Echoes of past sorrows
Mahmud Hams/AFP via Getty Images
Thurs., Nov. 9, 2023: Palestinians families fleeing Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza towards the southern areas, walk along a highway.
Giselle sent the following messages on May 22, 2025.
The echoes of past sorrows still resonate profoundly in our present, as if we're caught in a ceaseless temporal eddy. The indelible scene of that first exodus replayed today in every agonizing detail. The merciless shelling, the ground-shaking roar of tanks, the cries of terror filling the air—all transport us back to those dreadful moments. Aircraft circle above, unleashing indiscriminate fire, making no distinction between child and elder, choosing victims only to bestow upon them eternal death.
Hunger has become a cruel companion on this bitter journey; our hollowed guts never knew its taste as they do in this war. The loaf of bread, once a fundamental part of our lives, has become a distant, unreachable dream. Each passing day confirms that the past has not departed; instead, it has returned to embody itself before our eyes in a more savage and cruel form—the image of the harsh reality we now endure. It is an unending struggle, a life destined to be a fusion of suffering and death.
From Gaza 🍉
Giselle🦌
Snatched lines from the past, rewrite themselves anew,
A timeless vortex, where suffering bleeds through.
Past, present, future – a trinity of pain,
I recall our first exodus, now it's played again.
Beneath bombs and tanks, fires rage and ignite,
Planes encircle us, raining down their blight.
My brother weeps in fear, screams pierce the air,
And death silences others, ending their despair.
A bullet from a plane, or a missile's grim choice,
Which stomach to sate, silencing its voice?
Hollowed guts, that knew no hunger's sting,
Till this war descended, its bitter taste to bring.
A loaf of bread, a forgotten, vanished sight,
Oh, what a life of anguish, swallowed by the night.
The past hasn't changed; it reshapes before my gaze,
A beast more hideous, crueler in these harrowing days, now called the present haze.
From Gaza 🍉
Giselle🦌