In Gaza, no privacy, no peace: this is what our lives look like a year after the ‘ceasefire’ | Akram al-Sourani

I look at myself and my neighbours queueing for water, and dream of a lost normality. We are now strangers even to ourselves

Every morning, I look at myself and my neighbours standing in the queue for water, and remember how each of us once had a life of our own, our privacy, our own toothbrush, our own home and our own bathroom. How we used to wash our faces and drink clean water without ever imagining that a day would come when these simple routines would become a battle with ourselves and with every drop of water. Even standing beneath a hot shower has become a dream postponed until further notice.

A year has passed since the announcement of the “ceasefire” in Gaza, yet the spectre of war, bombardment and death has never left our lives.

Akram Al-Sourani is a writer and poet from Gaza City, and the author of A Homeland Out of Coverage, Half-Baked Homeland and What’s That