Conversations across a divide: Palestinians who are outside Gaza check in with family, friends, and strangers inside. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: The Hammash family’s group chat unfolds over texts, starting before the war. (8 minutes)Act One: When Yousef Hammash left Gaza a year ago, his sisters decided to stay behind. We hear about the toll that separation has taken on Yousef and the sister he’s closest to, Aseel. (30 minutes)Act Two: Mohammed Mhawish, a reporter who left Gaza a year ago with his family, talks to a young woman in Gaza about how she manages her hunger. Israel blockaded all food from Gaza for more than two months. (15 minutes)Coda: Chana gives a short update about Banias, a 9-year-old girl in Gaza she's been speaking with for months. (4 minutes)Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.orgThis American Life privacy policy.Learn more about sponsor message choices.
Chapter 1: What is the warning about in the episode?
A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbeaped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org.
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Hannah Jaffe-Walt, sitting in for Ira Glass. Family Group Chat, created May 19, 2023. Two years ago. Before. Yusuf Hamash, send this link to Asil, Salsabil, and Heba so they can enter the group. Manal, we are all gathered together. What a blessing. Heart emoji. I don't have Hassan or Ahmed. Yusuf must add them.
I sent the link above, you idiots, so you can send it to them. Yusuf reshares link. Send them the link. I sent it. Manal, we want to go out tomorrow, to the beach. Okay, why is the group called the Shitty Family? Yeah, who's the son of a gun who names a group? Laughing emoji. Please, isn't this Yusuf's doing? It's Yusuf. I did it for your sake, sister. God bless you. Pride of the Arabs.
Manal wants to invite us to the beach, Hadil. I want to take you to the beach. When? We're thinking either tomorrow or Monday. I will let my children go, but what day? We're thinking Monday. We need a watermelon. That's the most important thing. You're making conditions as well? The watermelon is more important than you. I'm being mocked. Yusuf, whoever wants to go with us, like this message.
I will set up a time later. Where? To the beach. But what day? Tomorrow, clown face. Yusuf, who started this group chat for his family, he's been on our show before, Yusuf Hamash. He was a humanitarian aid worker in Gaza, grew up there, lived there his whole life. He started this group chat with his family months before the war, before October 7th, when Hamas attacked southern Israel.
After that, Yusuf became responsible for moving his whole family, his four sisters, their extended families, from one place to another, trying to escape Israel's bombing. After six months of displacement and near-death experiences and worrying for his children, Yusuf did something he thought he'd never do. He left Gaza. This was last spring. He went with his wife, mother, and his kids to Egypt.
His sisters decided to stay behind. And since that time, almost no one has been able to leave Gaza. That was a little more than a year ago. The group chat is still going. What are they talking about in the WhatsApp group?
I don't know. Daily life, complaining or making fun, sending, I don't know. Sometimes it's jokes, sometimes they're crying. It depends. Voice, text, photos, everything. This is like the refuge for them where they go. More of the sisters are talking and my mother and we just observe.
We, meaning the people who are outside Gaza now. Yusuf, his wife, his kids and his mom. Inside Gaza, the sisters make plans, talk about who they ran into that day, share pictures of their kids, of bombings. They send voice memos to each other to share news and cheer each other up.
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Chapter 2: Who is Yusuf Hammash and what is his role?
In a year plus since Yusuf has left, the sisters have all moved again. They're not all together anymore. And they keep moving. They've survived airstrikes, illnesses, months with no food at all coming in. And they keep checking in here in the chat.
Yusuf, the problem solver in the family, the don't worry, I'll take care of it guy, he keeps trying to figure out how to solve the same problems over and over. When his sister Aseel texts, if I clean, I get dizzy. If I cook, I get dizzy. There's no edible food. It's worse than you can imagine. Yusuf replies, buy anything. Aseel, don't worry about me, love. All is okay.
Then they go back and forth. Asil, one kilo of rice is 35. Yusuf, no problem, I'll pay. Asil, a kilo of flour is 50. Yusuf, whatever the price. Asil, the issue is not the price, it's the cash. Yusuf, I don't know what one can do. Asil, the situation has become very bad. Yusuf, the problem is I can't do anything.
Even your money doesn't help you.
You can't find food even if you have money.
Exactly. If it's available, it's very, very expensive. But mostly, you cannot find it.
What's it like for you to talk to a SEAL?
Yeah, I was talking to her today, but it's just actually, I feel useless. Her daughter is crying, which is a year old, crying because there is no bread. There is nothing she can feed her. Even all what I can do being an outsider now, all what I can do is send money or just secure money, but it's not enough anymore.
Yusuf spent the first six months of the war experiencing everything his family is experiencing, together. And when he left, it felt inconceivable that it could go on this way, this much longer. But it has. His phone keeps getting new messages, and he keeps reassuring and responding and arranging and trying to provide comfort.
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Chapter 3: How do family dynamics change during conflict?
The war just stopped yesterday. Their other sisters were fine to wait and see, but Asil kept pressing to go north. Youssef had access to satellite images, and his assessment was, if a seal went north, she'd find that she had no house anymore.
You know for sure? The area where they live, it's not far from Kamal Edwan Hospital in the northern part of Gaza. And then recently this military campaign was mainly in that area. And all of that area was lived. And honestly, for the northern part of Gaza where I am from and all my relatives, it's impossible that any house still standing there.
Yusuf and Asil's texts about this went on for weeks. Their back-and-forth reads like Yusuf is still that older brother who's in control. But one of the things Asil is not telling him, she and her husband Ahmed have already begun moving their things north. Yusuf thinks he's still in a position to grant permission. Asil tells him, it's already done. Youssef to Asil.
You can go for two days and try it, but try not to move your things. Asil. Ahmed transferred 90% of them. Smiley face. She was already there.
I came back because I know I belong to this place. I wanted to come back. I want to fix up my place and live in it. I want to have my inner calm back.
Is there anything there?
The house was blown out and there were no walls. There were only the support pillars, the ceiling and the floors. That's what was left. So I had to make a wall out of tarp. I covered the entire house with tarp and I'm trying to adapt.
What is around you? Are there buildings and is there anything there?
I still have a bit of a roof over my head, but my neighbors next door set up a tent on top of the rubble of their house. And it's the same with the neighbors all the way down the street. Those whose houses are still standing, they fixed them, and they live in them now.
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Chapter 4: What challenges does Asil face living in Gaza?
Ahmed! Ahmed, come back, come back. Why does he come back again?
And then?
I panic and I keep calling, no phone calls. Waking up Hiba and Hadil trying to call there or call Alaa. Alaa, so we can call her husband. She's texted 3.18 a.m. They bombed the house next to my house. It's full of dead bodies. Most of the house collapsed. Everything collapsed on us. Pray for us. And she asked, pray for us that this night... And then she didn't respond. Yeah.
I got messages from Aseel that night, too. She wrote, I hope to stay alive until the morning. This is the hardest night since the beginning of the war. I'm so scared. And she wrote, I feel like I won't meet my family again. Did she sound different to you than she has sounded at other scary moments?
Yeah, it's not the first time that they go through this, this, they go through it a lot and she never reach out when she know that nothing I can do. I'm outside, especially at 3am. That's quite serious.
She always trying to spare me when this is, it was serious. She's not just scared. She was about to die.
It took 11 hours before he heard anything. His other sister, Heba, finally got through to a SEAL. They'd survived. Heba was hiring an ambulance to try to get a SEAL out. She wasn't injured. It was just the only way the family could figure out how to get to her. She's moving to Gaza City?
Yeah.
Wow.
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