'German voice from Gaza' adjusts to new reality in Berlin

In Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood, everything feels like business as usual. It's typical September weather with a bit of sunshine and some scattered clouds. "Free Gaza" is spray-painted on the wall of some buildings in Viktoria Park, but most people just walk by without paying much mind to it. 

But for Abed Hassan, the war in Gaza is always present.

There have just been reports of Israeli airstrikes hitting a so-called "safe zone" at the al-Mawasi refugee camp. According to the Israeli army, it was a targeted attack on "Hamas terrorists." News agencies report dozens of casualties, and videos on social media show people digging to find their possessions.

Hassan doesn't know yet if anyone he knows has been affected, whether it's friends, acquaintances or family members. Two of his cousins send him updates from Gaza whenever their cellphones have enough power and have service.

"I feel paralyzed," he told DW. "Death, death, death every day. Now and then, your friend, someone you know. And everything destroyed. This does something to you."

In Berlin, Hassan is safe but also helpless. Others are still where he was a year ago: in the middle of the war in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Israel began striking the coastal enclave the same day of the incursion by Hamas, which the United States, the EU, Germany and other countries have designated a terrorist organization. A ground offensive from Israel's military soon followed. According to the United Nations, more than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war, and a large part of the Gaza Strip now lies in ruins. 

Instagram's 'German voice from Gaza'

Hassan was there. He saw the bombardment with his own eyes, pulled people from the rubble and ran for his life.

In early October 2023, he and his mother traveled to Gaza to visit Palestinian family members. His father had bought an apartment in Gaza City. While Hassan was renovating it, he suddenly found himself stuck in the middle of the war.

Israel, and to an extent Egypt, had sealed off the narrow coastal strip. Hassan was trapped in Gaza for five weeks.

He captured what he experienced with the camera on his mobile phone and shared the clips on Instagram. Before long, he had more than 80,000 followers and had become popular as the "German voice from Gaza."

The blockade of Gaza also meant that foreign journalists were unable to enter the war zone. This remains the case to this day.

However, Hassan was there and spoke German in his videos, unlike other Palestinians who posted videos on social media.

"No matter where you went, the bombs follow you like a curse," he said in a video from October 8, 2023. He was crying, and the shock and utter despair was clear in his eyes.

"I just pulled a woman out myself. She was breathing. She was breathing!" he said. 

He kept posting photos of Gaza City in shambles and wondered when his house will be hit.

"I actually expected it almost every day," he told DW. "When I went to bed, I quietly said goodbye to everyone and thought it could happen at any moment."

Back to Berlin, but trapped in Gaza

Thanks to his German passport, Hassan and his mother got out of Gaza after 34 days. In November 2023, he was on a list of Germany's Federal Foreign Office and was allowed to leave for Egypt through the Rafah border crossing. After arriving back in Berlin, he felt his body had returned to Germany, but his thoughts were still in Gaza.

He still feels guilty. What would his relatives think if they saw how "normal" his life in Berlin was? What if he didn't try everything he could to end this terrible war?

He started to give interviews and appeared on German talk shows and news programs. He also shared a stage with a survivor of the massacre at Israel's Supernova music festival on October 7, 2023.

"It is extremely important to me," he said, "to talk to people who were on the opposite side as I have no racist thoughts or hatred in me."

Cycling from Germany to the Middle East 

Cycling became his form of therapy, where he can just pedal and focus on the road ahead. In April, he embarked on a cycling tour to Gaza, riding through Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and eventually reaching Bosnia.

There, he spoke with survivors of the Srebrenica massacre, a genocidal killing of 8,000 people during the Bosnian War. He felt a camaraderie with the people in Bosnia, who were Muslim like him and, as he sees it, survived a genocide like him. 

The term genocide is contentious concerning the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. South Africa has submitted a case against Israel to the International Court of Justice, saying it had committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. Israel has rejected the accusations.

From Bosnia, Hassan rode on toward Turkey and finally flew to Jordan. On his cycling tour, he documented himself for his followers on Instagram, collecting donations for a field hospital in Gaza.

But his trip ended at the border to the occupied West Bank. Hassan, who holds a Palestinian passport along with his German one, was turned away by Israeli soldiers.

"Although I have a German passport, Israel denies us entry," he told DW. That makes him angry and sad.

He recorded a video that was meant to explain the situation of Palestinians under Israeli occupation. Afterward, he simply cried.

"Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a historic, an important place that I long for all my life, remains a place that I may not be able to enter before I die," he said in the video.

Palestinians in Germany 

Hassan's family history is characterized by flight. His grandparents came from villages that became part of Israel when the state was founded in 1948. His parents grew up in refugee camps in Gaza.

He was born and raised in Berlin, but only received the German citizenship at the age of 16. Germany, like the US, does not recognize Palestinian statehood, unlike the majority of UN member states. 

"If I had to state my nationality somehow and I'd say Palestine, they'd say: 'Palestine doesn't exist. You are stateless.' This makes you wonder who I am, where I belong, and where my roots are." 

When he was 14, his parents took him to Gaza for the first time. "It was a shock," he remembered. "It's very, very crowded there. When I opened the tap, the water was salty, and there was no electricity to charge my phone." 

But then he started meeting friends and neighbors of his parents, who prepared a feast for the family from Germany as a welcome dinner. Some had to go into debt for it. They were more warm-hearted than all the people he knew in Berlin.

After the six-week summer vacation, he felt more at home in Gaza than in Germany.

"I'm a Berliner like every other Berliner. Nevertheless, there is always a feeling of some kind of latent racism: you don't belong here," he said. Today, he feels this more than ever.

The war in Gaza has been going on for a year, but Hassan believes "you can't fight violence with violence."

Germany continues to stand by Israel, largely without criticism. Germany continues to supply weapons to Israel and indiscriminately calls pro-Palestinian demonstrators antisemitic. At least that's how Hassan perceives the country in which he was born.

"I feel that the Palestinian perspective doesn't exist in Germany, that no matter what I say, what I suffer, what happens to us, I am told 'But Israel is a democracy, but Israel is a constitutional state.' Not to us. What happens to us Palestinians is neither just nor democratic. And if I say that alone, I must fear being excluded from society."

Hassan still wants to enter into dialogue with people and explain the Palestinian perspective. He hopes for an end to the war in Gaza and a more peaceful future, but he is finding it increasingly difficult.

"You get to a state where a person can no longer feel, where the heart grows hard."

This article was originally written in German. 

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