Writing for survival: Gaza author dares to hope against the odds

It started out small, very small, in a vacant lot next to her house in Al-Zawayda, a once sleepy, agricultural town not far from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. That’s where Palestinian author Safaa Al-Nabaheen decided to hold a workshop for children to help them build stories, dream, and let their imaginations soar above the death and destruction around them.

In early 2024, just months after Israel launched its latest war following the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, Gaza’s population was already on the move. The Israeli army had started issuing evacuation orders, sparking a process that would displace 1.9 million out of Gaza’s 2.2 million population by the end of the year.

Towns and cities in central and southern Gaza were starting to flood with refugees from the north, the death toll was rising and as despair spiralled with every bombardment, Nabaheen came up with an idea.

“As a writer and novelist, I could offer training workshops for children and adolescents on the art of short-story writing, teaching them how to channel their inner worlds through narrative,” said the 31-year-old Palestinian author.

But when she started to put her plan into action, she had a revelation. “In my first session with them, I discovered that some of them had aged 20 years,” she recounted. “When I asked a child about his childhood or his dreams, his only answer was that his concern today was filling water containers, gathering firewood for his mother to cook whatever food was left, and praying it wouldn’t rain so their tents wouldn't drown.”

Not one to give up, Nabaheen persevered with her programme – and gradually, the kids started to respond. “It was a very simple beginning; our gatherings cost nothing more than my voice, some ideas for entertainment, and inventing new games for them. It was a very small tent at the edge of the land, where children sat on mats with a mountain of hope in their hearts,” she explained.

More than a year later, Nabaheen is confronting her own “mountain”, but it’s of despair, not hope. On October 13, 2025, President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire at a summit in Egypt attended by leaders from around 30 countries. Against a banner proclaiming, “Peace in the Middle East”, the US president signed “The Trump Declaration for Enduring Peace and Prosperity” and called it “a tremendous day for peace in the Middle East”.

Last month, US special envoy Steve Witkoff announced the start of the second phase of the ceasefire deal. But while emergency supplies have kept famine at bay in Gaza, the death toll from Israeli fire keeps mounting. Earlier this week, the Gaza health ministry said 586 Palestinians were killed since the start of the ceasefire, bringing the war’s cumulative toll to more than 72,000.

For Nabaheen, the ceasefire has changed nothing. “It is a lie. In reality, the war has not stopped. It has only stopped in the media to quiet public opinion,” she maintained. “The [Israeli] strikes continue. We are living in an unprecedented state of chaos. There has been a slight breakthrough regarding food and water, but the general situation remains dire.”

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Israel still does not allow foreign journalists independent access into Gaza. Communication with the outside world remains a challenge with frequent internet cuts. FRANCE 24’s interviews with Nabaheen were conducted via emails, messages and calls. During one interview on a messaging app, a massive blast went off seemingly close to her bedroom. Nabaheen flinched momentarily, looked toward the window and insisted on continuing.

The drive to get her story – and herself – out of Gaza keeps her going these days. But with every mountain of hardship, river of loss and valley of despair, the journey just keeps getting harder. From bombardments to bureaucracy, the challenges have at times seemed insurmountable. Through it all, she has kept working – and writing for survival.

Expanding networks outside, a loss at home

From a “simple” start in early 2024, Nabaheen’s workshops, which she called The Creative Refuge Project, began to grow, attracting more children as Gaza’s schools remained close.

“In the beginning, the sessions focused on psychological support and recreation. Then, I began integrating them into the world of dreams – teaching them how to express everything they feel through writing. I started implementing small activities, such as performing a radio news broadcast, a short theatrical play, reading folk stories that inspire expression, or forming a choir for our old Palestinian songs. I then started announcing my small camp via Facebook,” she said.

As the project grew, Nabaheen started looking for sponsors and applying for international funding. She was managing the project alone and needed help, which was difficult to secure since the war was at its peak.

Then tragedy struck her family.

Her brother, Mohammed, was killed on July 13, 2024, in an Israeli drone strike while collecting wood outdoors.

“Losing my brother was not easy,” said Nabaheen, using an understatement to keep her emotions in check. “I tried to keep myself busy at the time, doing my university studies despite the impossible circumstances, via the internet – which was rarely available.”

Horror from the sea

After halting The Creative Refuge Project for six months following Mohammed’s death, things started picking up again. The Goethe-Institut, a German NGO, had expressed interest in funding her little programme, and Nabaheen was busy doing the paperwork to make it happen.

By September 2024, the carnage in Gaza was unfolding at a ferocious pace, with the death toll surging past 40,000. Daily headlines noted Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, Gaza City, Rafah, Deir al-Balah, Mawasi, Jabaliya … names of cities, towns and camps that would become familiar to international audiences.

But the outside world back then was still unaware of the extent of Israel’s use of quadcopters and drones to spy and kill in every corner of the besieged enclave. Gazans though did not have that luxury.

On September 15, 2024, the horror came home from the sea for Nabaheen.

That night, her second brother, Saeb, had gone fishing. A father of three young children, Saeb had ignored the family’s warning that “the sea is dangerous”.

The UN would confirm their prognosis the next year, when a report noted that Israel’s “systematic” attacks had killed 200 civilian fishers as of December 2024. They were targeted “generally without warning, while fishing using paddling boats posing no discernible threats” to the Israeli Naval Forces, the UN concluded.

Despite the family’s pleas, Saeb took to “the dangerous sea” in a desperate bid to provide for his kids as the economic situation deteriorated, prices soared and food stocks plummeted.

While he was fishing, an Israeli quadcopter spotted and pursued Saeb, explained his sister. “It chased him in the water, and as he tried to swim away, it fired bullets everywhere into his body. He tried to flee,” she said, adding that the quadcopter continued to follow Saeb as he ran to the shore and then headed towards a main street. “People were shouting to him that his death was inevitable and to recite the Shahada [the Islamic creed], as they saw his blood gushing from every part of him. Then, another aircraft pursued him and targeted his head with a projectile. He fell to the ground, stained with the sand of the sea … he once told me, "I am a son of the sea; if I leave it, I die,”… yet the sea did not care for him,” she said sadly.

Warm tent in ‘beautiful colours’

The day Saeb died also happened to be the day that Nabaheen signed a contract with the Goethe-Institut for her workshop project – and it was during her university final exams.

“Despite the impossible situation, I was determined to complete both my studies and my project simultaneously. Five days later, I went to work at the camp. I built a large tent decorated with the most beautiful colours and pictures. With the funding, I had some resources, so I prepared a warm tent that embraced them all,” she recounted.

There were 50 children, aged eight to 15, in the project. With her new funding, Nabaheen enlarged the programmes, adding theatre rehearsals and stagings. “In truth, I was suffering from the pangs of loss as one suffers labour pains … I had no choice but to immerse myself in them and my studies,” she confessed.

The project lasted three months, with meetings three days a week. On the final day, “we all collapsed in tears,” she said. “There I was, falling apart and weeping just like them. The project used to occupy me completely.”

By that time, most of the kids in her workshop started returning to their homes in northern Gaza. Without projects to plan, organise and occupy her days, Nabaheen once again turned to writing.

Her first novel in Arabic was published in 2021 and received an award in Lebanon before the war. She took up writing again, working on her second novel, “The Mystery of the Forgotten Girl”, also in Arabic, with a mission: to “intentionally” avoid writing about the war “because I wasn't ready to face the bitter reality”.

She has since written her third novel, “Disowned”, which was published in Egypt and recently showcased at the Cairo International Book Fair. A collection of poems, “When Ash Blossoms”, followed, and she has finished her fourth novel, “Letters Not Yet Delivered”.

Admitted in the West, blocked in Gaza

Writing has long been a coping mechanism and resilience booster for Nabaheen. The difficulty, for the young Palestinian writer though, are the forces beyond her control.

For the past few months, Nabaheen has been trying to leave Gaza to pursue a life of the mind, free of the terrors of everyday life in the besieged enclave. But the process has trapped her in a cycle of hope followed by crashing bureaucratic despair.

An Italian university forwarded her application for a writer’s residency to a foundation. But then she received no response. An international fund for artists and cultural actors at risk supported her “incredibly”. But during the final selection, “they rejected me the moment they realised I was from Gaza,” Nabaheen recounted.

She managed to get a conditional admission into a UK university for the next semester, but the conditions included funding and tests, which in turn require a visa. A writing fellowship at a US university came through, once again with help from a few US-based writers. But the process is going nowhere since the US government does not evacuate Palestinians.

On February 2, the Rafah crossing partially opened under the US-brokered ceasefire deal to chaotic scenes. Around 20,000 Gazans need urgent medical treatment abroad, but on the first day, Israel allowed just five patients to leave. Earlier this week, Ali Shaath, head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, which is charged with overseeing day-to-day affairs in Gaza, told Egyptian media that the situation at Rafah was starting to improve.

While emergency medical patients struggle to make it out, Gazans who have admission into Western schools and institutions, are painfully aware that they are not on the priority list. As deadlines for the next semester loom, they are watching seats and scholarships slip away.    

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For Nabaheen, it’s been a heartbreaking process. “I cannot find the words to describe the scale of injustice and frustration I am enduring,” she said helplessly. After spending years working with Gaza’s children to help them dream of a future beyond the pressing worries of survival, her own lessons are proving to be a challenge.

But she is not one to give up. “I’m not losing hope. I will never lose hope, actually,” she said. “I knows that there are so many people stuck in so many difficult places like Gaza. I’ll keep going on. Writing is my way to go forward.”