861: Group Chat

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Speaker 1 A quick warning, there are curse words that are un-beeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.

Speaker 3 From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Hannah Jaffe Walt, sitting in for Ira Glass.

Speaker 3 Family Group Chat, created May 19th, 2023. Two years ago.
Before.

Speaker 3 Yusuf Hamash. Send this link to Acile, Salsabil, and Hebba so they can enter the group.
Manal, Manal, we are all gathered together. What a blessing.
Heart emoji. I don't have Hassan or Ahmed.

Speaker 3 Yusuf must add them. I sent the link above, you idiots, so you can send it to them.
Yusuf reshares link. Send them the link.
I sent it. Manal, we want to go out tomorrow, to the beach.

Speaker 3 Okay, why is the group called the shitty family? Yeah. Who's the son of a gun who names a group? Laughing emoji.
Please, isn't this Yusuf's doing? It's Yusuf. I did it for your sake, sister.

Speaker 3 God bless you, Pride of the Arabs.

Speaker 3 Manal wants to invite us to the beach, Hadil. I want to take you to the beach.
When? We're thinking either tomorrow or Monday. I will let my children go, but what day? We're thinking Monday.

Speaker 3 We need a watermelon. That's the most important thing.
You're making conditions as well? The watermelon is more important than you. I'm being mocked.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, whoever wants to go with us, like this message. I will set up a time later.
Where? To the beach. But what day? Tomorrow, Clownface.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, who started this group chat for his family, he's been on our show before, Yusuf Hamash. He was a humanitarian aid worker in Gaza, grew up there, lived there his whole life.

Speaker 3 He started this group chat with his family months before the war, before October 7th, when Hamas attacked southern Israel.

Speaker 3 After that, Yusuf became responsible for moving his whole family, his four sisters, their extended families, from one place to another, trying to escape Israel's bombing.

Speaker 3 After six months of displacement and near-death experiences, and worrying for his children, Yusuf did something he thought he'd never do. He left Gaza.
This was last spring.

Speaker 3 He went with his wife, mother, and his kids to Egypt. His sisters decided to stay behind.
And since that time, almost no one has been able to leave Gaza.

Speaker 3 That was a little more than a year ago. The group chat is still going.

Speaker 3 What are they talking about in the WhatsApp group?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I don't know. Daily life, complaining or making fun, sending, I don't know.
Sometimes it's jokes, sometimes they're crying. It depends.
Voice, text, photos, everything.

Speaker 4 Just like, this is like the refuge for them where they go. And more of the sisters are talking, and my mother, and we just observe.

Speaker 3 We, meaning the people who are outside Gaza now: Yusuf, his wife, his kids, and his mom.

Speaker 3 Inside Gaza, the sisters make plans, talk about who they ran into that day, share pictures of their kids, of bombings. They send voice memos to each other to share news and cheer each other up.

Speaker 7 Hadil, my sister, is feeling down.

Speaker 7 Come, Ya Hadil, let's go out. Let's go somewhere.
I'm buying. I have Ahmed's money.

Speaker 7 My sister is feeling low, so let's do something fun.

Speaker 3 In a year plus, since Yusuf has left, the sisters have all moved again. They're not all together anymore, and they keep moving.

Speaker 3 They've survived airstrikes, illnesses, months with no food at all coming in. And they keep checking in here in the chat.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, the problem solver in the family, the don't worry, I'll take care of it guy, guy, he keeps trying to figure out how to solve the same problems over and over.

Speaker 3 When his sister Acile texts, if I clean, I get dizzy. If I cook, I get dizzy.
There's no edible food. It's worse than you can imagine.
Yusuf replies, buy anything.

Speaker 3 Acile, don't worry about me, love. All is okay.

Speaker 3 Then, they go back and forth. Acile, one kilo of rice is 35.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, no problem, I'll pay. A seal, a kilo of flour is 50.
Yusuf, whatever the price. A seal, the issue is not the price, it's the cash.
Yusuf, I don't know what one can do.

Speaker 3 A seal, the situation has become very bad. Yusuf, the problem is I can't do anything.

Speaker 4 Even your money doesn't help you.

Speaker 3 You can't find food even if you have money. Exactly.

Speaker 4 If it's available, it's very, very expensive. But mostly, they cannot find it.

Speaker 3 What's it like for you to talk to a CO?

Speaker 4 Yeah, I was talking to her today, but it's just actually, I feel useless. Her daughter is crying, which is a year old, crying because there is no bread, there's nothing she can feed her.

Speaker 4 Even all what I can do being outsider now, all what I can do is send money or just... secure money, but it's not enough anymore.

Speaker 3 Yusuf spent the first six months of the war experiencing everything his family is experiencing, together. And when he left, it felt inconceivable that it could go on this way, this much longer.

Speaker 3 But it has. His phone keeps getting new messages, and he keeps reassuring and responding and arranging and trying to provide comfort.

Speaker 3 And then, these last few weeks, being unable anymore, even with all his skills and connections, to get money, cash, into his sister's hands, hearing how their children are not eating, something changed for Yusuf.

Speaker 3 He felt literally dumbstruck.

Speaker 4 Even words are not helpful anymore because they are finished. I used all the words, and

Speaker 4 I think if I need to start to find other languages, but I keep it like, hopefully, it's going to be fine. It's going to be a matter of days.

Speaker 4 Hopefully, you know, all what I can do is just to be supportive.

Speaker 3 Do you still say those things?

Speaker 4 It's useless anymore.

Speaker 4 Even saying them became like something stupid. Like, I don't know what to say, to be honest.

Speaker 4 Okay, in Arabic language, we have hasbi alone ya mama al waqil, okay, we're really on the guard against them. All these words became useless.

Speaker 4 Even these words that we were using all of our life to calm each other

Speaker 4 became meaningless because even using it became unfair. It's really painful when you communicate with anyone from Gaza.
It's really, really painful.

Speaker 3 Does it make you want to avoid it?

Speaker 4 100%.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 4 Otherwise I won't stay saint. I will lose my mind.

Speaker 3 Leaving Gaza made Yusuf the newest member of a well-established club. There are about 5 million Palestinians living inside the West Bank in Gaza.

Speaker 3 And the rest, about 9 million Palestinians, live all over the world. People who are trying to maintain family and connections across countries and time zones and bad cell connections.

Speaker 3 Today's show is about those conversations inside one family and between friends, colleagues. Yusuf's family agreed to share all the messages they sent back and forth to each other over years.

Speaker 3 We got them translated.

Speaker 3 All the late night musings and updates and petty resentments and serious resentments and jokes and plans and fears, intimate moments where you can see how these conversations and relationships change over time.

Speaker 3 How do you keep being a family? And we hear from other people on the outside and others inside, figuring out what to say and what to keep secret. Stay with us.

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Speaker 3 It's this American Life, Act One. I'm fine.
Don't worry.

Speaker 3 Within any family, there's the group chat and there's the side chat. The person Yusuf is always checking in with most is his youngest sister in Gaza, Acele.

Speaker 3 June 2024, Yusuf to Acele. Yo, my sister, please confirm you're well.
Aceil, I feel like I haven't seen you since the last century.

Speaker 3 The thing Yusuf says more than anything else in these chats is, please confirm you're well. The thing Aceil says most, I'm fine, don't worry.

Speaker 3 Yusuf says Acile is the one in the family who's the most like him. Practical, can-do, unfazed, also stubborn.
Acile is 10 years younger than Yusuf. She's a nurse.

Speaker 3 She wants to know things and do things.

Speaker 10 She's young, but she's expert. Usually Acile is the most.
Between my sister,

Speaker 10 I look to Acile as the most

Speaker 11 wise.

Speaker 3 She looks to him the same way. She trusts him.
When Acile was trying to figure out the safest place to give birth to her first child in a war zone, The person she planned it out with was Yusuf.

Speaker 3 When she needs advice on anything, Yusuf.

Speaker 3 In the beginning of their WhatsApp chat after he left Gaza, you can see Yusuf trying to set the terms of their new situation. His point over and over, the important things have not changed.

Speaker 3 I'll call every day, anything you need. I'm here.
Yusuf, if you want anything, whatever it is, do not hesitate. Acile jokes, after all, everything is cheap.
Yusuf, live and spend.

Speaker 3 Acile, my dear brother, I swear I want nothing but to see you. I swear I don't need anything.
Yusuf, this is my duty, my sister. Just take care of yourself.

Speaker 3 Acile responds with a voice memo, her and her baby, Sila.

Speaker 3 24 hours later, Yusuf, seemingly concerned that he didn't get his point across, across, writes, the most important thing is that you do not lack anything. Buy whatever you want.

Speaker 3 Relationships shift all the time, sometimes suddenly. But the long, slow changes, they can be just as dramatic.
Yusuf and Aciel lived within walking distance their whole lives.

Speaker 3 They saw each other in person all the time. They shared life, a landscape.

Speaker 3 And right away, within a week of leaving Gaza, Yusuf realized how much information he gathered just by being there, seeing Acile face to face, seeing what she needed.

Speaker 3 When he wasn't there, he understood, oh, Aseal isn't great at asking for things.

Speaker 12 It's something I really like about her, how decent she is, and she will never ask anything. But at the same time, I'm not there to understand the needs anymore.

Speaker 12 And whenever I sister Kobe, she lost her phone and she's like, okay, buy me a phone, send it to anyone to talk.

Speaker 3 Yeah, okay,

Speaker 12 I'll do it. And he would never do that.
And that's my issue with her.

Speaker 3 So every time Aceil says, I'm fine, Yusuf has to guess what he can do to help.

Speaker 3 Four months after he left Gaza, Yusuf was reading and hearing about bombing. Increasingly, the bombing was where she was living.
The other sisters were moving.

Speaker 3 Yusuf figured Aciel would too, and made a plan for her to move to a safer area called Al-Mawasi, just like he always did. He would pay for it, of course.
Yusuf to Acele.

Speaker 3 There's a furnished apartment in this project, $1,000 per month. A seal, oh my god, it's a lot.
I don't know if the war will go on longer or not. The amount of money is a lot.
Yusuf, call her.

Speaker 3 You will love it.

Speaker 3 The next day. Yusuf, have you seen the apartment? It's a good place.
Acele. It's forbidden to be extravagant.
I didn't go, no.

Speaker 3 Four hours later. A seal, it's really nice, honestly, but it's expensive.
Yusuf, is it a suitable place? Double question mark. Acile, I'm fine now.
If there's an evacuation, I will leave.

Speaker 3 She did not move to the apartment.

Speaker 3 Money was becoming an issue between them in a new way.

Speaker 3 Yusuf had always supported a lot of people in the family, but after he left Gaza, he started doing it through Azile.

Speaker 3 She'd tell Yusuf, who among their family and friends in Gaza, needed help. Here's how much.
Here's a list. He'd coordinate with her to get the money to them.

Speaker 3 A seal to Yusuf, everyone thinks I'm the finance ministry. Yusuf, let them think that.

Speaker 3 This meant now Asil knew how much money Yusuf was giving out, how many people he was supporting in Gaza, not to mention trying to find a place for his family on the outside.

Speaker 3 A seal didn't want to add to the burden. A seal, don't worry about me, love.
You're going to have travel expenses and expenses that will destroy even mountains.

Speaker 3 Don't send me money until you guys get settled and organize your matters. Yusuf, don't worry.
Your brother is strong as a whale.

Speaker 3 As the months passed, Acile continued to lean on Yusuf for some things, but she also, quietly, started trying to manage more things on her own.

Speaker 3 In August, a few months after Yusuf left, Azil's baby was suffering from a terrible rash. She couldn't figure out how to treat it.
She couldn't find the cream she needed.

Speaker 3 Acile sent me pictures to see if I had any ideas, but she didn't tell Yusuf, even though Yusuf knows all sorts of medical people in Gaza.

Speaker 7 No, but it's just one thing that I'm hiding.

Speaker 7 Now, there's a new disease that has spread, targeting children, which is

Speaker 7 I don't know, an allergy. It's a skin rush or something like that.

Speaker 7 So I don't know how to treat her.

Speaker 7 And every time I use something it spreads even more.

Speaker 3 Why wouldn't you tell him about the skin problem?

Speaker 7 Because he would be upset.

Speaker 7 In reality, they're not here, so he won't know what to do.

Speaker 7 He'll feel like it's his dereliction or of duty.

Speaker 7 Like he could have done something.

Speaker 7 I don't want him to feel that way.

Speaker 3 But couldn't Yusuf help you get access to the medicine?

Speaker 7 that's a good idea. Yes, but

Speaker 7 he'll send his friends to look.

Speaker 7 In reality, I looked a lot and I couldn't find anything, so I don't know what the solution is.

Speaker 7 I don't want them to be worried over there. Because I can solve this.
As long as I can solve this, there's no need to let them worry and no need to tell them.

Speaker 3 Keeping things from each other, this became a bigger part of their relationship. Yusuf was traveling around, Egypt, England, trying to get asylum somewhere in the world.

Speaker 3 He told Acile about some of it, and he edited out stuff that would be too sharp a contrast to Acile's life.

Speaker 3 He'd share a selfie from the train, but he would not tell her about taking the kids to see the pyramids, the Nile.

Speaker 3 He'd gleefully tell her he's near where David Beckham lives, but he wouldn't mention the restaurant he went to that day.

Speaker 3 Acile knew he was keeping stuff from her, and in the text, she's constantly nudging him to send her pictures and updates.

Speaker 3 And when he does share something, she responds quickly with hearts and says things like, I am happy just seeing your pictures. It's amazing, bro.

Speaker 3 Yusuf sends a picture of himself on a bike in London. Acile, wow, Smiley Face.
It's amazing. And an athlete, Smiley Face, Heart.

Speaker 3 Another time, a selfie of Yusuf in Cairo. Acile, advice for you, Smiley Face, Heart.
This haircut looks good on you.

Speaker 3 Asele had pushed Yusuf to leave Gaza.

Speaker 3 She considered going with him, but the cost was enormous, more than Yusuf could cover, and she didn't want to leave her in-laws and extended family behind in Gaza.

Speaker 3 She's genuinely very happy for Yusuf, but there's also a new, unfamiliar feeling.

Speaker 7 Whenever something happens that upsets me, I blame him for not being here.

Speaker 7 I don't say that to him, but internally I blame him.

Speaker 7 You were not supposed to leave. You were supposed to stay here.

Speaker 7 It's like a psychological war between me and myself.

Speaker 3 Yusuf knows it without her saying it, because he feels it too.

Speaker 4 I should have tried more at least.

Speaker 3 How often are you thinking about that, Yusuf?

Speaker 4 Whenever I have a call with any any of them.

Speaker 3 Every time you talk to them?

Speaker 4 Whenever something happened, the first thing that came to my head, I should have taken everyone.

Speaker 3 One of the reasons Aziel didn't leave Gaza with Yusuf is she thought the war would end soon. Another reason, she wanted to go home.
to the north where her house is in Jabalia.

Speaker 3 She wanted to raise her daughter at home. She thought about it every day.
She was waiting and waiting for the Israeli military to allow residents of the north to return.

Speaker 3 These months and months of text messages really convey just how long she was stuck. You can see Aciel getting ground down over time.
There's no electricity, no clean water. She keeps getting sick.

Speaker 3 There's bombings and drones and just uncertainty, endless uncertainty.

Speaker 3 September 2024, Aciel.

Speaker 3 Oh by God, we are tired. I wish I had listened to you and gone with you.
October, Acele. Officially, I swear to God that I cannot bear the situation at all.
November, Acile, Sila has malnutrition.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, oh my God, what did the doctor tell you? Acile, she told me she has malnutrition and she's very underweight and needs vitamins. I don't know what to feed her.

Speaker 3 I didn't feed her canned food because I was afraid she'd get sick. Today is the first time I regret giving birth.
Yusuf, may God help you, sister.

Speaker 3 January 2025, voice memo from Aceil to the group chat.

Speaker 11 Happy New Year.

Speaker 7 Oh, I forgot to say, happy new year.

Speaker 7 I hope that next year, no, no, this year.

Speaker 7 Yes, this year we see you all. I hope you'll be looking forward to seeing us and we'll be looking forward to seeing you.
And

Speaker 7 Happy New Year. That's it.

Speaker 3 Then, January 15th, some news. Hamash family group chat.
Acile. The president of Qatar wants to announce a ceasefire soon.
Oh God.

Speaker 3 Get excited, guys. The war is over.
It's a truce. It's a truce.
It's over. Oh, God, a truce.
Thank God.

Speaker 3 The moment Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire last January, Azil began planning her return to the north, to her house. It was time.
The thing she'd she'd been waiting for.

Speaker 3 But Yusuf was against it. Yusuf to Esile,

Speaker 3 In my opinion, sister, you should stay where you are. It's early, my sister, and I hear strange things in the north.
Acile, but I'm tired. How long will we continue like this?

Speaker 3 Yusuf, one by one, everything will be solved. Acile, but man, the house is important.

Speaker 3 Yusuf, leave it to me. The word just stopped yesterday.
Their other sisters were fine to wait and see, but Esil kept pressing to go north.

Speaker 3 Yusuf had access to satellite images, and his assessment was, if Esil went north, she'd find that she had no house anymore.

Speaker 16 I don't think any house in that area is still standing. I'm trying not to be negative with everyone's like, no, everything is live, but I know it's not there.

Speaker 3 So you know for sure.

Speaker 16 The area where they live, it's not far from Kamal Edwan Hospital in the northern part of Gaza. And then recently, this military campaign was mainly in that area.

Speaker 16 On all of that area was living. And honestly, for the northern part of Gaza, where I am from, and all my relatives, it's impossible that any house is still standing there.

Speaker 3 Yusuf and Esil's texts about this went on for weeks. Their back and forth reads: like, Yusuf is still that older brother who's in control.

Speaker 3 But one of the things Esil is not telling him, she and her husband, Ahmed have already begun moving their things north.

Speaker 3 Yusuf thinks he's still in a position to grant permission. Aciel tells him, it's already done.

Speaker 3 Yusuf to Acile, you can go for two days and try it, but try not to move your things. A seal.
Ahmed transferred 90% of them. Smiley face.
She was already there.

Speaker 7 I came back because I know I belong to this place. I wanted to come back.
I want to fix up my place and live in it. I want to have my inner calm back.

Speaker 3 Is there anything there?

Speaker 7 The house was blown out, and there were no walls.

Speaker 7 There were only the support pillars, the ceiling, and the floors. That's what was left.
So I had to make a wall out of tarp. I covered the entire house with tarp, and I'm trying to adopt.

Speaker 3 What is around you? Are there buildings and is there anything there?

Speaker 7 I still have a bit of a roof over my head, but my neighbors next door set up a tent on top of the rubble of their house. And it's the same with the neighbors all the way down the street.

Speaker 7 Those whose houses are still standing, they fixed them and they live in them now. Others set up tents on the rubble of their homes.

Speaker 3 What did Yusuf think of you moving back to Jabalia?

Speaker 7 Yusuf didn't know I was moving back. He only knew I was coming to check on the place and belongings and then go back south.
But then I moved back and let him deal with my decision.

Speaker 7 I shocked him with that. He didn't approve of me going back north.

Speaker 3 Okay.

Speaker 3 And what did he say when he found out you were staying?

Speaker 7 He told me to wait a bit, take more time, be careful with my decision, and blah, blah, blah. I told him, no,

Speaker 7 I'm going to stay for a bit. I feel that I belong to this place and I need to stay here.

Speaker 3 Yusuf saw that Asil was not alone in this decision. As soon as people were allowed back, 376,000 Palestinians returned to their homes in the north.

Speaker 3 And they returned to places with no roads or schools or hospitals or clean water and to homes that were damaged and destroyed. But they still went back.

Speaker 3 After weeks of pushing back, Yusuf got it. It was was easy to urge patients from the outside, but it was hard in the south, where they'd been forced to live for more than a year.

Speaker 3 Towns in the south were overwhelmed by displaced people from the north. There was tension between people from the north and south.
There was months and months of displacement.

Speaker 3 People were tired, degraded. It was better to be in a tent where your home was than in a tent in Rafah or Khan Yunas.

Speaker 3 Now that she was home, Asil began trying to live, not just survive. Her husband, Ahmed, set up a solar panel and started a phone charging station, a small business.

Speaker 3 Aciel found a job with an NGO doing data entry. Yusuf hadn't wanted her to work.
He thought going outside was unsafe. But Acile wanted to have money of her own.

Speaker 3 Yusuf told me, despite his objections, he was proud seeing what Azil had created.

Speaker 3 For two months, the ceasefire held.

Speaker 3 March 18th, Hamash family group chat. The war is back.
Damn.

Speaker 3 God is sufficient for me and He is the best disposer of affairs. 2.39 a.m., Yusuf writes.
Call Acile. I can't get through.
Seven hours later, Ale. I'm fine.
Don't worry.

Speaker 3 Now that she was back north and the war was back on, All the little ways Acile had been gathering herself over the last year, making her own decisions, working for her own money, relying mostly on herself, became essential for her survival.

Speaker 3 It's like she anticipated a time when, even with love and support from the outside, she was going to need to be entirely self-sufficient. That time was now.

Speaker 3 When Israel violated the ceasefire in March, it launched one of the deadliest days of the war. 400 people killed in a single day.
In the north, and also throughout the Gaza Strip.

Speaker 3 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, This is only the beginning. Israel barred all food, aid, and any other supplies from coming into the territory.

Speaker 3 A complete ban that would end up lasting more than two months.

Speaker 3 What are you eating?

Speaker 7 What's available is rice,

Speaker 7 lentils,

Speaker 7 tuna,

Speaker 7 sardines, and other canned food.

Speaker 7 I ran out of flour a while ago.

Speaker 7 The flour in the market was not good for consumption because it was mixed with plaster by the sellers. May God guide them.

Speaker 7 There's a bombed house next to us, and there was flour under the rubble.

Speaker 3 You you dug through the rubble of your neighbor's house?

Speaker 7 Yes, that's correct.

Speaker 7 We were confident there was flour, because our neighbor told us there was flour flour in his home. He also told us that if we could get it, we should eat it.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 7 We collaborated with the neighbors and got it out.

Speaker 7 I don't know if you can imagine it, but it used to be a five-story building and now it's only half a story.

Speaker 7 The whole situation was like a drowning person who's clutching at a straw. We all hoped that we could get the flour out.

Speaker 7 They didn't get all of it out.

Speaker 7 I think they got about two bags, and everyone ended up with a small bag.

Speaker 7 We took some of the flour and sifted it twice and ate it.

Speaker 7 There was sand and plaster in it, but we made it work.

Speaker 3 The flour lasted two days. A seal stopped working.
She tried not to go out more than she needed to.

Speaker 3 There were evacuation orders for areas in the north in April, again in May, but also orders in the south and some in the middle area of Gaza, and threats of a new Israeli ground invasion in the north and bombs.

Speaker 3 A Sil was coming back from visiting an injured relative in the hospital. She was almost home, and there was an explosion right where the car was going to drop her off.
This was two weeks ago.

Speaker 7 I couldn't understand what was happening. I didn't know where to go.
Suddenly, children appeared and they were covered in blood. People were running, carrying martyrs.

Speaker 7 It was very bizarre, to be honest.

Speaker 7 They were carrying the martyr on a donkey cart, but there was no donkey. People were pulling it.

Speaker 7 And I said to myself, look at what we've become. What brought us to this life?

Speaker 7 I don't want to evacuate. I don't want to leave.
I feel comfortable where I am, and if I left, I'd be anxious all the time.

Speaker 7 It's better for me to stay stay in my house and maintain my dignity. And that's it.

Speaker 3 How long will you stay there?

Speaker 7 I don't want to leave, but if they bombed somewhere near me, that's when I would leave.

Speaker 3 Didn't that happen today?

Speaker 3 They bombed somewhere close to where you are.

Speaker 7 I meant something closer. Today's bombing was close, but there was still a street between us.

Speaker 3 So, they would have to bomb the street you are living on for you to leave.

Speaker 7 No, God forbid. No, no.

Speaker 3 Are your sisters or Yusuf or other people trying to convince you to leave?

Speaker 7 Yes, he wasn't convinced, but I'm doing what I want.

Speaker 7 What's in the news is not like what's on the ground. They exaggerate in the news.
I tell them the situation where I live still allows me to wait a bit longer in my house.

Speaker 7 They should listen to me and be patient.

Speaker 3 Did you tell Yusuf you were going? Will you tell him about what happened today?

Speaker 13 Not yet.

Speaker 7 Not yet. I will tell him.
He'd be pretty mad, most probably.

Speaker 7 He won't be happy that I got out during this dangerous situation. He would tell me to not leave home in the first place or to go stay with my sisters.

Speaker 7 I've been telling him since yesterday that the situation where I am is good.

Speaker 3 You can see in the chat when Aciel does tell him. And she's right.
He pleads with her to leave, to go to her sisters, who are sheltering in Gaza City. But she doesn't want to leave.

Speaker 3 In her home, she managed to collect bedding, some furniture, a small generator, toys for the baby, the beginnings of something livable. If they leave, everything could be gone when they get back.

Speaker 3 And Acile tells Yusuf, nowhere is safe.

Speaker 3 May 15th, 2.25 p.m. Acile, I'm fine, my love.
Don't worry. Yusuf, God is sufficient for us, and he is the best disposer of affairs, my sister.
By midnight that night, more bombs.

Speaker 3 Hamash family group chat. Can someone check on Acile? Banal, Yusuf is talking to her.

Speaker 11 Yeah, no, I don't know. She was refusing to leave yesterday and then became night.
Then, okay, it wasn't safe to move. So I said, okay, let's see until tomorrow.

Speaker 11 Then

Speaker 11 in the night, everything changed.

Speaker 3 1.39 a.m. Yusuf, please confirm you're well.
Acile, thank God for everything.

Speaker 11 We were chatting, texting each other.

Speaker 3 1.59 a.m. Yusuf, may God keep you safe, my dear.
Acile, thank God, I'm fine. Don't worry.

Speaker 11 Last message at 2 a.m.

Speaker 11 Inshallah, everything's fine, and we'll meet soon. Just like, you know, changing nice messages.
Then at 3.15,

Speaker 11 she texts me, I cannot breathe, I cannot see anything, and she's in this video.

Speaker 3 In the video, the camera is pointed at what looks like a pile of rubble, but it's hard to see because it's dark and they're surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris.

Speaker 3 In the upper corner of the video, there's a piece of drywall, maybe a fallen ceiling. Acile is saying, I can't see a thing, calling for her husband, Ahmed.

Speaker 3 Someone says, Ahmed is there, he's there. Acile says, I hope they don't bomb again.

Speaker 3 Ahmed!

Speaker 18 Ahmed Rod, you're my

Speaker 4 murderer.

Speaker 3 And then

Speaker 11 I panic and it kept calling, no phone calls, waking up Hiban, Hadil, trying to call there or call Allah so we can call her husband.

Speaker 11 She's texted three

Speaker 11 eighteen AM

Speaker 11 they bombed the house next to my house. It's full of dead bodies.
Most of the house collapsed, everything collapsed on us.

Speaker 11 Pray for us. And she asked, Pray for us that this night

Speaker 11 pass.

Speaker 11 And then she didn't respond. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I got messages from a sale that night, too. She wrote, I hope to stay alive until the morning.
This is the hardest night since the beginning of the war. I'm so scared.

Speaker 3 And she wrote, I feel like I won't meet my family again.

Speaker 3 Did she sound different to you than she has sounded at other scary moments?

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 11 It's not the first time that they go through this. They go through it a lot and she never reaches out.
When she knows that nothing I can do, I'm outside, especially at 3 a.m.

Speaker 11 That's quite serious. She always tried to spare me.

Speaker 11 It was serious. She's not just scared.

Speaker 11 She was about to die.

Speaker 3 It took 11 hours before he heard anything. His other sister, Hebba, finally got through to a seal.
They'd survived. Hebba was hiring an ambulance to try to get a seal out.
She wasn't injured.

Speaker 3 It was just the only way the family could figure out how to get to her.

Speaker 3 She's moving to Gaza City?

Speaker 11 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 11 One second.

Speaker 11 So my sister, Heba, sticks to me now, saying that

Speaker 11 it was very hard to send the ambulance,

Speaker 11 and he just agreed.

Speaker 3 Hamash family group chat. Yusuf to the group.
A seal has arrived at the girl's house. Are you asking or telling? Yusuf.
I'm telling you, upside-down face. Thank God she's safe.
Thank God.

Speaker 3 May God keep them safe and well, God willing.

Speaker 3 And then 5:51 p.m., Acile shows back up in the chat. A seal, I'm fine, guys, but I'm devastated.

Speaker 3 I got a text too. I'm fine, she said, but my psyche is broken.
A seal has not gone back since.

Speaker 3 19 months is a long time. Long enough to move four times, to create a home out of nothing, to start a new business.
Long enough for Acile to be pregnant, to deliver her first baby.

Speaker 3 and for that baby to learn to roll over, crawl, and walk.

Speaker 3 Long enough to feel certain that this cannot possibly go on any longer.

Speaker 3 The day after this terrible night, Acile sent me one more text. I'm pregnant.
I don't know if I should be worried or upset or happy. I don't know what to feel.

Speaker 3 When Acile and Yusuf shared their messages, I started reading from the beginning and didn't stop for hours and hours until I was finished, hundreds of pages and photos and videos later.

Speaker 3 After I was done, I kept scrolling back up to the beginning, to how the story starts, two years ago. A family planning a day at the beach.

Speaker 3 Make a cinnamon roll, Hebba, and arrange it here. Hebba, I'm scared you'll ruin the cinnamon roll.
You're good at baking cake. Bake a cake.
Hadil's cinnamon roll is tasty.

Speaker 3 I'll make a cake and you won't eat it. Who told you we won't eat it? Okay, I'll make you a cake.
Acile, do you want to bring the nuts? Bring the seeds and nuts. Acile, shall I make you a crepe? No.

Speaker 3 Acile, shall I make you some pastries? Come on, Acile. Manal and I will work with you.
Do you know how to make a cinnamon roll?

Speaker 3 It felt like a shock being in the presence of a family in this way. in the banality of a moment.
I understood. Oh,

Speaker 3 this is what this family was. This is what was destroyed.

Speaker 3 Coming up, a refresher. How many pounds are in a kilo again? 2.2 pounds.
And other memorable measurements. That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

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Speaker 3 It's this American Life. I'm Ghana Jaffi Walt sitting in for Ira Glass.
Today's show, Group Chat. We're hearing from Palestinians living outside the West Bank and Gaza, checking in with people there.

Speaker 3 We've arrived at Act 2 of our program, Act 2, Week 11.

Speaker 3 Mohamed Mahawish left Gaza a year ago, around the same time as Yusuf, just before the border closed.

Speaker 3 Mohamed's a reporter, he's lived in Gaza his whole life, and he spent the last year since he left continuing to report and talk to people back home.

Speaker 3 Some are people he knows, others he finds through his reporting. He's been trying to document each phase of the current war.

Speaker 3 Last fall, the messages and voice memos Mohamed was getting from people in Gaza were about evacuations, or about people figuring out where to move to be safe.

Speaker 3 In November and December, the messages were about the cold. Winter was coming.
Now, they've turned to food.

Speaker 3 Israel has imposed restrictions on food and supplies entering Gaza throughout the war. In March, they began a total blockade.
No food was allowed in for 11 weeks.

Speaker 3 Israel said it was to pressure Hamas to release hostages.

Speaker 3 Now, just this week, Israel is allowing a trickle of food, but it's doing so through a brand new privately run system that's backed by Israel and the U.S.

Speaker 3 This new system now has only three food distribution sites running. There used to be hundreds.
A UN official has said the new system, quote, cannot possibly meet Gaza's needs.

Speaker 3 The upshot, as of the moment I'm saying this, is there's still not enough food inside Gaza, especially in the north. Mohammed has been talking to people there.
Here he is.

Speaker 2 A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from my friend, Abdel Hakeem Abu Rayas. He's in Gaza, in the north.
He said, I can't explain the pain in my stomach, in my bones, in my head.

Speaker 2 I knew exactly what he meant. Right before I left Gaza a year ago, I was in the north of the strip.
There was a blockade then as well. No food or supplies.

Speaker 2 My son and I were both diagnosed with acute malnutrition.

Speaker 2 Now, it's not just the north. All of Gaza is hungry.
When I call people there now, all I hear are stories of hunger, the quiet and desperate tricks that people have come up with to survive.

Speaker 2 A father living in my old neighborhood, a darage, told me his family of five shared a single Snickers bar for lunch. We slice it like cake, he said.
We make it a moment.

Speaker 2 I talked to a son in charge of searching for food for his whole family, who told me, We boil herbs to trick our bodies into thinking we're full.

Speaker 2 We feed the children first, then wait to see if there is anything left. Most nights, there isn't.

Speaker 2 Now, I'm talking a lot to another person in the north, Hodess Cake.

Speaker 2 She's 20 years old. A few months ago, she messaged me out of the blue.
She said she wanted to be a journalist, asked me for advice on how to pitch to news outlets.

Speaker 2 These days, I message her for updates. I called her on week 11 of the blockade, week 11 of no food going into Gaza.
We don't just talk about food. She has ambitions.

Speaker 2 I asked which journalists from Gaza she'd been reading lately.

Speaker 19 So I read for

Speaker 19 Hindul Khudari, her reports, and also I read for Ahmed Lidrimdi. If you know him, of course, you know him.

Speaker 21 So you're not reading my work.

Speaker 17 Okay, thank you.

Speaker 5 Of course, no, I swear

Speaker 19 I read for you. Sorry.

Speaker 19 I wrote some vocabularies and I will send you some photos after finishing this interview to show you that I'm reading for you.

Speaker 2 She did.

Speaker 2 Huda is a very serious student. She's studying English literature online through the Islamic University of Gaza.
First in her class, she told me studying brings her peace.

Speaker 2 It was night time in Gaza when we talked, nine hours since she'd last eaten.

Speaker 19 And I bought a bottle of water here next to me. Every time I feel like hungry, I drink some and then I feel like, oh, I'm full.

Speaker 19 And I'm intending to drink a lot of water in the coming days in order to stay alive. This is the only way my stomach will be full a little bit.
This is how I make myself patient with hungry.

Speaker 2 It's exam time right now. Huda has been putting her headphones on and studying late into the night.
I was astonished by Huda's ability to stay focused. Nighttime is terrifying in Gaza.

Speaker 2 All we could hear was explosions and the sound of drones getting closer. But Huda just studies through it.

Speaker 19 So, when all of my siblings and my parents fell in asleep, I study.

Speaker 14 So,

Speaker 19 when I get hungry sometimes at night, you know what I do? I go to the kitchen and I eat a spoon of zahtar. So, we have a drawer of zaatar, okay.

Speaker 19 So, in order to not make my mom notice that I am eating from it, I go to the kitchen.

Speaker 17 So, you speak abide in silence so that no one

Speaker 19 exactly.

Speaker 19 Thank God that my parents don't know English, okay?

Speaker 19 And sometimes I feel like I am guilty because it's for my siblings in the morning. Oh my god,

Speaker 19 but I want to satisfy my hunger, and I'm studying, and I want to focus.

Speaker 19 And then I, after eating those two spoons, I drink like one or two cups of water

Speaker 19 in order to feel like I had a dinner. You know, I yearn for eating summit cheese.

Speaker 2 Before the war, Huda was the kind of person who liked to take pictures of what she was eating, especially when she made it. These days, when she gets hungry, she scrolls through those pictures.

Speaker 2 She said it helps her feel full just looking at them. She told me about a photo of Macluba from 2022.
A screenshot of a burger ad.

Speaker 2 She told me she zooms in and pretends she's picking the crispy bits off the chicken.

Speaker 21 I wanted to to um have an idea if you've ever been to the market lately

Speaker 21 and what kinds of things that are still being sold?

Speaker 19 Okay, so most of the market shelves are

Speaker 19 really scarce and are empty. You can see some canned food or even lentils,

Speaker 19 rice, soup, pasta. These are the items that are currently available, but in a very, very, very

Speaker 19 expensive prices.

Speaker 2 Like almost $11 for a candy bar.

Speaker 2 A year ago, prices were high, but not this high.

Speaker 2 People still had stored food. There were still some farms.
The market I used to shop at still had stock.

Speaker 21 There was snacks and there was green leaves, some vegetables,

Speaker 18 some green vegetables.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 19 That are not available now.

Speaker 19 I hope they were available so I can make myself busy with them while studying.

Speaker 21 There was also some coffee. There was also some

Speaker 21 tea, there was some sugar that we would use sometimes.

Speaker 21 Like with we could we can sweeten some water with sugar and we can drink it, so it could have some sort of a feeling of a sweet thing that could be enough for the body to feel full at some point somehow.

Speaker 18 Sugar,

Speaker 21 is it available? How much does it cost to get one kilo of sugar?

Speaker 19 Let me ask my brother, how does it cost?

Speaker 19 $30.

Speaker 17 $30 for one kilo.

Speaker 14 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 A kilo is a little over two pounds. Before the war, a kilo of sugar cost about 25 cents, 30 cents on the high end.

Speaker 2 When I was still in Gaza, a kilo of sugar was already outrageous, $16.

Speaker 2 And it was already hard to find. Now there is almost nothing.

Speaker 2 Farmland has been wiped out. Greenhouses turned to ash.
It's not just the food that's gone. There is no fuel to cook what little might be left.
Rice, lentils. There is no fuel to even boil water.

Speaker 21 There isn't any burning wood around you, right?

Speaker 19 Yeah, there is no wood right now.

Speaker 19 We sometimes bought some plastics, you know, or nylon or whatever we find, you know, in the street in order to fuel the fire

Speaker 2 yeah

Speaker 19 when i study i have my uh notebooks which are really close to my heart and i can't uh let them uh burn

Speaker 19 yeah yeah

Speaker 19 but um i have another papers

Speaker 19 these are for my mom when she burn uh when she burns the the for the

Speaker 17 cooks yeah

Speaker 19 we burn some of my of our clothes.

Speaker 19 And it's something like you, when we burn these things, you know, I feel like we are burning some of our memories,

Speaker 19 a huge number, a huge amount of our memories.

Speaker 19 I dreamed of my

Speaker 19 cousin that was killed in the first beginning of the war just two days ago, she was telling me that she was missing me and that she wants me to eat some food.

Speaker 19 She tells me that she feels like I am hungry.

Speaker 19 She was cooking for me something that I love, which is the basta in a very in a very delicious way. She made it in the dream.
And then

Speaker 19 when I woke up, I felt like I am full. I felt like

Speaker 19 I don't want to eat, you know, it's really something

Speaker 19 indescribable. And I felt so sad when I saw her.

Speaker 17 I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for your loss.
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 19 Yeah,

Speaker 19 I started telling my friends that pray to have a dream like this, you know?

Speaker 19 It's really so bad. Oh, my God.

Speaker 2 I remember the way hunger settled into my body, not just as pain, but as a kind of silence.

Speaker 2 When I stood up, the room spun.

Speaker 2 My mouth tasted like metal. My limbs felt heavy, like I was wading through water.
I stopped feeling hunger as a craving. It became something else.

Speaker 2 A slow shutting down.

Speaker 19 I have never ever expected to reach to such a level, to seek food, to think of food, to only

Speaker 19 just want to, I just want to eat food. And I feel like people are going, are going insane.
We could lose our minds if we didn't have food immediately.

Speaker 2 When I first talked to Huda, I could tell she was ambitious. She talked about wanting to be a teacher.
She dreamt of getting her master's degree abroad.

Speaker 2 But just before we talked, she had started to rethink that plan because she doesn't want to leave Gaza behind.

Speaker 19 The Israelis are trying to erase all the traces of Palestinians and uprooted them, and they are trying to put the idea of

Speaker 19 traveling and to get out of Gaza, but we will not. We will always stay in our home.

Speaker 19 And sometimes I feel like, how does the wall outside Gaza feel?

Speaker 19 How is the walls, you know,

Speaker 19 behind the Terrafah crossing?

Speaker 19 Like, how did you feel when you get on a plane?

Speaker 19 Can you tell me?

Speaker 2 I was surprised by Huda's question, and I had trouble answering it. It slammed me back to the moment as I was crossing into Egypt.
No drones, no sounds of war.

Speaker 2 People were just living, only 30 minutes away from Gaza, sipping sodas, grilling on the street, kids heading to school, others coming back from college.

Speaker 2 The world outside Gaza, it's an overwhelming mix of things. My mouth isn't capable of what it wants to speak.

Speaker 2 I think it's good for us to be in other parts of the the world to share what is happening back home. But to do that, I had to leave everything behind, knowing I may never go back.

Speaker 2 My home is out of reach.

Speaker 2 This is kind of breaking my heart.

Speaker 2 Huda texted me after our call and surprised me with another question.

Speaker 2 She asked what I had for breakfast.

Speaker 2 I lied.

Speaker 2 I said coffee and toast.

Speaker 2 These two things are still available somewhere in Gaza.

Speaker 2 I did not tell her I had one egg, a cookie, and a cup of tea.

Speaker 3 Mohamed Mahawish is a journalist and writer from Gaza. Diane Wu produced this story.
You can find more of Mohamed's reporting reporting in Al Jazeera and MSNBC.

Speaker 3 He's also a contributing writer for The Nation, which is where we first read about his experiences with hunger. Hoda's access to food has not changed since Muhammad spoke with her two weeks ago.

Speaker 3 One last thing before we end today's show. Almost every day, someone asks me about a kid we put on the show six months ago, Banyas.

Speaker 3 She's in Gaza. The thing people always want to know: how is she doing?

Speaker 3 This is a question I find very difficult to answer. But here we go.
I'm going to try.

Speaker 3 Banyas is still in central Gaza, where she's been displaced from the north. She turned nine during the ceasefire in January.
She's living in an apartment with a yard.

Speaker 3 There are long stretches when she can't go outside, when it's not safe enough. When she can go out, there are kids nearby she plays with.
She draws. She pretends to be a naturalist.

Speaker 3 Banyasse loves bugs. She does remote school for a few hours each week.
She's skinnier. Banyas' family has far more resources than most people in Gaza.

Speaker 3 But still, her parents spend most of the day trying to find food lately, or waiting in lines to access an oven where they can cook bread if they have flour. Most days, they don't.

Speaker 3 They eat lentils and rice or lentils and pasta. They're running out of canned food.
Her mom told me on a good day, they'll also share one fried potato for the family of four.

Speaker 3 How is Banyas doing? Should be a really simple question.

Speaker 3 Banyasse is wonderful. She's charming, endlessly curious and energetic, and bursting with things to say.
She's very funny. And Banyas is still incredibly good at creating her own reality.

Speaker 22 I'm so happy today. I'm really, really, really, really happy.

Speaker 3 Yeah, why?

Speaker 22 The kids are playing in the backyard and I'm sitting here in the balcony.

Speaker 19 There is our clothes.

Speaker 22 Sometimes

Speaker 22 it was loud bumping around us. That's sometimes.

Speaker 22 Oh, here's one.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I just heard it.

Speaker 22 It's not close of us. This is a lemon tree.

Speaker 22 I want to show show you an olive tree we like to climb. This olive tree is so easy to climb.
I just stepped. Oh, I was about to fall.

Speaker 22 Okay, I'll switch the camera to show you.

Speaker 22 I'll hold the phone tightly and use.

Speaker 3 You're climbing the tree right now.

Speaker 22 And

Speaker 22 I'm climbing. Look, this is the olive tree.
And

Speaker 22 I'm here. I'm here.

Speaker 22 Here am I.

Speaker 22 Woohoo!

Speaker 22 I'm the king of the garden.

Speaker 22 I'm the queen of the garden.

Speaker 3 Oh, Benyes, is it safe there?

Speaker 22 It is,

Speaker 22 don't worry about us. But there's some shooting around us.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I can hear it.

Speaker 22 So

Speaker 22 don't go to high places. I'll just get down.
Yeah, maybe come down so I doesn't get to it.

Speaker 19 Holy hook.

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 3 Maybe you should go back inside.

Speaker 22 No, it's okay.

Speaker 19 It's far away from us.

Speaker 3 It sounds close.

Speaker 22 If you're scared,

Speaker 22 we can go inside.

Speaker 3 Yeah, why don't we go inside?

Speaker 22 You don't, you want to go inside? Yeah. All right, let's go.

Speaker 3 That's how Banyas is doing, fiercely protecting and inventing a childhood for herself.

Speaker 3 A childhood that is constrained in every way by shooting and bombing, by a lack of nutrition, education, and safety.

Speaker 3 That's how she's doing.

Speaker 5 Oh, person,

Speaker 5 person, we're really missing you.

Speaker 23 It breaks all of our hearts to know that you just want to come on home.

Speaker 5 So we call on home the telephone. And it just doesn't seem to do

Speaker 23 to let you know how much it's true that we love you.

Speaker 5 Yeah, we love you.

Speaker 5 Oh, person,

Speaker 5 person,

Speaker 5 person.

Speaker 5 Oh, person,

Speaker 5 person,

Speaker 5 person.

Speaker 3 Our show today was produced by Lily Sullivan. Nancy Updyke edited the show.

Speaker 3 The people who put our show together include Michael Comete, Angela Gervasi, Ira Glass, Cassie Howley, Valerie Kipnis, Seth Lind, Miki Meek, Catherine Raimondo, Stone Nelson, Nadia Raymond, Anthony Roman, Alyssa Schipp, Christopher Swatala, and Marisa Robertson-Texter.

Speaker 3 Our managing editor is Sarah Abdurrahman. Our senior editor is David Kestenbaum.
Emmanuel Berry is our executive editor.

Speaker 3 Special thanks today to Hanny Huwasle, Laura Elbust, Rania Mustafa, Dana Balut, Rachel Strom, Emnaj Gahal, Lizzie Ratner, and Suzanne Gabber.

Speaker 3 Thanks also to KCRW in Los Angeles, where I've been recording this week and have had help from Katie Gilchrist, Phil Richards, Mike Stark, and Mike Newport.

Speaker 3 Voiceover for Acile in Act 1 was performed by Tara Aboud. Our website, thisamericanlife.org.
If you become a This American Life partner, you'll get bonus content, ad-free listening, and more.

Speaker 3 To join, go to thisamericanlife.org slash life partners. That link is also in the show notes.
This American Life is delivered to public radio stations by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange.

Speaker 3 I'm Hannah Jaffewalt. Ira Gloss will be back next week with more stories of This American Life.

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