Uri recognized that hiss anywhere. He’d listened to it in audio clips over and over until his ears instinctively perked up whenever a commander played the sound. He knew exactly what came next. A tearing rush of air would split the sky as the hiss turned into a whistle. The ferocious, rolling BOOM would rattle his ribs. The ground would shudder beneath his feet. 
 
The kibbutzes near the border were prone to fire, but never did he think he’d get caught in it. His heart pounded rapidly as he sprinted behind a nearby building, rifle hoisted for battle. The general’s words echoed through his mind:
 
“Once you’re blown off your feet, take cover and position your rifle. If you see a man with a green headband on his keffiyeh, pull the trigger.”
 
The rocket struck the earth with a whipping crack, flinging him flat on his back. Uri sprang up like he’d been trained, rifle in hand, crouching behind the shattered remains of the building. Civilians scattered in every direction, but his fellow soldiers prepared for battle by his side.
 
Through the smoke-hazed air, he spotted clusters of men with black-and-white checkered scarves wrapped around their heads. Squinting, he made out the green headbands. He drew a single deep breath, steadied himself, and tightened his grip on the trigger.
 
BANG!
​
For the first time in his life, Uri had blood on his hands.
 

… 

From the earliest moments of his childhood, it seemed like all his schoolmates could talk about was how horrible the Palestinians were. “They’re carrying guns in the classrooms, learning how to shoot,” the boys would say, miming finger guns and pretending to shoot their play mates. 
 
At every break time, they divided into two teams–Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis stood behind one side of the barbed-wire fence with their backs to the schoolyard, the Palestinians on the other side, about halfway up the open field. The Palestinians sprinted towards the fence, trying to touch it before getting hit by the little foam balls the Israelis hurled. Any Palestinian who reached the fence untouched was safe. 
 
The Israelis always won, of course. Onlooking classmates cheered as one Palestinian after another was pelted by a foam ball, knocked out of the game, and prevented from infiltrating the border. The Israelis high-fived in victory, while the Palestinians cast somber glances at the ground, condemned to their fate as losers.
 
The boys “chosen” to play the Palestinians were the least-liked–social pariahs who formed their own group after years of exclusion from the Israeli side. While Uri was never part of the Palestinians, he didn’t enjoy being with the Israelis either. He cringed every time he threw a ball, shaking his head disapprovingly at the cheers that erupted when a Palestinian was eliminated. They were boys in his batch too–they had the same feelings, the same arms and legs, and the same toys as he had. So why were they treated as savages who carried guns to school and learned to shoot their fellow humans? Perhaps he would learn when he was older, but at the time, Uri never quite understood.

…

Aaliyah walked among the dilapidated stone buildings, letting her hand glide along the rough concrete walls. The drawings no longer frightened her as they once had. They showed men in military uniforms, rifles aimed at the heads of hijab-clad women kneeling and begging for mercy. Occasionally, the men raised their arms triumphantly, rifles still in hand, looking up to the sky while the women lay lifeless on the ground with bullet holes in their heads, blood trickling down their faces. A few showed children whimpering as their older brothers tried to comfort them. No matter which wall she looked at, she always noticed the same Arabic words. Filastin Alhura, they read. Free Palestine.
 
As a child, Aaliyah frequently made the trek from her village in Gaza to the West Bank. Her father insisted she call it al-Daffah in public, though in private she could call it whatever she wished. He was the smartest man she knew, an intellectual who never let emotions cloud his judgement. His own upbringing had been as turbulent as they came–his father was an active Hamas vagabond who never had a home–yet he could not have been a more peaceful man. A politically active schoolteacher who enjoyed a good book, he’d perused volumes about the history of Palestine and Israel before forming an opinion, despite his family’s staunch loyalty to their nation. Like most Palestinians and Israelis, he believed in a two-state solution where the nations could coexist in harmony. He wanted an end to the cycle of futile terrorist plots crushing Israel to its knees in the name of fulfilling Allah’s will. Aaliyah had taken after him, seeking knowledge instead of letting inherent bias shape her views.
 
She never quite understood her people’s hatred of the Israelis. They might have seemed gruff and unwelcoming to strangers, but every time she approached an Israeli station master to ask about a train back to Gaza, she was met with nothing but smiles and helpful guidance, despite her hijab and lack of Hebrew. On the rides home, she would gaze out the train window and see Israeli men toiling away on the farms, their muscles straining under the Negev sun. She spotted women chatting idly on the porches, hands callused from hours of cooking and scrubbing the floors clean. She smiled at the Israeli children racing through the sand, dimples flashing as they ran like the wind. 
 
Her own men swung their hoes with equal vigor, her own women bore the same bruises on their hands from housework, and Gaza’s children beamed just as brightly while playing with their friends, kicking dust from the ground as they ran. Why, then, was there such hostility between two peoples simply trying to live their everyday lives? They may not have shared the same tongue, but their souls spoke the language of the universe.

 

…    

 
Uri spent his childhood on Jean Jaurès Street in Tel-Aviv. His father was a diplomat, easing tensions with Arab neighbors and finding the most amiable solutions to Israel’s constant arms race. The Middle East was a ticking time bomb for Israel, one wrong step from exploding. The government had to be prepared in case war broke out, and it was his father’s job to keep the border countries at bay while Israel developed some of the world’s most sophisticated military technology–only for emergencies.
 
Under his father’s tutelage, Uri came to believe that a two-state solution was the optimal outcome. Israelis could keep their designated homeland for the Jewish people, while Palestinians wouldn’t have to leave their homes to fill the expanse of land from annexing Israel or from being wiped off the face of the earth. But even at the highest levels of government, Israeli officials referred to Palestinians as “beasts of no nation.” They may have been stateless since Palestine was not recognized by the U.N, but the people were far from beasts.
 
Though he had never set foot in Gaza, Uri often read about its beautiful beaches and heard stories from IDF soldiers about the sun-kissed, glossy white sand. He learned that their Mediterranean waters were crystal blue, just like his own. Uri lived ten minutes walking from the beach, where he often went after long school days spent feigning disdain for the Palestinians. He would walk barefoot across the sand as hues of red and orange lit up the sky before fading into the moonlit night. And as his toes sifted through the sand and his eyes wandered to the moon, he could not fathom how the residents of Gaza with such beautiful beaches as his own could be the hostile monsters his countrymen made them out to be.

 
…

Aaliyah loved the beach. She loved taking morning walks with her father along the ocean after prayer, ingesting the salty air as the gentle breeze brushed her face. She often drew in the sand, sometimes with a stick, but mostly with her bare hands. Her pictures depicted tall men and women in military uniforms holding hands with men in shalwar kameez and women in burqas. A few times, she even wrote,  “as-salamu alaykum”–”peace be upon you”–in the sand, but she never dared leave it there for fear that someone would have her head for treason. Her father and she would quickly rub over the writing and let the crystal-blue water wash away her art with the tide.
 
Between her walks on the beach, daily prayers, and endless chores, Aaliyah always found time for contemplation. She worried for the boys who joined Hamas, how they were plucked off the streets in their teenage years and brainwashed into an ideology that they didn’t truly believe in. Deep down, they were the same thirteen-year-olds transitioning from playing tag in the schoolyard to trying to impress girls with how much weight they could lift. But their childhoods were stolen–once Hamas got you, there was no coming back. They became killing machines, massacring every Jew in sight under the guise of fulfilling Allah’s will. 
 
The Quran told her differently, however. Allah explicitly promoted peace, and by firing rockets and loading machine guns, the men of Hamas were doing precisely the opposite of His will. But her people were too afraid, for these men had seized control of the government and used their weapons to silence the masses. Any “traitor” who dared utter a slight against them–any ordinary citizen who promoted peace between Palestine and Israel–was shot dead on sight. Only by staying in line could one hope to survive–and only as a man could one thrive under Hamas’s rule.
 
Aaliyah struggled to comprehend how the restrictive sharia law could be considered better for society. How could the Hamas officials believe that keeping half the population suppressed at home was a good thing? She had heard of women in Dubai who owned houses and didn’t need a man’s permission to step outside their front doors. Her father often recounted the old ways of Kabul and Tehran, where women were free to roam about, wear whatever they pleased, and even imbibe. And yet here she was–stuck with only a high school education, unable to further her dreams of becoming a doctor simply because her government believed it was improper for women to do anything outside the home. Through no fault of her own, by the mere circumstance of her birth, she was condemned to a life shackled by the dictates of extremist middle-aged men with guns.

 
…

 
The soft hum of a slide whistle sounded in the distance, growing louder as it drew near. She didn’t think much of it until a thunderous BOOM sent her sprawling face-first in the sand. Lifting her head, she saw men, women, and children running in every direction. Women’s hijabs flew off their heads, their hair flowing freely for the first time in the crisp Gaza air. 
 
A hazy fog began to form, but Aaliyah could still see into the distance. She hoisted herself off the ground and began running north towards the border, which she did not realize until tanks with Israeli soldiers entered her view. She turned around for the first time in many kilometers, hands on her knees gasping for breath, when she looked up and saw the hordes of shalwar kameez and burqas running towards her. They abruptly ground to a halt when they realized what she had–the border was closed.

…

 
A little over a year had passed since the first rockets were launched–since Uri had drawn his first blood. He’d fired many rounds at the men in green headbands, growing numb to their collapsing bodies as the life bled out of them. At first he stood over his victims, turning them flat on their backs so he could look them in the eyes one last time before their souls ascended to the World to Come. Now, he merely saw them as obstacles to his freedom–as barriers between himself and the rest of his life.
​
Uri had great dreams of becoming a humanitarian worker. During his years in the IDF training for war against Arabs to the east and the west, he vigilantly read his country’s history and learned the complexities of the conflict with Palestine. The nights spent clandestinely under the covers of his bunker sweating in the humid Negev had not been in vain. They had instilled in him a firm resolve to help those displaced from the war–Israelis and Palestinians alike. 
 
Though it might have been seen as traitorous to aid the “enemy”, Uri did not care. He felt only sorrow for the millions of Palestinians driven from their homeland, even if the war was started by their own. His country struck back mercilessly after every attack, launching assault after assault wherever there were suspected terrorists, issuing minimal warnings to civilians before the strikes. Surely they were ineffective; terrorists could blend in among civilians and use the announcements to escape before the bombs fell, evacuating and regrouping as they always had. Though he didn’t approve of Hamas, he could not condone relentlessly bombarding the homes of innocent people under the pretense of eradicating terrorism. Twenty-five thousand Palestinians had been killed; Hamas numbered only twenty-thousand–and the terrorists were still standing. The strategy wasn’t working. His government was reducing entire villages to rubble, filling the air with smoke as the ashes of Gaza burned to the ground.
 

…

She must have blocked out the journey to South Gaza from her memory, for her mind went black whenever she tried to recall it. All she knew was that she woke one day on the sand with her favorite hijab frayed, surrounded by several Palestinians she did not recognize. Food and water were scarce, her stomach growled for most hours of the day, and her lips cracked from the dryness of her tongue. 
 
Aaliyah longed for the sandy beaches and the glistening waters of her home. Instead, she was stuck among foul-smelling men and women who hadn’t showered in days, cut off from the outside world. Most of the humanitarian workers spoke little Arabic; they were, in essence, white men and women in t-shirts who occasionally filled the water wells before retreating to their cushy lodgings in the Negev, completely unaware of what life was like for her people. They would never know true suffering–the pangs of longing for her home tearing at her heart, the phantom smells of kabobs from the village bazaars, the feeling of losing your footing only to realize the ground wasn’t shaking as it had on that day. Even if they could step into her land, they would never walk a step in her shoes.
 
More and more Israeli troops had poured in over the past few weeks. Rumors swirled of an Israeli operation to root out terrorists, but Aaliyah didn’t think much of them. Instead, she thought of her father’s enthusiasm in the classroom, passionately recounting great feats of history. The kids in the worn-out desks paid little attention, for they had no hope of college unless they left their homeland–assuming they could get a visa. They’d heard the empty promises that with an education, they could grow up and achieve whatever they wanted, but it was only a dream. For the boys who had seen their classmates picked off the streets, there was no path other than taking over their fathers’ occupations. Even the ones who dreamed of moving to Israel for a better life had their hopes crushed by the government’s propaganda that the Israelis would shoot them on sight upon discovering their heritage. Aaliyah knew this wasn’t true, otherwise she would’ve been dead long ago.
 
Her morning walks along the beach were replaced with midday strolls along the rubble of the refugee camp, which thankfully allowed women to roam freely. She scavenged abandoned homes for extra supplies, taking only what she could carry from piles of clothes and dishes strewn around the floor, the tables merely placeholders in empty rooms. She trod the rocky pathways, stepping over bits of concrete at her feet from the occasional rockets firing back and forth. 
 
Every night underneath the stars, she listened for the hissing sound in the sky. When she heard it, she would lie flat on her stomach, cover her ears, and pray to Allah that it would not be her last day on Earth. So far, Allah had answered her prayers.

​

…

The rumors turned out to be true. Within weeks, her camp was overrun with Israeli soldiers walking the streets, engrossed in conversations about what she assumed was the upcoming offensive. She paid them no mind, and they did the same. 
 
One day, as she walked past the same dilapidated buildings with wreckage scattered around her, the tattered curtains whispering in the gentle wind, she felt a hand tug her harm. The man wore an all-green military uniform, holding out a pen. When had it fallen from her sleeve? She reached for the pen in his hand, her fingers grazing his calloused skin as she looked up at his face. Even beneath his perfectly sun-kissed brown skin and short, black hair, which twisted majestically into curls at the front, the first thing she noticed was the color of his eyes–crystal blue. 

…

He felt sparks fly as her fingers slid off his hand. When she looked him in the eyes, Uri took a mental picture of her face so he would not forget it. She had the smoothest, faintest brown skin that accentuated her cheekbones, curving perfectly into a neatly rounded chin. Her eyes had  a glistening sparkle, as if holding out hope for days to come. 
 
As he strolled to and from his quarters planning tactics for the operation–screening for the terrorists who were destroying his homeland–the image of her face lingered in his mind. Even if he succeeded in eradicating all of Hamas, his mission would be a failure if he did not see her again.
 
Then one day, she appeared. Though he couldn’t see her full face beneath the pile of items in her arms, he could tell it was her from those sparkling eyes. Without a moment’s hesitation, he ran towards her and stopped where she could see him. “Do you need help with that?” he asked. She peeked her head from around the pile with a questioning look; he knew she could not understand him. He reached out his arms, curling them slightly to form a cradle. She dropped the load into his hands and stormed off, her footsteps heavy with anger.
 
“Hey!” he called after her. She stopped and turned around, tears welling in her eyes. He walked towards her and motioned with his head for her to lead the way. Her cheeks flushed red as she twisted her head in embarrassment, but Uri still caught a glimpse of the smile that spread across the side of her face. 
 
He walked her back to the encampment and set the pile down, lingering a few moments to arrange the clothes. She laughed when he couldn’t fold the fitted sheets, prompting him to laugh as well. Her smile was the most beautiful he had ever seen–a hearty, ear-to-ear grin that exposed the roundness of her dimples. His heart nearly melted when she uttered a faint, “Shukran” as he left her tent, nodding in acknowledgement. Though he didn’t know much Arabic, he understood that she wasn’t just thankful for his help with the heavy load–she was thankful for the hope that his people could interact with hers in peace.

 

…

 
Over the next few weeks, Uri continued visiting the woman at her encampment. He learned that her name was Aaliyah, and that she had been displaced from her village in North Gaza only days after Hamas launched rockets onto Israeli soil. She was shy at first, letting him do most of the talking while she submitted to his apparent authority. He mostly told her stories of the war–how guilty he’d felt for every ounce of Palestinian blood on his hands, until he’d become so numb that even villages blown to smithereens no longer fazed him. She gradually opened up, telling him that her father was a political aficionado who had absolutely nothing to do with Hamas. They quickly earned each other’s trust, freely discussing how to end the war and allow their people to coexist in peace–clandestinely, of course, fearing reprimand from Israeli soldiers and Palestinian refugees alike. Uri laughed loudly when she pulled out a pen and paper from under her sleeve, explaining that her father, a teacher, insisted she always keep one in case she needed to take notes.
 
He felt he could tell her anything. Though at first he thought that she was just a passing crush, he soon realized that she understood him like no one else ever had. She’d even placed her hand on his for a brief moment, withdrawing it in embarrassment when he’d stared for a second too long.
 
Unlike their first meeting in the streets, Uri remembered to bring his phone to every subsequent visit. At first they only typed short phrases into a translation app, passing the phone back and forth to read each other’s sentences. But they quickly built a rapport, talking for longer stretches, speaking into the phone and listening while the app played it back in their native tongues. It wasn’t ideal, but she made it worth the trouble.
 
Though he knew he loved her in his heart, Uri was far too shy to say it aloud, so he let his actions speak for him. He went out of his way to perform favors for her. When she struggled to lift a heavy water bucket over her head, he took it from her hands and carried it back to her tent. If she hinted at hunger, he scoured the grounds for something to eat. When she wanted to take a walk at sunset, he accompanied her so that she wouldn’t have to walk back alone. And every time she thanked him profusely with her radiant smile, his heart skipped a beat. He wished those thin, tender lips could touch his own, but for the longest time, he wasn’t sure that she felt the same. She could easily be using him for food and water, after all. 
 
But on a particularly cold night when they sat on the precipice of a rooftop, their legs dangling into the war-torn streets, she leaned her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her, and she let him pull her closer towards him. She looked up into his eyes, the glistening of her own lighting up the dark night. Though they didn’t speak a word on the walk back to her encampment, he knew without a doubt that she loved him back.
 
Uri had to tell her how he truly felt. But the translator app wouldn’t do–he wanted the words to come from his own mouth, from his own heart. And he knew that she wouldn’t understand if he told her in Hebrew, so there was only one option.
 
That night, Uri resolved to learn Arabic.

 

…

Aaliyah loved every second of Uri’s war stories, even if they horrified her. He spoke of walking through decimated villages with bodies lying everywhere, leaving little room to step. He described trails of blood trickling from Palestinian and Israeli bodies alike. “No matter if he’s from Israel or Palestine, a man’s blood is red,” he had told her, and she couldn’t fathom how any servant of Allah or Yahweh could believe that their gods wanted a war between them.
 
She found every excuse to see him. Though she was perfectly capable of carrying her own water bucket, she didn’t mind when Uri lent her a helping hand, noticing her “struggling” with its weight. Whenever their conversations were fading, she would rub her stomach, sending him into a frenzy to find whatever scraps of food were left, just so he could stay in her tent and watch her enjoy it. His warm breath lingered on her neck the night that they sat on the ledge beneath the stars. She had never felt that tingly sensation in her stomach before, the one that pulsed from her heart down to the bottom of her core. She fell asleep at night dreaming of Uri–his calloused hands, his golden-brown skin, his crystal blue eyes, and his chapped, light pink lips. He had drawn her closer to him by the waist, but in that moment, she wanted more. 
 
She wanted him to caress her cheek as he turned her face towards his. She longed for the touch of his lips on hers, his hand gently rubbing her breast. But every time he started to remove her burqa, she would wake from her dream with a cold sweat. No man had ever seen her naked–not even her father had been present at her birth. And whenever she pictured Uri’s rough hands feeling up and down her body, she shuddered with nervousness, fearing Allah’s judgement. She would pace back and forth in her tent, wondering about this feeling as she anxiously awaited Uri’s footsteps down the path, his tender smile greeting her from a distance. 
 
When he came that day, the feeling hit harder than the rocket that had sent her flying off her feet. The pangs inside her stomach, the constant longing whenever he wasn’t around, could only be described as love. Aaliyah loved Uri with all her heart, but she didn’t know how to tell him. Arabic wouldn’t do since he didn’t understand, and it wasn’t the kind of thing you told someone through a translator app. But with no way of learning Hebrew, she would simply have to wait. Until the war was over and her father found a book to teach her those three fateful words, she could not express her feelings to her beloved.
 
Aaliyah couldn’t wait to go home.

​

…

By Uri’s suggestion, they began sneaking off behind one of the abandoned buildings for privacy. The operation was intensifying, and more eyes watched the soldiers’ every move. Although no suspicion had been raised, Aaliyah was grateful that they could meet somewhere besides the confines of her encampment. It made her feel like their love could flow more freely, though they hadn’t quite gotten there yet. What if he didn’t feel the same way, how could she bear it? She didn’t even want to think about it; the mere thought of his rejection made her sick to her stomach. The tingling pangs would then become lustful–sinful–for Allah could never forgive arousal without hubb, without love. She would often sit quietly, hoping that Uri would fill the silence with the words she longed to hear. 
 
“I love you,” he blurted out.
 
She looked at him in utter disbelief–had he known Arabic this whole time? His words left her completely speechless.
 
“I love you, Aaliyah,” he repeated. “Do you love me?”
 
His pronunciation was impeccable, but the genuine elation in his eyes as he said the words was even more remarkable than his Arabic.
 
“Yes, Uri. I love you too.”
 
She threw herself into his arms, wrapping herself around him and sinking into his embrace. When they pulled away, she looked deep into his crystal blue eyes. In that instant, a moment of silent understanding passed between them. They knew exactly what they wanted, so Uri grabbed her hand and led her inside the building for the first time. 
 
He cleared a small space on the ground, moving the piles of dishes, children’s toys, and unfolded laundry to make just enough room for her to lie down. Her hand shook as she reached to remove her hijab–no man had ever seen her body. But when she felt Uri’s soft lips on hers, when the rhythm of their tongues swirling felt more natural than anything else in the world, her anxiety evaporated. She guided his hand toward her burqa and let him slowly slide it off. He removed his shirt while she removed her hijab, letting her long black hair flow freely. They quickly shed the rest of their clothes. The tingling in her stomach returned, growing into a throbbing heat deep within her. 
 
She stroked him and savored his subdued gasps of pleasure–if they were caught, it meant a dishonorable discharge for Uri. She pulled his hips closer towards hers, breathing heavily as his tongue traced down her neck. He positioned himself inside her; she felt the power of each strong thrust against her stomach. She closed her eyes and leaned back in pleasure, gasping for every breath as he rubbed her vigorously. Eventually he softened inside her after a pleasurable moan, but continued rubbing until she felt a surge shoot upward from her lower core to her stomach–the most intense pleasure she’d ever known. He removed himself from inside her and lay to her side, letting her nestle gently against him as he covered their naked bodies with a blanket. 

…

“How did you learn Arabic?” she asked as they were getting dressed.
 
Uri smiled coyly. “For you, I will always find a way.”
 
He’d discovered a former diplomat-turned-teacher on YouTube, whose background negotiating between Israel and the Middle East required translating between Hebrew and Arabic. Uri watched those videos religiously every night after seeing Aaliyah off to sleep, staying awake past midnight scribbling in his notebook–practicing conjugations, drilling new words, and learning the script. Though it was difficult at first, Uri’s desire to tell Aaliyah those three fateful words kept him going. Every time his eyes grew weary and he glanced up at the moon, he pictured her staring at it too, longing for him to speak to her in her tongue. It was that fire which kept him going–the desire to express how he truly felt with the beauty of human speech–and he knew he had to speak her language or risk the sting of regret from words left unsaid.
 
He studied every spare second for six months, day and night, until he was not just conversationally fluent but nearly perfect. Each day he spoke to different groups of refugees, forcing the words out of his mouth over and over until their meanings became clear. He could not quit, he would not quit, because there would never be another woman like Aaliyah who understood him with a depth he never thought possible. She was perfect for him in every way–intelligent, understanding, and open-minded. He could not have asked for a better mate. And if he skipped even a single day of his studies, he might lose her forever.​

​

… 

He’d known well before the rumors began swirling around the encampment–Gazans could finally return home. Though they were only just starting to bring people back, Uri knew it was only a matter of time before Aaliyah left him. He would follow her to the edge of the earth, but lacked the proper military credentials to set foot on the North Gaza soil. His heart longed to keep her in the South, to lie with her beneath the roofs of battered homes that people left behind, but he could not hide the truth from her. He loved her with all his heart and refused to deny the happiness of the one he loved.
 
They walked along one of the better-maintained roads with far less rubble at their feet, though tattered curtains and Palestinian flags still fluttered in the wind. Fearing that he could hold it no longer, he told her.
 
“The government has entered a ceasefire with Hamas, and they’ve reopened passage to North Gaza.”
 
She stared at him in a stunned silence before gathering the courage to speak. “So what does that mean?”
 
“It means you can return to the North, Aaliyah. It means you can go home.”
 
Her face lit up, her eyes sparkling brighter than he had seen them sparkle before. He smiled at her elation to return to the sun-kissed beaches with their crystal-blue waters, hopefully seeing her father again. And though he knew that most of their homes were burned to ash by the constant whizzing of rockets overhead, he decided not to crush her spirit. At that moment, he had to let her go.

… 

“If home isn’t to your liking, I will be waiting for you. Right here, just as I am.”
 
Those were the last words that Uri spoke to her before the journey back to North Gaza. She had clandestinely kissed him goodbye before leaving the encampment–hopefully for the last time. Her heart longed to stay with him, to look into his crystal blue eyes while they lay together out of sight. But she did not belong in the camp, where fellow Palestinians talked day and night about how wretched the Israelis were for launching rockets and driving them from their homes–despite how her own people had started the fighting. The attacks of 7th October had unleashed a whirlwind of anti-Semitic hatred, which she could only silently condemn because she loved a Jew. And though she would move heaven and earth to be with him, she couldn’t keep her father waiting at home.

…

She was throwing up the entire bus ride, her stomach still queasy–was it motion sickness after all this time? 
 
Aaliyah sprinted the last two kilometers to her home. But instead of the proud exterior she was used to, she only saw ruins. The roof had completely caved in, leaving the outer wall hollow. Gravel lined the streets, and the smell of concrete hit her nostrils. She sank to her knees and gathered fragments of her former home in her hands, crying out as she looked up toward the heavens.
 
She walked to the beach, whose Mediterranean waters still remained crystal blue–like Uri’s eyes. A few neighbors had returned to their homes burned to ash; they shared tender embraces and consoled each other through rounds of tears. She felt a burly hand touch her shoulder. When she looked up, it was her father’s face, despondent after years away from the home he had known for his entire life.

…

 
Even with eight people crammed into a two-bedroom house, they made it work. Aaliyah and her father stayed in one room, the owners in another, and the four villagers who had made the trek home from the South slept huddled together in the living room. This family kept several books, one of which was a guide to learning Hebrew for Arabic speakers. When she asked why they kept it, the couple quickly shut her down and demanded her silence in exchange for staying in their home, which she readily accepted. Though she found no fault in openly discussing the ideal two-state solution with the owners, they would have none of it in their home–most likely out of fear that the other villagers would report them to Hamas for traitorous dealings.
 
Aaliyah and her father spent their days scrounging for morsels of food and water under the blazing Gaza sun. She felt the sweat pooling all over her black burqa, which she often wore for days at a time since she only had a few left. The growling in her stomach quickly turned to queasiness; her stomach felt heavy despite her hunger. Every night as she wretched her guts out, she thought of Uri’s crystal blue eyes staring at her, wishing for his arms to hold her while she slept. She spent her evenings diligently reading the Hebrew book, as if he might suddenly appear out of thin air. The first phrase she learned was ani ohevet otkha–I love you. 

 
...

 
“Go to him, Aaliyah. There is nothing for you here.”
 
She was appalled by her father’s reaction. Uri ran through her mind nearly every hour of the day–he was her hope for moving forward. The North was blown to smithereens, and the few souls who dared venture home were met with nothing but empty stomachs, dry mouths, and idle days wondering what to do next. But the thought of hearing his beautiful voice, of looking into his crystal blue eyes and knowing that everything was going to be okay, kept her fiery will to live burning inside. Her Hebrew was much improved; though she had no one to practice with, she felt more confident in her phrases and vocabulary, and especially the ease with which she could write the characters. And when she found out that Uri’s baby was growing inside of her, it was only a matter of time before she’d have to break the news to her father. She’d blurted it out in the middle of the night during a violent fit of vomiting; he’d rubbed his hand gently along her back to soothe her pain. 
 
She stood up and looked into his eyes–there was a twinkle she had never seen before.
 
“Baba, I can’t leave you here. What will you do without me?”
 
He looked off into the distance, a tear forming in his eye. Her mother had died from complications during childbirth, leaving him to raise his daughter alone. They were attached at the hip, and she knew how badly his heart must have ached during their years of separation. But even through his shaky hands and salty tears streaking down his face, his voice remained firm and grand.
 
“Don’t worry about me, Hayati.” She knew he was dead serious–he only called her “My Life” in the most important circumstances. “He sounds like a good man for my daughter. Go to him. I’m sure he will be waiting.”
 
“And what about the fact that he’s Israeli, Baba?”
 
He bowed his head, then looked her directly in the eye. “Better him than a bastard from Hamas.”

…

 
She left early the next morning, each minute feeling like an hour as she drew closer to Uri. Her heart leapt with excitement at the thought of uttering those three fateful words in his native tongue, just as he had done so eloquently in hers.
 
She burst off the bus and searched for him throughout the encampment, her heart growing more frantic with each second he did not appear. He was not at his usual post near the wells, nor by the abandoned buildings where they had been together before. When she returned to the main ground, her heart sank at the thought that he might have given up and left, believing she would never come back for him. No, he wouldn’t do that, she told herself–he had given her his word, and she’d known from the determined look on his face that he would not break it.
 
She vowed to wait for him, as he had waited for her. After quickly finding a vacant tent, she spread out her things and began unpacking for her stay.

​
…

 
For some reason she hadn’t noticed it before, but the encampment looked far more desolate than during her first stay. Tent flaps lay battered and open, with only sand beneath them. There were no children running around and playing, material belongings were sparser than before, and fewer footsteps walked toward the wells. Even stranger, there hadn’t been a single Israeli soldier in a military uniform over the past two days; perhaps they were retreating altogether.
 
What she had noticed was the absence of women–almost all the other occupants were men. A few were younger, but most bore worn-out faces etched by years of hardship, their skin sagging beneath weary eyes. Their hands were bruised all over, far more than the scrapes and scratches of everyday labor. Several had gashes and scars on their faces, as if they had been cut by knives. But every one of them shared a single, unmistakable feature–a green headband over his keffiyeh.

…

 
Her heart dropped when she first heard the whistle in the distance. She thought she’d imagined it until it steadily grew louder and louder. She darted her head around, watching the men all rushing toward the same tent. She tried to follow, but two sets of arms held her back. “Run there,” they urged, pointing toward the abandoned buildings where Uri and she had spent many days together. But her eyes remained locked on the tent, where the men in green headbands emerged, carrying guns in their hands.
 
Suddenly, she knew exactly what was happening. The Israelis hadn’t left, they’d evacuated to attack an enemy stronghold. These men weren’t refugees–they were Hamas.
 
Her feet finally lifted off the ground as she sprinted for a few steps before a BOOM shook the earth. Smoke billowed and ashes rained as more rockets were fired in her direction. A blast knocked her to the ground, her vision blurring as she struggled to get up. She felt the blood trickling from her forehead, coughing as she crawled for the nearest shelter. All of a sudden, she heard the sharp crack of bullets in the distance.

…

 
Aaliyah stood and tried to run, but found that she could barely put any weight on her left leg. She hobbled as fast as she could, but collapsed from a searing pain in the back of her neck. An icy numbness shot through her body, quickly radiating to her jaw and ears. Just keep breathing, she thought, crawling on her arms toward a barely standing structure.
 
When she reached it, she pushed herself upright with trembling wrists, leaning with her back against the crumbling wall. She reached for her neck, gasping in horror at the blood that coated her hand. Body after body fell through the smoke, with the whistles of rockets and whizzes of bullets ringing in the distance. She knew that the second she closed her eyes, she would never open them again. With the pen and paper still intact, she wrote one final note and tucked it underneath her sleeve.

…

​

 He shot green headband after green headband, pausing only to reload his rifle. A bullet nearly grazed his ear, but he swiftly eliminated the threat. When the banging of bullets finally ceased, Uri sprinted across the battleground, waiting for shots in case any Hamas soldiers were planning an ambush. Satisfied that the perimeter was secure, he advanced towards the abandoned buildings with his rifle gripped tightly in his hand.
 
After he saw her off, Aaliyah constantly ran through his mind, forcing him to consciously block her out during the chaos of battle, when live bullets were flying in the air. Even now it was an effort to avoid thinking of her, so he darted his head around and raised his rifle as if active shooters lurked around him. He looked at his watch. The next wave of rockets was coming any minute, and he had to find cover.
 
Uri advanced cautiously through the strip of dilapidated buildings, weaving his way through fallen fighters, taking the live rounds from their waistbands so the enemy could not use their dead men’s ammo. He longed for the war to end so he could begin searching for Aaliyah, just for the chance to see her again. He did not care that his countrymen would look down upon him for loving a Palestinian; he would make it work. Perhaps they would marry and move to Dubai, where they were free to hold hands in public and lie together without the worries of her lack of statehood. When the war ended, when the pointless bullets ceased taking lives in the name of God–the giver of those very lives in the first place–he would finally settle down with his beloved.

 
… 

The first rocket whizzed past, destroying a dwelling just a few hundred meters from where he stood. But his feet remained rooted to the ground, for his eyes were transfixed on the figure before him. Her skin looked delicate and soft, even with the grey ash marks smeared across her face. Frayed strains of black hair protruded from underneath her hijab. His heart leapt in terror as he saw her lying motionless, slumped forward like a puppet with severed strings.
 
Another rocket came screaming from the opposite direction. The sound of gunfire rang in his ears, but Uri did not spring for cover like his commander had taught him. Instead, he moved towards her in a zombie-like stupor with stoic shock all over his face. He crouched down and tilted up the face–it was unmistakably her. He pulled back her hijab to let her hair flow freely from her head, shaking her and screaming her name as if she would suddenly rise from the clutches of death. Her body twitched violently back and forth, but she did not stir. Uri frantically felt her neck and wrists for any sign of a pulse, but there were none. She was another life lost in the war between their two countries.
 
He reached for the pen tucked under her sleeve, smiling when he found it. Even in death, she had heeded her father’s advice. The paper slipped onto the ground, folded into a perfect square. He picked it up and unfolded it, watching something else fall onto the sand. Writing adorned the page.
 
I love you too, Uri.
 
He gasped–the note was written in perfect Hebrew. Tears started streaming down his cheeks. When had she found the time to learn his language? How long had she waited to tell him the same three fateful words as he had told her that day behind the building? He wiped his face and bent down to retrieve the fallen object; it was a photograph of some sort. The rockets continued whizzing by, quaking the ground underneath his feet. A hazy, ashy smog had risen in the air around him, but he’d hardly noticed.
 
The photograph was black-and-white, tattered and blurry to Uri’s eyes. It looked like a child without legs. A head protruded from a thin, solitary strand that extended beyond the frame. He squinted to examine it in more detail, but found nothing. He turned it over to find writing in the white space on the other side. 
 
It’s a boy.
 
Uri gasped in disbelief, the tears turning into sobs of desolate sorrow. He knelt down and wept into her breast, rubbing his trembling hand gently against her stomach. Neither the rocket blasts rattling the Gazan soil nor the clanging of bullets against metal were louder than Uri’s screams of agony as he sank to his knees, looked up at the heavens, and wondered how God could play such cruel tricks on his heart. 

…

 
With the pen, paper, and photograph tucked safely in his pocket, Uri left his rifle beside Aaliyah’s lifeless body and pressed a final kiss to her forehead. He walked upright across the battlefield, hundreds of bullets zipping past him rapidly. He didn’t care anymore if he was shot to death–anything was better than living on this earth without Aaliyah. The ashes swirled around him, the rockets whizzing by as their impact shook the ground beneath his feet. But as he traversed the battlefield and returned to his base, the ground could not have felt more still.
 
He tore off his military uniform, threw it in the trash, and slipped into his civilian clothes. From that day forward, he would have nothing to do with Israelis and Palestinians ending each other’s lives for what they believed were just causes. Throughout the rest of his life, he would hear how the Palestinians were plotting to take over Israel, or how the Israelis were committing ruthless genocide against the Palestinian people. But he would neither listen to it nor speak of it, for all that the war meant to him was the loss of his one true love–the death of the keeper of his heart.
 
Uri would live to eighty-eight years of age, well-respected for his dedication toward humanitarian aid. Throughout his life, he would return displaced loved ones to their families, feed millions of starving children, and build clean water systems for villages that hadn’t had them for hundreds of years. He was fulfilled with his work, but there would always be a piece missing from his heart. No matter how many dates he endured, no matter how many matches his father arranged, he would never love anyone but Aaliyah. And though she remained a secret from even his closest kin, the memories of her face and the painful remembrance of her departure from this earth remained etched in his brain until the day he drew his final breath in Tel Aviv. 
 
His heartbeat spiked for a second before his death, fluttering at the thought of reunion after decades apart.
 
She would be waiting for his return.