Love Stands Upright Before Missiles

I flew from my childhood hometown beneath a confetti sky of kites, toward children who were made to fear the sky.

Earlier this year, I had the honour to be in the presence of some of the most powerful humans I have ever witnessed, people with genuinely awake and sound hearts.  Halima, a 1948 Nakba survivor. Saleh, a 7-year-old, my new friend with an unforgettable smile. Bushra, Saleh’s sister, who is 10—both grieving with their grandmother—their mother, Soha. Sheikh Abu Ali, the caretaker of Al-Wahdat refugee camp, the most present, thoughtful leader, who knew each child’s and each home’s unique traits and dynamics.

Human Concern International (HCI) and the Islamic Centre of New York City (ICNYC) led by Imam Khalid Latif came together to tap into the collective networks of over 100 global volunteers to show up with love for refugee families and children of Gaza and Palestine. It also served as a reminder that when we organize ourselves around love and sustained presence, we reclaim the responsibility too often outsourced, to governments, to future moments, or to someone deemed “more qualified”.

Volunteers packing food boxes in Jordan for delivery to Gaza: a grassroots collaboration between the Islamic Centre of New York City (ICNYC) and Human Concern International (HCI). © Rafik Haroune

I went expecting to witness suffering, but I also encountered dignity that disrupted my assumptions about justice, agency and faith. What I saw was not only systemic erasure, but also human presence that refuses that erasure. The question I came back with is not only what systems are doing to a people, but what witnessing demands beyond witnessing, spiritually, ethically and practically, without collapsing into comparative modes of guilt, or abstraction, or inaction.

Going in, I expected to think structurally: to identify gaps, organize responses, and build ways to show up at scale with the ICNYC group. But proximity disrupted abstraction. I arrived looking for ways to help at scale. I left understanding that responsibility begins with the courage to remain present. Being with people of Nour redefined what responsibility demanded of me. Their presence made indifference impossible. These were people simply happy that we came: to be seen, sat with, and listened to.

Islamic Centre of New York City (ICNYC) and Human Concern International (HCI) volunteers. © Rafik Haroune

At dawn on our first day on the ground in Jordan, before heading to the warehouse to pack food for the people in Gaza and refugee families in Jordan, Imam Khalid Latif reminded us, “History is not only shaped by those who wield power. Quite often, history is also shaped by those who refuse to surrender their humanity, dignity, and moral clarity when power fails them.”

In a world trying to instill fear in children, there was something quietly defiant about watching joy return to their bodies. The children of Gaza that we spent time with have the same right to dream and aspire as anyone else. They have talent. They have potential. They have ability.

The people I spent time with welcomed us into their homes; homes without doors, homes without running water, homes that had been without food for the past four months. Yet they were homes overflowing with welcome. When we carried groceries in for Ramadan, each family received us with a hug similar to one a sister or grandmother gives when we go home after a while. They shared more than hospitality. They shared a way of being human that I still struggle to articulate months later. Experiencing warmth and love that has no time bounds has a semblance of universality to it. This is the compassion, lived gratitude and kindness untouched by scarcity. It continues to reach my heart. No ordinary love.

Volunteers visiting baby Raneem’s mother and sister at Al Wahdat refugee camp. © Rafik Haroune

A kind of Nour torchbearers carry in a world increasingly organised around erasure; erasure of empathy, tenderness, creativity, community, and human dignity. It is our duty to carry their legacy, as fellow humans, insan, people whose actions carry meaning. So, when actions have this kind of Nour, power and intentionality behind them, it is bound to reach, ripple and stand upright to the missiles, the checkpoints and the snipers.

Al-Wahdat Camp

Al-Wahdat camp is now a multigenerational Palestinian refugee camp in Amman, Jordan. What began as tents after the 1948 Nakba slowly hardened into concrete over generations, enabled by the ongoing displacement. In 1955, it housed roughly 60,000 people across 5 kilometres. Today, it spans over 20 kilometres and holds nearly 160,000 Palestinians displaced across generations of occupation and genocide. It is more infrastructurally developed than other refugee camps our team also visited—multiple generations starting from those tents we see in historical archival images. Over time, through rounds of support and survival, those tents have slowly turned into homes.

At Al-Wahdat camp, there are 100 orphan families and 210 low-income families. 43 houses have been renovated, 69 orphans are currently sponsored and more than 40 rents are being covered through support.

There are 13 schools inside the camp, so overcrowded that children attend in shifts; some in the morning, and others in the evening. There’s one accessible medical center. There is one university in Jordan that serves Palestinians.

Children from Gaza at Al-Wahdat refugee camp © Rafik Haroune

Anyone displaced before 1968 had documentation and work eligibility. Anyone displaced after 1968 does not have documentation. Many Palestinians remain undocumented, unable to work legally, suspended inside an administrative condition of permanent uncertainty. Systems can normalize suffering administratively: a child unable to sit an exam because he cannot afford a one-dinar (US$2) bus ride; a mother delaying medical treatment because survival has already consumed the month; homes without electricity because bills could not be paid; water leaking through walls expressed itself as grief. I noticed oppression through denied documentation, unaffordable transportation, and the exhaustion of being made administratively invisible.

Many of the orphan families we visited were led by women whose husbands had either been killed during the genocide or had died young from illness linked to environmental exposure. We met mothers with respiratory diseases due to living conditions; children with Type 1 diabetes without the ability to afford treatment; teenagers navigating severe mental health struggles while trying to remain children—yet the instinct I witnessed repeatedly was not scarcity-driven individual survival alone. It was collective care. A few mothers told us they had shared the little extra money they received with a neighbouring family in need so another child could access water or medication.

Their needs are essentials. So, if we were to prioritise with equitable distribution at the forefront, here is where immediate ongoing support is needed: Food. For 4 months before we arrived, there had essentially been no food. They need running water and electricity. They need the ability to take a bus and see a medical practitioner. Many need home renovations. Building in an organized way, within the prism of accountability, as team players, our collective support can scale and continue reaching them.

Sheikh Abu Ali

Sheikh Abu Ali, the caretaker of Al-Wahdat camp, is an empowering, comforting and thoughtful leader. He was attuned to each child and each family with the kind of attentiveness that cannot be matched institutionally. He knew who was struggling quietly, which homes had no electricity, which child had become withdrawn, which grandmother lived alone, which girls were brilliant at school, so he would root for them in practical ways, for example, he expedited renovations of the bathroom for them to facilitate their exam prep. Yet, we found ourselves asking what is the point of this education when they remain ineligible to work, undocumented. Sheikh Abu Ali had a fatherly presence around the orphaned children watching over them as they played and ate with all of us. The last day, as I said goodbye to him, he said with a smile: “May your scales be heavy.”

Sheikh Abu Ali. © Rafik Haroune

Saleh and Bushra

Saleh, a 7-year-old, was grieving his mother, Soha. I met Saleh and his sister Bushra, 10-years-old, at their uncle’s Al-Wahdat home, after visiting their grandmother, Usra. Both children were visibly shaken that afternoon, carrying grief with the kind of stillness children should not have to learn so early. The next day, we spent time together at a trampoline park. At first, Saleh stayed close to Bushra, hesitant before every jump, hesitant in trusting his motor skills, watching more than participating. Slowly, with consistency and encouragement, he began taking leaps on his own. He branched off to try new things once he realized I was not leaving his side. Soon, he was high-fiving me with his little foot between jumps. Before we left, he asked me to show our selfie to my friends back home so they would know he had made a new friend. Being with Saleh altered my understanding of what presence can do. I witnessed how safety restores parts of children that grief, surveillance and displacement force into hiding. With care, many of the children began playing more freely. They laughed louder. They made friends. They trusted to leap without fear. In a world trying to instill fear in children, there was something quietly defiant about watching joy return to their bodies. The children of Gaza that we spent time with have the same right to dream and aspire as anyone else. They have talent. They have potential. They have ability.

Saleh, in his green hoodie, with his friends. © Rafik Haroune

Usra

Usra is Saleh and Bushra’s grandmother, and a grieving, 67-year-old mother of Soha. Usra embodied gratitude in the way she carried herself simultaneously in the presence of immense loss. There was not a dry eye when she said alhamdulillah while sharing with us the loss of Soha. As we walked away from the steps of her home where she came to see us off, she said in Arabic, “May we reunite in our homes in Jannah [Paradise].” I could not stop looking at her, as if etching her face, her presence as a frame in my mind so I never ever forget her; so I can recognize her if we do reunite. There was this conviction in her parting words that made me believe in the Allah she made dua to. There is power in such gratitude, timeless power in such resilience, and power in how she grieved.

Sohair

Sohair welcomed us while she was having an incredibly difficult day. She made us tea while sharing that they had been out of food last month. She was a mother to teenagers, and brought up her son and daughter’s hormonal and mental health challenges. Her son had been unable to write his exams due to being unable to afford a bus ride, which costs one dinar, equivalent to US$2. This had taken a toll on his wellbeing.

Halima

Halima was a 1948 Nakba survivor. Witty, wise, full of life. She warmed my hands saying they were too cold. It was meaningful hearing from her directly the Nakba experience she went through as a young child. She shared that she walked as a child with her parents from Palestine to Jordan. She prayed to experience Ramadan this year. Early May, Halima passed away, her distinct voice and smile etched in our minds and hearts.

Halima, the 1948 Nakba survivor. © Rafik Haroune

Here is a video of Halima, a Nakba survivor, sharing laughs with us:

Aya

Aya is a 24-year-old mother of 4 girls. Aya’s husband was killed recently in Gaza during the ongoing genocide. She carried herself with poise, gratitude and calm. She shared with us about her leg tumour, which during Ramadan was succes-sfully removed. We came together as a community to prioritise Aya’s treatment fundraising. She is healthy and able to walk again.

Aya’s daughters. © Rafik Haroune

Every single person we spent time with wished us well. They were loving in a way I have never experienced before. They had almost nothing to give, and still gave what I cannot name. They exhibited how a sound and awake heart lives through the worst of injustices, and refuses to be designed out of existence. There’s a concept of wajib and naseeb [duty and destiny] that I felt they were living out—almost as though they understood this reality was unfolding through them, and that they themselves were channels within it. Never have I seen people more resilient, more full of life, or more grateful in the face of such immense testing. They felt familiar. People who felt like they loved me before they even knew me.

And so I keep returning to this thought: When there is a systemic and oppressive ideology playing out: one that has forced people into unliveable conditions and then you encounter Palestinians, who are so upright, so dignified, so deeply beautiful in spirit, you begin to notice that they, too, have an ideology. But theirs is lived through love, stead-fastness, generosity, gratitude and presence. Even the child-ren carried this. They never once made us feel guilty for not doing enough. They simply loved us. So I found myself witnessing two embodied values and ideologies standing opposite each other.

If there is a “playbook” that sustains oppression, then Palestinians too seem to embody a sort of a playbook; one rooted in dignity, faith, love and human connection. There’s something there that all of us can learn from, and be transformed by.

Either we let love become the catalyst, or indifference slowly sets in.

No child should fear the sky.
No one should have a key heavier than the door to
their  home they were displaced from.
No land should be pulled from underneath a tree’s trunk.
No father should rummage through rubble collecting
slivers of his children’s bones.
No child should have to say, “He’s not heavy,
he’s my  brother.”
—Poem by Anum Tariq