I lost my link to the outside world as Israel continues to bomb us in Gaza.
Ahmed Al-Najjar writes about the day his phone stopped working, and why that means so much more than it seems..
Khan Younes, Gaza – A dear companion doesn’t have to be human to be deeply missed when lost.
Sometimes, it’s a phone – a loyal witness to your joys and sorrows, your moments of sweetness and darkest chapters of pain.
in the harshness of life in the world’s largest open-air prison, it becomes more than a device. It’s an extension of yourself; your portal to the world, your way of reaching loved ones scattered across the prison or outside it.
Through its lens, you sometimes capture joy and beauty, but more often, it only captures falling rockets or the rubble of houses covering the corpses of their residents.
But what are you left with when that loyal companion is disappeared by the genocidal chaos?
My phone succumbed to its injuries.
I can’t believe I’m describing it this way, with the same phrase I use when reporting on thousands of my people killed after being denied urgent medical treatment, punished simply for surviving Israeli bombs.
But in its own way, my phone endured its share of this prolonged Israeli cruelty, the technocide of power-starvation, corrosion by dust and sand, suffocation in overheated tents, and the constant torment of poor connection.
It tried to hold on, but everyone has a limit of endurance. It fell the day we left our damaged home for our 14th displacement amid chaotic stampeding crowds.