I used to view everyone outside of Gaza as the happiest people in the world. I used to tell my family that if I ever got out, I would finally be happy. I used to tell my best friend that my education, my future, and the lifestyle I dreamed of were waiting for me abroad. I believed that leaving would mean freedom, and that freedom would mean happiness. I held onto that hope for two years of genocide.
Then, last December, I left.
An opportunity to study in Italy through a scholarship program, Italian Universities for Palestinian Students (IUPALS), was my way out, a ticket to finally escape the reality of home. Before the genocide, I had completed my first year at the Islamic University of Gaza, fulfilling my dream of studying English literature. The war took that dream away from me, utterly demolishing educational institutions in Gaza. Amid the genocide, I had spent two years applying abroad, hoping, waiting, and failing. I would be accepted for scholarships, only to be turned away from the closed border.
But last December, IUPALS—which has since shuttered operations—arranged a humanitarian corridor to help me evacuate Gaza. For the first time in two years, getting out was no longer just in my imagination.
Finally, the day arrived. The night before I left, I prepared my evacuation outfit and slept in my parents’ bed with them. In the morning, I walked through my home and took a deep look at every corner, so it would never be erased from my memory. I asked my youngest brothers, Ahmed and Yamen, for as many hugs as they would give me.
Even now, tears fall as I remember that day. In the kitchen, my family whispered to each other that they had to be happy for me, not sad. They had to let me leave. Over coffee with my mom and dad, I told them we could talk about anything, as long as we didn’t talk about my evacuation. I asked for one last tour around my destroyed neighborhood. I told my sister to take care of my mother.
My mom prepared my favorite dish and my last home-cooked meal: Msalfan, chicken with rice and vegetables. My eight family members and I dined together. I watched their faces as I ate. Somewhere inside me, I kept asking myself: Why did I make this difficult decision without thinking about them? How could I leave them behind?
My father, determined to stay with me until the very last moment, rushed me to the evacuation point in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip. At 6:30 p.m., it was time to depart. I was ready to leave, but not ready to say goodbye.
All I took with me: my broken phone, my identity documents, and two hundred dollars. My father had calmed me down and told me that I had to chase my future, no matter how hard it was. He reminded me that I was leaving to study, to build a future, to survive.
But there was something none of us fully understood that day: sometimes, getting to chase your future means carrying the weight of everything you had to leave behind.
I thought I’d feel relieved once I arrived safely in Italy. But this never happened. Instead, evacuation taught me that being safe is a different thing from feeling safe.
For those two years in Gaza, I forgot about my mental health. My mind was occupied with more immediate matters: How would we find a meal? How would we get enough water? How would we survive the siege? How could we sleep when bombs are falling?
I was displaced many times and lived in a tent for months. There was no space to cry, let alone think.
Now abroad, I finally have the space to pour out all the grief I had been carrying for years. But alongside this frustrating mental health crisis is the expectation for me to study, adapt to a new country, master a new language, and somehow keep moving forward while carrying all this pain.
I walk through Siena, Italy, and think about how to work more, study harder, speak Italian, eat well, change apartments, pay the bills, be kind, keep going, and then video call my family in Gaza with a smile on my face. I do everything alone and feel lonely. Three months ago, I decided to start therapy. I needed to heal because I no longer knew how to carry this burden on my shoulders. “You are living in a survival mode, Sara,” my therapist told me.
Therapy has helped me understand that these feelings do not make me ungrateful. My therapist told me, “You are living a life much bigger than you.”
Hearing those words, I began to understand that perhaps I had been expecting myself to carry more than any twenty-two-year-old should have to carry. I expected myself to immediately live a normal life in Italy.
I did not know that normalcy itself would become one of the hardest parts of being here.
Everyday sights seemed strange to me. All of a sudden I could see families gathering around dinner tables, students studying for exams, a father out for ice cream with his daughter. It reminded me of how life used to be for me, too: walks with my own father, eating my favorite foods, turning on the lights.
All the ordinary things I once dreamed of became reminders of the ordinary life I had lost.
I do not have a guaranteed way to return to Gaza. I do not know when I will see my family again. So I am building my life from scratch here in Italy, and carrying the old pain with me while trying to create a good and peaceful life.
My grief doesn’t mean I’m ungrateful. I am absolutely grateful to God, my parents, Italy, the University of Siena, and everyone who has helped me reach safety.
Although my mental health has improved, I don’t know if I’ve really healed or simply adapted to the pain of surviving genocide. I am learning that healing does not mean forgetting my family or forgetting Gaza. I don’t want my healing to cost me a separation from their reality. I want to carry both realities within me. I want to breathe freely here without forgetting those in Gaza. I want to study, write, laugh, and build a future without feeling that I am betraying the people and place I love.