make way for the creation of the State of Israel. My grandpa recalls horror stories as Israeli militias like the Irgun and the Haganah used fear tactics to get him and his family to leave their homes and their farms. An estimated 15,000 Palestinians were killed by Jewish gangs in order to create fear among the Palestinian population and urge them to clear the land. These militias made an example for the rest of the Arab villagers out of the tiny village of Deir Yassine. On April 9th, 1948, just weeks before Israel gained independence, Jewish militias attacked the small village of Deir Yassin and killed around 107 innocent Palestinians. The villagers were lined up, stripped, and executed in cold blood. All for being in the wrong place at the wrong time! My grandfather recalled being horrified by the news and begging his parents to leave their village before they became next. My grandfather’s parents were steadfast on staying on their land. They refused to give in to the fear mongering and remained planted in their villages. It was all going well, and the men of the village were insistent on defending their homes. That was until the gangs arrived at my grandfather’s village. My grandpa still shivers as he recalls what he witnessed. He told me that he witnessed the men of the village being killed in the most brutal of ways. No one was spared, even the children. My grandfather’s family had no choice but to leave on foot. The journey was long and exhausting, but after hours of walking in the dry heat my grandfather’s family finally arrived at the Rafah refugee camp in the south of the Gaza strip.
My grandfather had settled and grew up at the Rafah refugee camp. With no hope or even a legal right to return, the refugee camp tents slowly turned into buildings and permanent settlements. My grandfather, after growing accustomed to life under occupation, met my grandma and they instantly fell in love. My grandparents had my father along with 2 of my uncles and one aunt. I never knew my uncles as they had left to work and live in the United States. Life in the Gaza strip was very challenging, as we lacked access to basic necessities. We were constantly on edge, not knowing when Israel’s next attack might be. The only time I am able to forget everything and enjoy the moment is when I visit the beach. I loved visiting the beach as a kid. I also remember when my cousins and I used to mess around and play in the tiny streets of the overcrowded strip. I can’t help but miss those days when we had very little care for the world and our only priority was to have fun.
We all had dreams of growing up in a free and self-determined country, but those dreams were as distant as the closest star. The only time we managed to get close to an independent state is when Hamas, the leading resistance movement in Gaza, managed to force the Israeli army to pull out of Gaza and dismantle its settlements in 2005. Hamas was never perfect, and there are many things it did that I disagree with, but it was the only hope for us to gain independence. I had always dreamt of becoming a lawyer growing up, however, all my dreams and aspirations came to a screeching halt when Israel started a heavy campaign of bombardment on the Gaza strip. On the 27th of December 2008, Israel launched a campaign of bombardment on the Gaza strip. In just a single day, Israel had managed to drop over 100 bombs on numerous targets. As I mentioned before, there are many things that Hamas did that I disagree with, one of them being the constant shooting of rockets into Israeli territory. I solemnly believe that the way to justice is not through violence. As a result of these barrages of rockets into its territory, Israel decided to launch the December 2008 offensive. The bombing campaigns lasted for over 8 days, our house being in the south of the strip managed to barely survive but my aunt’s house was devastated. I remember as all throughout this week of bombardment, I never once was able to sleep a full night. I was always awakened by the whole house shaking. With nowhere to go, my aunt and my cousins were sleeping with us in our home. To us kids, we were having the time of our lives having a sleepover every night not knowing that there is a whole war going on outside. We were living blissfully and playing all day, until the bombardment started slowly getting closer to our home. I still remember my youngest cousin would cry every time a missile hit near us. The whole house would shake and anyone who was asleep would jolt awake.
On the 8th day of the war, Israeli troops invaded the Gaza strip and initiated a ground offensive. That was when my father decided that it was too much, and he can no longer stay as his and his children’s lives were at stake. In the dead of night, my family packed whatever they could, and we fled to Egypt’s Sinai peninsula through the Rafah border crossing. We walked for miles in the cold desert night as we waited for a bus supplied by the Egyptian government to pick us up and safely deliver us to a place in which we can spend the night. We spent the night in a nearby town just on the opposite side of the border. Days passed before my father got in contact with a friend that lived in Cairo. He volunteered to take us in while we figured out our situation. As kids, it is easy to be distracted by the new scenes and places. We were distracted by Cairo’s bustling streets and overcrowded roads and quickly forgot the carnage that was taking place back home. We lived in my father’s friend’s apartment for a while. Considering how we were living back in Gaza; this tiny room was a 7-star hotel. With the sounds of bombs replaced by shouting merchants and car horns, my dad was able to contact my uncles that were living in the US. After what seemed like weeks of deliberate planning, my father was able to secure us refugee status to the US. I remember crying for hours on end as I embraced my cousins and left the apartment for the airport.
My journey to the US was far from easy. My flight from Cairo to Chicago was my first ever time boarding a plane. I still recall the feeling of my heart dropping as the plane started taking off. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived in Chicago. We were welcomed by a tall, white-haired man that looked kind of familiar. He had the eyes of my grandpa. After staring for a good minute, I figured out that it was my uncle. He welcomed me and my family and took us to his home from the airport. Both my uncles were living in the suburbs of Chicago, so they decided to pitch in and secure my family a small apartment while my dad was looking for a job. Life in the US was very different from Gaza, the buildings were way shorter, and everything was so spread out. Gaza’s tiny streets were replaced with wide and long highways able to accommodate multiple cars going both ways. After my family and I settled, I was sent off to elementary school. At that point, I had never been more lost in my life. I was in a brand-new environment where everyone spoke another language, and no one seemed to understand me. My cries of panic were soothed when the school finally decided to use an interpreter. The interpreter explained to me that I had to take intensive English Language courses in order for me to be able to learn anything. Safe to say my elementary school journey was very rough.
Fast forward a few years later, and I was in high school able to speak English fluently and having been made friends that speak my language and share my background. My high school years went fairly smoothly, and I had gotten used to life in the US. I graduated at the top of my class, and I decided to stay local and pursue an associate’s degree at Moraine Valley.
All throughout my primary and secondary schooling, I had never lost contact with my relatives back home in Gaza. I remember my cousins describing the sheer destruction that had befallen Gaza when they returned to from Egypt. But alas, every destroyed building had to be rebuilt. Soon life in Gaza was back to normal. I had always maintained close ties with my cousins, but due to my refugee status, I was never able to visit home. Whenever I feel home sick, I just watch drone footage of Gaza and try to envision myself living there among my cousins.
Life as a college student was awesome, I was able to create my own schedule and fit classes into the times that I wanted. I was able to finally break free of the vicious cycle of having the same classes every day like back in high school. I felt lost in the days as every single day was the same. College was way better, and every day felt unique as a new opportunity to get out there and explore the world! I definitely struggled during my freshman year as I was getting used to the college experience and the workload that was expected of me, but as my second year at Moraine started, I was locked in and ready for any challenge. Things were going well, and I quickly got into the mood to study and go to lectures. However it all came to a stop on the 7th of October, and it hasn’t gone back to normal since.
I woke up on the 7th of October with horrifying news that Hamas had launched another offensive into Israel. Having recalled the sheer destruction that struck Gaza back in 2008, I was horrified. I frantically tried to convince myself that Israel’s response wasn’t going to be as intense as it was when I was a kid. Unfortunately I was dead wrong. Israel absolutely pounded the tiny strip with explosives. As of a month into the war, Israel had dropped the equivalent of 2 Hiroshima bombs onto Gaza. I was absolutely appalled when I read the UN Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs' report stating that over 42% of all housing units in the Gaza strip were destroyed in the bombardment. In the early stages of the war, people called us human animals. They blamed us for what happened in southern Israel even though Hamas makes up a tiny minority of the 2.3 million Palestinians living in Gaza. I am constantly glued to my screen, refreshing my news apps and social media every couple of minutes. I am finding myself losing sleep as war is the only thing occupying my mind. I struggle to focus in class, as I battle with myself not to open my phone and check the news. I suddenly dropped all my passions and interests as the war was the only thing I was focusing on. A lot of people in my community felt the same. They felt that not enough was being done to help the people of Gaza. They were being massacred and western governments had the audacity to reject a ceasefire. On especially bloody days, I would lose my appetite and find myself just constantly staring at my screen. I have noticed that my grades are dropping but that is the least of my concerns right now. As I watch Israeli officials announce their plans, I struggle to understand their motives. They justified this act of aggression as their attempt at eradicating Hamas. However, Hamas is only there because Israel is not treating the root of the problem, which is the oppression of the Palestinians. As I said before, I absolutely condemn Hamas’ attacks on Israel, yet I fail to see them disappearing as long as Israel maintains the status quo. Hamas are only there because the Palestinians are constantly harassed and have been effectively under siege for the past 16 years. The people of Gaza are being collectively punished for the actions of Hamas, which represents a tiny minority. As long as the people of Gaza are under occupation and siege, a new Hamas will pop up if you eradicate the original Hamas.
As a Palestinian, and most importantly a human being, I urge western governments and especially the United States to stop their support for Israel and call for a ceasefire. Enough is enough, more than 10,000 Palestinians have already lost their lives. I hope we can reach an end to this conflict soon and put an end to this massacre of innocent lives.
It was a difficult process to figure out how to express our empathy, we didn't want to be offensive and hurt others in our project because we knew this would be a touchy subject. At first in order to fully have empathy toward another, there has to be an understanding and acknowledgment of what the other person is going through. Not everyone will have a full understanding or feeling of what the other person can be going through, but it is necessary that we try to understand. In order for us to try we need to have background knowledge of what is truly happening. We first had to do research on what was happening and the origin, so we looked around many articles and pages and informed ourselves about what had led up to the October 7th attacks that had our character, Omar, so worried.
We used an article about how Zionist Militias spread fear in the Palestinian population by TRT World. It showed how Militias like the Irgun and the Stern cleansed the land of any Palestinians in order to maintain a Jewish majority in the land that will become Israel (Sofuoglu, TRT World). We used this article to show that Omar's family were a target of these gangs which later caused them to flee their village. An article about the Deir Yassin Massacre talks about how Militias massacred the inhabitants of a village in Palestine called Deir Yassin (The Deir Yassin massacre, Al Jazeera). This article talks about the massacre and how it still affects the lives of Palestinians to this day. We used these articles to show how Omar's village suffered the same fate as the Deir Yassin village. Omar's village was attacked by Zionist militias and his fellow villagers were massacred in the most brutal of ways which caused his family to flee to Gaza on foot.
Omar's family would later become a part of the Palestinians that were displaced in the Nakba. An AL Jazeera article about the Nakba shows how over 750,000 Palestinians were forced to flee their homes and make way for the creation of the State of Israel (The Nakba, Al Jazeera). Omar's family left their village and fled to Gaza as refugees.
After decades of occupation and oppression, the people of Gaza resisted in the form of Hamas. Even though our character disagrees with the ways that Hamas employs, he is still thankful for the bit of freedom they offered the people of Gaza. Hamas kicked Israel out of Gaza which prompted Israel to enforce a land, sea, and air blockade (Israel war on Gaza, Middle East Monitor). In an attempt to resist this occupation and blockade, Hamas started launching rockets into Israeli territory. The 2008 Israeli assault on Gaza is what lead to Omar's family departing and fleeing Gaza. According to the Guardian, Israel launched the assault on Gaza due to the relentless amount of rockets fired into Israel from Gaza by Hamas (Israel war in Gaza, The Guardian). This war caused an unprecedented amount of destruction with over 100 bombs dropped just in the initial assault (Israel war on Gaza, Middle East Monitor). This war was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was the decisive moment in which our character's father decided that life in Gaza was too dangerous for his children and it was time to leave.
Omar's family settled in the US and he was well adjusted to life there. Just after his 1st year in college, the 2023 war on Gaza kicked off. This attack saw Hamas breaking out of Gaza and killing over 100 Israelis while injuring over 800 (Hamas Attack, Reuters) . We used an article from Reuters, a known unbiased source, to retrieve information about the October 7th 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel. Since the attack was so recent, and independent fact checkers were not deployed yet, we went for the source that is least biased in our opinion to inform us of this attack that launched this deadly war. Finally, we used an article by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs to show Israel's disproportionate response that totally decimated Gaza and rendered 42% of its houses destroyed. Israel's offensive left our character in shock, unable to eat, sleep, or work.
In learning this information we gained good knowledge about what has happened before the establishment of the state of Israel and how Gaza got to become how it is right now. This information gave us a good insight into what is happening and why Hamas decided to launch their attacks on the 7th of October. After we had knowledge of the background of this complicated conflict, we decided to go ahead and get started with our short story.
When we wrote this short story, we had aimed to humanize Palestinians that have been slandered in the media and called “Human animals” (Israel paints Palestinians as 'animals', Anadolu Agency). We wanted to show that Palestinians also had dreams, hopes and aspirations. When researching for this short story we mainly looked for facts and background knowledge in order for us to be able to create a more accurate and relatable story. We decided to have our character actually live in Gaza because that means that they can relate to the experiences of the people of Gaza right now. Our character is not a stranger to living under bombardment. The reason our character is deeply invested in this conflict is because not only will his hometown be destroyed but he also has family that might face their demise if this conflict goes on any longer. Our character has lived through what his family is living and that’s why he’s so concerned to the point that he’s unable to eat and is losing sleep.
We all know that most western media outlets were very quick to spread false information that was propagated by Israeli soldiers that’s why we tended to avoid sources like CNN and BBC. CNN spread the news of the "Beheaded Babies" even though it was just an unverified claim by an Israeli soldier. They later admitted that Israeli officials couldn't confirm this news (Israeli Officials Fail to Confirm Beheaded Babies, CNN). In many other cases these sources would have been credible, but this war has shown that these outlets are not trustworthy, and they tend to spread the news before making sure that it is true. We are very devastated that this war has taken the lives of that many people, therefore we had to exercise the utmost amount of caution when it came to actually creating this short story. We had to double check several times that we didn’t sound offensive or biased. It is very easy to get lost in personal bias, that’s why we tried our best not to take a side in this conflict. In such an emotional conflict it is very easy to get lost in the “which side are you on?” when thousands of people are literally being massacred. Overall, we tried our best to account for the experiences of a Palestinian student here at Moraine Valley and we hope that we were fair and unbiased.
Chance, Matthew, et al. “Israeli Official Says Government Cannot Confirm Babies Were Beheaded in Hamas Attack.” CNN, Cable News Network, 12 Oct. 2023, www.cnn.com/2023/10/12/middleeast/israel-hamas-beheading-claims-intl/index.html.
“Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #15.” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs , United Nations, 21 Oct. 2023, www.ochaopt.org/content/hostilities-gaza-strip-and-israel-flash-update-15#:~:text=At%20least%2042%20per%20cent,Ministry%20of%20Housing%20in%20Gaza.
McGreal, Chris. “Why Israel Went to War in Gaza.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 4 Jan. 2009, www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jan/04/israel-gaza-hamas-hidden-agenda.
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Sofuoglu, Murat. “A Lookback at the Zionist Terrorism That Led to Israel’s Creation.” Has Israel Been Based on Zionist Terrorism?, TRT WORLD, 10 Nov. 2023, www.trtworld.com/magazine/a-lookback-at-the-zionist-terrorism-that-led-to-israels-creation-15767166.
Stead, Rebecca. “Remembering Israel’s 2008 War on Gaza.” Middle East Monitor, Middle East Monitor, 27 Dec. 2018, www.middleeastmonitor.com/20181227-remembering-israels-2008-war-on-gaza/.
“The Deir Yassin Massacre: Why It Still Matters 75 Years Later.” Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 26 Apr. 2023, www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/9/the-deir-yassin-massacre-why-it-still-matters-75-years-later.
“The Nakba Did Not Start or End in 1948.” Al Jazeera, Al Jazeera, 23 May 2017, www.aljazeera.com/features/2017/5/23/the-nakba-did-not-start-or-end-in-1948.
Williams, Dan. “How the Hamas Attack on Israel Unfolded.” Reuters, Thomson Reuters, 7 Oct. 2023, www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-hamas-attack-israel-unfolded-2023-10-07/.