If it is true that everything happening around them constantly reminds the people of Gaza of their ongoing tragedies for more than two years, then it becomes almost unbearable when Gazans follow the events of an Egyptian drama series documenting the daily life, details, and stories of this tragedy. The hardest part is seeing the victims themselves represented on television screens in dozens of stories they lived and hundreds of details etched in memory, where the identification between the televised story and Gaza’s daily life is complete.

The feeling can best be described as eliminating the barrier between studio acting and reality.

Gazan viewers, like millions of other Arab audiences, follow Aṣḥāb al-Arḍ, which tells the story of their catastrophe after October 7, 2023, despite all warnings not to watch it — in order to avoid reliving the pain that has yet to heal, and to avoid seeing on screen the scenes they experienced in blood, rubble, and repeated displacement to nowhere and insecurity.

We watch the series after painstakingly downloading its episodes from the Internet, because who among us owns a television after having their home destroyed, moving between ten houses and seven tents?

A Tragedy for Every Generation

We have not received recovery sessions for the psychological disturbances caused by the traumas we lived, nor have we restored our well-being after chains of crises, yet we continue life itself, coexisting with rockets, shells, and drones that have become part of our daily lives.

This is not the first time Arab drama has documented the tragedy of Palestine. The series Al-Taghreebah Al-Filastiniyyah aired in 2004, much like our grandparents recounted the first displacement in 1948. I still remember the reactions of the Nakba generation — tears of the grandparents wiped with the edge of their robes, women covering their white veils to stifle their sobs. Many avoided finishing the series because it replayed the scenes of forced displacement etched in their memories, reminding new generations of their ancestors’ suffering and the loss of their homeland.

Similarly, the 2007 series Al-Ijtihāh depicted the siege of Jenin camp during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, when Israel re-occupied the West Bank. Today, Aṣḥāb al-Arḍ retells our second catastrophe in Gaza through realistic dramatizations based on true stories, while reminding us that the tragedy we experienced is beyond human imagination.

This is the narrative we have been shouting about for over two years, trying to convince the world, hoping to stop the aggression, end the crimes committed against us, and allow the reconstruction of our homes.

Salt on the Wounds

I took an intense dose from the series — three episodes enough to reach acute tension. Every frame leaks salt into the open wound, every scene makes me prey to memory, every event rewinds two years of loss, anguish, and grief.

The phone battery dies after watching three episodes, leaving me facing sleepless nights drenched in tears on coarse pillows, tossing on the displacement mattress I am still not accustomed to. Who can forget? Who forgives? Who reconciles?

“ Life is one, God is one; do you think there is a safe place in Gaza?

— Haj “Abu Rami,” character in Aṣḥāb al-Arḍ

I was among those who refused to evacuate south, echoing what Abu Rami said. We then faced the trials of anxiety, fear, hunger, lack of money and food, and dispersal.

My family, like the family of Nasser in the series and all Gaza families, was divided between north and south. I was deprived of seeing my father for fourteen months, and my mother, grandmother, and my brother’s family were besieged in the Rimal neighborhood. We remained about a month trapped in the north, unaware of our family’s situation, and were later shocked by the arrest of our uncles and the burning of our home.

Nasser’s question about Al-Jalaa Street — the main street of Gaza City, known to all its residents — was trivial to the Egyptian doctor, yet the war had changed the landscape, and a passerby’s reply reflected our reality: “You won’t be able to pass amid the clashes.” We were scattered at precisely the Al-Wahda intersection of Al-Jalaa Street, with my mother and grandmother’s car daring to pass through, while gunfire rained upon us and other displaced citizens for over an hour.

Snipers stationed on buildings treated people like target practice, shooting at heads and feet with no safe place to escape.

When Fiction and Memory Become One

I concealed the news of my grandfather’s martyrdom from my aunt in Egypt, despite her insistence, just as Dr. Salma hid the martyrdom of her grandson from Hajja ‘Ataf in the series.

Salma climbed the hospital roof to catch a signal. I would escape to the rooftop too, using solar panels as a shield against bullets while the army was present in the alley, just to reach a phone signal and reassure my family in the southern camps — their hearts aching for those left in the north.

I cried at the scene of Nasser’s neighbor being killed by a quadcopter’s bullets while trying to save the child Younes. No mercy existed in the soldier’s heart; every Gazan on the ground was an adversary, carrying the seed of rebellion that had to be crushed before it sprouted. The Gazan holds the soil in his hands, becoming a weapon, and its effect can only be removed by uprooting him.

In our alley, a sniper shot Ashraf, and his neighbor Ghassan rushed to retrieve his body, only to be killed by the same sniper. Their bodies were buried together in a temporary cemetery, later reburied in Al-Faluja Cemetery — whose graves the army later scattered.

I remained fully conscious, refusing to be swept into the burning debris beneath us. We clung to life, kicking back at the death that lurked, looking under the ruins of our building beneath the explosive barrels the army placed.

We did not speak afterward, only stunned, thinking of a place to shelter after losing our home, and how to escape the army’s presence from all sides. The result was simple: we did not leave the north to preserve our homes; the army decided to demolish them over our heads.

We managed to move to another area in Jabalia Camp, while other neighbors could not leave due to military vehicles on the streets. They appealed to the Red Cross and international institutions to secure their exit, but their pleas went unheard. The army later bombed their home, burying them under its ruins.

The Brutal Everyday

The series highlighted the daily struggles we all recognize: Gazans searching for safe places, being killed during displacement, hospitals and schools being bombed, casualties during struggles for flour, and the lack of water and medicine. In northern Gaza, we drank salty seawater and ate spoiled food and chicken feed.

Despite praise for the series’ accurate depiction, certain details revealed the unbridgeable gap between dramatization and reality. The Israeli army operates with overwhelming force, not quietly. Any attempt to move or act during their presence can cost lives. Drones and quadcopters hover over rooftops, tents, and checkpoints, scanning faces and shooting every moving target.

The success of this series lies in its subtle yet powerful messages that shook audiences — proving that the owner of the land is rooted in it, unshaken by winds or storms.