15/08/2025
It’s just a date. A single, four-centimeter piece of dried fruit. But here in Gaza, where nothing comes easily and everything holds meaning, even a date becomes a symbol of endurance, sacrifice and love.
I kept this date for six months. I’d found it and saved it for what I imagined would be the darkest days: the days when food would disappear from the shelves, when starvation would wrap itself around our lives, when sharing even a crumb would become an act of resistance.
Like many Gazans, I love dates. My mother loves them too. A few weeks ago, I decided the time had come to part with my little treasure. I gave that single date to my mom. The next morning, she passed it on to my youngest sister, Nesma. And then Nesma gave it to our 2-year-old nephew Mo’men.
A quiet act of love
That one date, passed from hand to hand, became a quiet act of love in a world collapsing around us.
And so, when my mother gave Nesma the date, it was not just about food. It was a gesture of trust and hope: This is for you, my daughter. You need it more than I do.
And Nesma, in turn, chose to give it to Mo’men. He was born just two months before the war started and will grow up without his father, Moataz Rajab, who was killed during the genocide.
Moataz was a kind and educated man who earned his postgraduate degree in economics just one week before the war.
Mo’men will never remember his father’s voice. But at this moment, he received a date. And with it, he received a story he will hear again years later.
No one in my family wanted to eat the last date and deny someone else its sweetness. That’s who we are in Gaza, not just survivors, but givers. We give even what little we have left. Not because we are saints, but because love and dignity are all we can hold onto when everything else has been taken from us.
War can reveal the worst in people. Here in Gaza, it also brings out the best. Our streets are filled with pain and rubble, but also with kindness. Small gestures like passing along a date speak volumes about who we are.
Excerpt from "The story of the last date in Gaza" by Asem Alnabih. Read the full article at https://electronicintifada.net/content/story-last-date-gaza/50865
