MANAR DAUGHTER OF PALESTINE:
A message of love from the ground
I am Manar. I am a 27 years old mother of two beautiful daughters, as well as a wife, daughter, sister, friend, and neighbour. Since my birth here, I have never left Gaza.
I send my heartfelt words to the free prisoners who were imprisoned for defending justice and standing with our Palestinian people. Praise be to God who has placed in this world hearts that still beat with justice and mercy, and who has placed in the darkness of these times people who resemble light…you.
Peace, mercy, and blessings of God be upon you from wounded Gaza, from a land that continues to bleed but refuses to die, from my broken heart that loves and appreciates you more than you can imagine. I write to you from a heart heavy with sorrow, yet overflowing with gratitude for you and your existence.
You who have chosen hunger willingly, in solidarity with a people forcibly starved for two years under siege, bombardment, and genocide. Your hunger strike is not just a protest; it is a cry for freedom that extends from your prison cells to every home in Gaza, telling the world: there is still conscience.
And thank God for granting me the opportunity to write to the greatest and most loving and humane people of our time. You are free in your hearts and in all your actions. Follow goodness no matter the cost. I carry you in my heart, and I ask God Almighty to grant you freedom, happiness, contentment, love, success, progress, and the fulfillment of your goals in this world, and to grant you victory in this life and the hereafter. My heart is with you. I pray that God will always guide you to the right path….
I am Manar Suleiman Amra from Gaza, a mother of two daughters, a wife, a son, a sister, and a friend. Before the war, I worked as a medical laboratory technician, but the war took my job, my family home, everything I loved, my peace of mind, and my brother, who disappeared two months after the war. He went out to look for work and never returned. We don’t know where his grave is to bury him.
He was suddenly snatched from us without a goodbye. For two years, I have lived with the bitterness of loss and longing. I experienced hunger and homelessness, and we lost all our dignity, which is the right of every human being.
When a mother sees her children or husband killed before her eyes, or a child sees his parents tortured and killed before him, when we go hungry for days and months and find nothing to eat but animal food, when we leave our comfortable and warm homes and go out into nothingness, into the unknown, we go out to build a tent in a place we don’t know, in a place with no water, no electricity, and no market, when young men are taken to prison and tortured, some of them dying under torture, and some of them returning disabled or disfigured and with altered features, where are human rights? What remains of our human rights? We have been completely and utterly stripped of our humanity…
The injustice we endured happened in full view of the world, and this is what breaks my heart and saddens me most.
Although our suffering began with the Nakba in 1948, meaning for 77 years every Palestinian has been enduring it, I lived as a refugee in Gaza. My entire life was spent in a large, besieged prison in Gaza, never leaving. I never rode a train, a plane, or a ship. I never saw the beauty of the world or God’s creation. I lived through five wars before this genocide, but these last two years were the most horrific in all of history. Sadly, most world leaders ignored us.
I am a Muslim, and I believe in God deeply, even more than myself. Islam is what saved me from this terrible nightmare. I pray to God with trust and certainty, knowing that He will not forsake me and that everything I am experiencing is part of God’s plan for me and the entire world. We may perceive it as evil and bad with our limited minds, but how many things in our lives have we thought were good, only to discover later that what we desired was bad for us? And the opposite is also true; we see some things as bad and grieve. It happened, but with time, I realize it was for the best. Faith in God has brought peace to my heart, mind, and soul. I prayed fervently that God would send me someone to stand by me and support me because I was so tired. You were a gift from God, and you eased my burden so much. God blessed me with wonderful friends whom I love dearly. They have pure, kind hearts and wish good for all humanity.
Among them are my sister Ayla and my closest friend. She speaks with me daily and cares about every detail concerning me and my family. She is like a mother, a sister, and a close friend to me. She gives me hope and comforts me, provides me with goals and ideas to invest my time and abilities, and helps me succeed in achieving my goals. She encouraged me to draw and write, and I began to breathe and find comfort and inner peace in my faith, reading the Quran, praying to God, and adding drawing and writing to my life. Everything has changed in the last two years: our lives, our goals, our thinking, and even the way we see the world. But despite the pain, the experience taught me that pain can be transformed into great strength. I found myself breathing again through drawing, design, and writing.
When I picked up the pen and colors, I felt I was reclaiming a part of myself that had been stolen. I began to paint Palestine in its colors and design clothes bearing its flag, as if I were stitching the memory of a homeland into every piece of fabric.
I found in writing a refuge that protected me from collapse. Words became a path through which I could breathe, and I wrote to say: “We are still here, we still dream, and we still deserve to live. It’s as if it’s my window to life, my way to tell the world our story so that it won’t be forgotten.
Through these arts, I mend my heart and regain my faith in God and in the goodness within people like yourselves, my beloved ones.
What gives me the most strength now is knowing that you have chosen imprisonment and hunger to tell the world, “Enough silence!” Because with your hunger, you are breaking down the walls of silence, and with your pain, you are writing the highest meaning of dignity. Knowing that you exist, in the far west, willingly suffering in solidarity with us, makes me feel that I am not alone, and that humanity is not yet dead.
Every step you take, every word, every day of your strike resonates in Gaza, in our weary hearts that cling to hope. You give my heart strength; you teach me that freedom is not given, but seized with determination and faith.
You are not prisoners in our eyes; you are symbols of dignity and the living conscience of this world. And though you are in prison cells today, you are free in our hearts. Indeed, you are the ones who liberate our souls from despair. I know that your bodies are weakening from hunger, but your spirits are stronger than the prison walls. I dream of continuing my journey in art and writing, of holding exhibitions showcasing my work born from the rubble, of publishing my book that compiles our testimonies as survivors of the genocide, so that it may serve as a humanitarian document carrying our voices to the world.
I dream of one day leaving Gaza to complete my studies, so that I may be able to defend my people with awareness, knowledge, and a truthful voice.
I dream of being an echo of your voices and the voices of all of us who believe that freedom has no homeland, but begins in the heart. And here is my sister Elena, with her wonderful team of amazing friends, who are like family to me, giving their time, effort, and money to help me achieve my goals…
How much I love and appreciate them! All my words fail to express my gratitude and love for them.
On the day your hunger strike began, we were reminded of the Balfour Declaration, the promise that sowed injustice in our land more than a century ago. But on that same day, you sowed another promise: the promise of freedom, the promise of conscience, the promise that justice cannot be suppressed or endure, no matter how long the darkness lasts.
From Gaza, from a heart worn down by the siege but still believing in goodness, I say to you: You are with us, and we are with you.
Your hunger is voluntary, but it has filled our souls with hope.
And your silence in the prison cells speaks louder than the speeches of the world’s leaders.
I ask God to protect you, strengthen your hearts, and restore your freedom to you soon.
Know that in Gaza, there are those who pray for you every day, with tears, gratitude, and pride. I carry you in the depths of my heart until the day we meet again, free on a free and just land, where no one who speaks the truth is imprisoned.
From your sister in humanity and struggle,
Manar Suleiman Amra
Gaza – Palestine