Before the skies of Gaza darkened with drones and destruction, its heart pulsed with life. University courtyards echoed with laughter, city squares breathed celebration, and streets held the quiet poetry of everyday joy. The Islamic University’s Grand Conference Hall was a cradle of ambition — where proud graduates marched beneath banners of hope. Its library, a haven of knowledge, once overflowed with dreams. Today, it lies in ruin — its books burned for warmth, its halls blanketed in tents and sorrow.

What were once sacred spaces of learning and love have become shelters of the displaced. In Gaza City, places like the Unknown Soldier Square and Police Street — once teeming with families, students, and stories — now stand as silent graveyards of memories. Gaza’s soul, once sewn into every stone and step, is being stripped away.

Amal Al-Farrani, a journalism graduate, remembers her university as a place where dignity and determination thrived. But wars — especially the one that postponed her graduation — stole her celebration. Now, she fears walking the streets of her city, not out of danger, but out of a deeper dread: the loss of memory. She clings to the scent of coffee, the rhythm of footsteps, and the laughter of children, refusing to let war redefine her Gaza.

Journalist Mona Al-Amaytl remembers the Grand Conference Hall not as it stands now — scorched and broken — but as it once was, alive with songs and pride. She cannot accept the new, muted face of her beloved places, holding tightly to the beauty that once was.

An’am Majed Odeh, the first university graduate in her family, had dreamt of higher education. Her graduation day shimmered with love and triumph — but that dream has since dissolved in the ash of war. Today, she works in the very hall where her dreams once took shape — now a space filled not with celebration, but with suffering.

This is the unseen cost of war in Gaza: the destruction not just of buildings, but of belonging. Tents stretch across courtyards, wires tangle with memories, and streets that once carried the pulse of life now whisper of loss. But still, among the ashes, Gaza holds on. Its people, their memories, and their longing are a defiance against erasure — a quiet, unwavering dream that refuses to die.