A boy inspects the damage caused by Israeli strikes in the southwest of Gaza City on Aug. 29, 2025. (Credit: Bashar Taleb/AFP)
Noor al-Yacoubi is a 27-year-old translator and writer. She hasn't left the Gaza Strip since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, and has been sharing her diaries with L'Orient Today during the war.For the past 600 days, I have been separated from my family, who fled to Egypt at the beginning of the war. My mother calls me almost every day on Messenger, sometimes twice or even three times, just to make sure I’m okay.Most of the time, I don’t answer right away. I let the calls ring, feeling an invisible weight holding me back. Eventually, I pick up, but even then, I struggle to speak. I keep asking myself: why don’t I want to talk to her and my father? Why does it feel so hard? For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me — that maybe I was cold, ungrateful, or losing the bond that once held us so close.Yesterday, I went out...
Noor al-Yacoubi is a 27-year-old translator and writer. She hasn't left the Gaza Strip since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023, and has been sharing her diaries with L'Orient Today during the war.For the past 600 days, I have been separated from my family, who fled to Egypt at the beginning of the war. My mother calls me almost every day on Messenger, sometimes twice or even three times, just to make sure I’m okay.Most of the time, I don’t answer right away. I let the calls ring, feeling an invisible weight holding me back. Eventually, I pick up, but even then, I struggle to speak. I keep asking myself: why don’t I want to talk to her and my father? Why does it feel so hard? For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me — that maybe I was cold, ungrateful, or losing the bond that once held us so close.Yesterday, I...
