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Posted by Joshua Scheer
What does it mean to come of age inside a genocide? In Gaza, where childhoods are cut short and futures are forced into suspension, turning twenty is not a milestone but a reckoning. In this searing personal essay, Palestinian writer Taqwa Ahmed Al‑Wawi reflects on a decade marked not by the usual rites of youth but by bombardment, displacement, and the relentless work of survival. She writes of the friends and family she has lost, the versions of herself she can no longer recognize, and the quiet acts of resistance—studying, writing, dreaming—that have kept her human in a world determined to erase her.
Her words:
Family remains my anchor, the last reliable source of safety in a life shaped by instability. I cherish those who stand beside me in the hardest moments. This genocide has reshaped me in ways language cannot fully hold. Oh, hurried age – you betrayed me. You placed burdens beyond my capacity and denied me the chance to complete my childhood. Gaza, often called the world’s largest open-air prison, was always a place I loved. But genocide introduced a constant sense of suffocation, as if even love became trapped behind walls. Taqwa ahmed al-wawi
Al‑Wawi’s account is not simply a story of suffering; it is a testament to endurance. She asks why the world measures achievement in certificates and accolades while ignoring the profound, unrecorded accomplishments of those who survive hunger, grief, and the collapse of certainty. Her twentieth birthday becomes a meditation on what it means to grow older when time itself has been stolen, and on the radical hope required to imagine a future beyond genocide.
This is Gaza through the eyes of a young woman who refuses to surrender her voice, her ethics, or her capacity to dream. Her writing is a reminder that survival is not passive—it is an achievement, an act of defiance, and, in her words, “the greatest achievement of all.”
This is a coming‑of‑age story written in the language of survival—an intimate meditation on time stolen, identity reshaped, and the radical act of imagining a future when tomorrow is never promised.
You can find more of Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi’s work at her website
There is so much of her poetry and other writing that deserves to be read, shared, and carried forward.
Here is her article as it appeared on Palestine Deep Dive’s Substack.
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