‘What I Have Lived Through Cannot be Endured’: An Interview with Wasim Said
by Tadhg Hoey
Said, who is originally from Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, was studying physics at the Islamic University of Gaza when the war broke out. Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide is mostly about what he and his family have endured since their lives were turned upside following October 7, though it also contains a number of stories from people Said meets along the way. And while many readers will already be familiar with images and stories of starving children, of families experiencing their tenth displacement, or of the husband who returns from searching for food to find his entire family killed in an airstrike, this is the most thorough written account we possess of what life has been life for some the two million Gazans who have been living through a genocide for close to two years. It is destined to become essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand, through first-hand testimonies, the unimaginable price two million people have paid to survive.
I spoke with Said over WhatsApp about his book. He spoke about life in Gaza, discussed the writing of the book, and how — despite people being able to witness Gaza’s destruction via endless supply of news and social media footage — he retains hope in the power of the written word to impact people’s hearts and minds.
With your background in physics, would you mind telling me a little about what made you decide to turn to the act of writing to process what you saw going. I know you came to this realization when you briefly returned to your family home in Beit Hanoun in January 2025 with the arrival of the ceasefire.
In January, after the ceasefire, I returned to my city, Beit Hanoun. But there was no trace of anything in the city — nothing but rubble. Our home was completely destroyed; even its debris was nowhere to be found.
On a piece of land belonging to one of my uncles, once planted with olive trees, we found it had been entirely swept away. We leveled the ground and set up tents—along with our hopes and dreams of rebuilding everything that had been destroyed.
Even though I was surrounded by devastation, I felt a joy beyond the limits of the sky simply because I had survived. I began writing, imagining a happy ending to a horror story beyond human comprehension.
I started writing from the very first day of my displacement, imagining that the happy ending would be the beginning of life, survival, and the moment of return to Beit Hanoun. But as soon as I began, the war returned — stronger and more brutal than before.
I was displaced again, and as I write to you now, I have been displaced yet again. This is now my sixth displacement.
I began writing so the events would not be forgotten. But I have continued writing so that I would not be forgotten.
How did you continue to write hearing planes flying overhead, hearing the sound of quadcopters, or bombs dropping nearby? Were there days when that made you not want to write at all — or perhaps made writing feel even more important?
I write only at night. This is not a ritual or a luxury — during the day you simply do not have the privilege to rest. My task was to secure water; my entire day would be consumed by fetching water — a degree of humiliation beyond description.
As for writing, many times I saw it as worthless, without impact. After all, images and videos are broadcast day and night — and what has happened? The genocide only intensifies, day after day.
But what pushed me most to write was the fear of being forgotten. That if I were killed, I would end — I would be forgotten, reduced to a number. I, my dreams, my memories, my hopes — all forgotten.
So I found myself torn between two realities: that what I do will not stop the genocide nor affect the world — and that I must write so that I, and those I love, will not be forgotten.
What are your living conditions like at the minute?
My living conditions are catastrophic — just like those of all Gazans. What eats away at my body even more than hunger is helplessness — that feeling of being powerless, unable to provide food for your children.
You see their tears, you hear their moans, and you are powerless — powerless to silence the monster of hunger devouring their insides.
You include several other peoples’ stories in the book. People recounting waking up from airstrikes and seeing their families killed, children drowning while trying to swim to aid which has been dropped in the ocean, or seeing people sniped or bombed as they are searching for bread or food for their families. One that really stuck with me was your friend Mousa. What made you want to include these particular stories? You suggest that these are not unordinary stories, that many Gazans have had almost identical experiences to these.
So that the events will not be forgotten. So they will be preserved for the future — for generations to come.
Images and videos are forgotten; they are lost in the vast sea of the Internet. But books have always been the way humanity has preserved its memory throughout the ages.
I believe that writing preserves the dignity and humanity of my people. The camera has humiliated us, stripped us of our humanity, treating us as if we were bodies without souls.
One of the book’s primary messages seems to me to be humanize the individual stories behind headlines like ‘80 people killed at an aid distribution point in Gaza today’ which, terrifying, many people have grown accustomed to. Some people you speak with in the book, understandably, don’t seem hopeful about the power of words to change peoples’ minds. A man you met at the market says to you that if 18 months of horrific images and video footage beamed straight to people’s phones every day, how can words inspire action. Your book, as you say to the reader in the opening section, is your attempt to ‘hang these words around your neck — to make you [the reader] bear the responsibility of knowing, the responsibility of being a witness.’ Do you feel books, or writing more broadly, has the power to change consciousness?
The people of Gaza — and I among them — have reached a stage of resignation; I fear that killing is inevitable. All Gazans have lost hope that the extermination will end before the last of us is gone. Under the circumstances we live in, we no longer see images, videos, or words as having real value.
I believe that books and writing are the greatest means capable of changing consciousness; the proof lies in human history — after all, many religions are preserved in books. I think images, videos, and books all have a cumulative effect whose fruits we may harvest over time — but I pray there will still be Gazans left to harvest them then.
Many of the stories in here, the details you recount of the horrible ways Israeli soldiers murdered Palestinians, or tragic ways Palestinians died just trying to survive, will stay with me forever. Has writing about these things helped you live in any way with what you have seen?
What I have lived through — and am still living through — cannot be endured. Sometimes I think to myself: I survived, but will I be able to live with this vast weight of memories in my mind and the pain in my heart?
We are crushed — crushed in a way beyond description. Those who survive this will spend their entire lives suffering. If the war does not kill them, their memories will.
What is your hope for this book?
My hope from writing this book is not to forget — that the events will not be forgotten, that my loved ones will not be forgotten, that the sons and daughters of my people will not be forgotten.
I hope for survival and I wish for it, but in this sea of death that I live in, if I am killed, I pray that I will remain and live on through my words.
Wasim Said’s Witness to the Hellfire of Genocide is published by 1804 Books.