The Unbearable Pain of Leaving Gaza
JVL Introduction
If you have watched Electronic Intifada’s Livestream reporting, you will be familiar with Abubaker Abed whose own Substack notes that he is “an accidental war correspondent from…Gaza. He was thrown into an active warzone to report on the genocide. He’s a football journalist and commentator.” Throughout the pummeling of Gaza, he has made powerful contributions to telling the world the reality of life in Gaza; of the hell and of the resilience. He says: “Israel never wanted us to feel joy in Gaza but, somehow, we found the will to defy this….our people are resilient. This is also why I refuse to abandon my smile. It is my quiet act of rebellion.”
He left Gaza on 15th April and did not want to go until his mother told him, “If you stay, you’ll harm your family because they will bomb you with us and your brothers will be hurt. You should leave.”
In this moving and heartbreaking account of leaving the home and people he knew, leaving danger , hunger and lack of essential medicine, arriving to safety, food, the medicine he needed and an education, there lies a devastating glimpse into the hardships and also the privilege we have just to have access to decent water and food.
Please note there are several of Abubaker Abed’s own photographs of his journey in the original article.
LL
This article was originally published by Drop Site News Substack on Mon 12 May 2025. Read the original here.
The Unbearable Pain of Leaving Gaza
Journalist Abubaker Abed never wanted to leave his homeland. He describes the excruciating decisions he was forced to make.
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I just love this young man: his courage, his hope, his resilience, his smile of resistance and his steadfastness. On Press TV, The Electronic Intifada and on Twitter, he has done so much to provide a voice from the darkest period of human history: the genocide in Palestine. He described himself as a football fanatic and sports journalist, forced to become a war reporter. I cannot begin to imagine how it feels for him, to experience in Eire, how the Western media projects its propaganda and dehumanises his kin in Gaza. I wish him well, and hope his health improves soon, so that he will continue to tell his story, and that we may all be inspired to speak up. God bless Abu.