A TikTok trend shows what life is like for displaced Gazans. All Israelis should watch
Unboxing aid in Gaza
Nissan Shor reports in Haaretz on 4 July 2024:
Unlike many of my friends on the Israeli left, I don’t believe there’s much value in showing the horrors of the war in Gaza and the price it exacts on civilians on the other side. Tens of thousands of dead Palestinians, bodies buried beneath the rubble, mangled and bloodied. And on the news here in Israel, we don’t see or hear any of it.
Even if the media did decide to show Israelis what is happening right under their nose, it’s unlikely to budge their moral compass. Around here, Palestinian suffering has become an insatiable source of delight and vengeance. They’re getting what they deserve. Babies, children, women, grandpas and grandmas – they’re all terrorists.
The graphic footage has the potential to become sickening snuff, like the gag videos passed around on WhatsApp. So, it’s probably a good thing that Israelis aren’t being exposed to the full picture of what is happening in their name. Is that what we really need? More gloating? More bloodlust?
However, a new genre of videos may just be what jolts the average Israeli out of his or her indifference and malignant arrogance (I’m not that optimistic, I must admit).
I’ve watched hundreds of these videos now on TikTok. In them, you see Gazans trying to adapt to their new lives in the vast tent cities that have sprung up amid the devastated buildings. They film themselves in their daily routine, and what you see is not just the human struggle, but a basic fact that most Israelis deny: There is no total victory. Nor will there be. Nor is there anything close to it. This is evident in every video, in every frame and every second on screen. Life is stronger than Netanyahu’s pathetic slogans.
With these videos, Palestinians are illustrating the power of a word that has been in extra-heavy usage since October 7. Israelis like to use the English term “resilience,” perhaps to convince ourselves that despite the trauma, we are still the “startup nation,” and part of the family of nations. For the Palestinians, the word refers to emotional resilience or the ability to quickly recover from disaster.
While we Israelis still struggle with the ramifications of the October 7 attack and the relentless fighting in the north, most of us have gone back to our normal lives, as is only natural. Summer is here and Israelis are busy planning vacations abroad, finding summer camps for their children, and watching reality TV. In Gaza, it’s a different world entirely.
I watch these videos with great curiosity, amazement, guilt and awe. There is something quite inspiring about seeing people who’ve been uprooted from their homes, trying to maintain their human dignity against all the odds. And somehow succeeding, even if with great difficulty.
I recommend watching these videos if only to get an understanding of the current reality. Against the Israeli campaign of dehumanization, it’s an opportunity, albeit minor, to restore Palestinians’ humanity and get a little better understanding of Gaza, both how it is now and how it was before the war.
No, it wasn’t a ghetto nor a concentration camp, but it also wasn’t a good place to be, as right-wing journalist Amit Segal claimed in an interview he gave in somewhat decent English on Ezra Klein’s podcast for the New York Times. The truth is always found somewhere in the middle.
In one video, a bodybuilder shows his routine before and after the start of the war. He talks about how he misses the days when he used to work out in the gym. Now, the gym is a mound of rubble. He gazes wistfully at the horizon.
In another “before and after” video, you see a young guy in a leather jacket standing next to a sleek Honda jeep. “How did I get from here to there?” a voiceover is heard asking, before the man is seen today, sitting on a mule-drawn wagon winding through the ruins of northern Gaza.
In another video, a young Gazan man mourns his former life. He used to live in a big villa, was into boutique coffees and fancy watches, and wore designer clothes. And now? You can see the shock and awe of the war on his face, and maybe also regret and anger at Hamas, but that’s a lenient interpretation.
In these TikTok videos there’s no death or blood or gore or screams of pain. It’s not that kind of genre. What you do see is a lot of food. Gazans clearly know the language of the popular food videos on social media, and try to emulate them with the meager means at their disposal.
One girl makes an orange kugelhof cake in a house that has been completely razed. A cute young girl makes knaffeh, and crumbles dried pita instead of the kadaif noodles in the original recipe. A young boy, who is just as cute, sits in a tent and explains how to make guacamole. A young man catches two big bass fish and deep-fries them (a dish that would cost at least 400 shekels in a restaurant in Israel).
Two older men grill chicken thighs, and of course there’s shawarma, falafel, grape leaves and zucchini salad, charred eggplant and burekas filled with maluhiya, and makeshift mud ovens used to bake cinnamon buns. Gazans are crazy for cinnamon buns, it turns out. They seem to be baking this American treat en masse.
One woman also made Hanukkah donuts and filled them with a thin strawberry jam. I would say that this falls under the category of cultural appropriation, but it’s hard to judge the culinary preferences of a population experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis.
There are also lots of “unboxing” videos, in which Gazans open humanitarian aid packages that parachute down from the sky. It’s an unbelievably dystopian sight. A lot of young people make videos about what they call “Tent Life.” They try to appear content with what they have, but the suffering and sorrow is evident and the devastation always lurks in the background.
Some of those particularly skilled in editing create well-made stop-motion videos. They may have lost everything, but they still have their iPhone 15. They show the tent they’re living in, and how they’ve arranged it. They fold up their pajamas, make their bed, and do their morning ablutions with Israeli products like Pinuk brand shampoo and moisturizer, before heading off to the beach to pass the time until some sort of redemption arrives. Unfortunately, it won’t be arriving anytime soon.
The videos have a distinct sound to them. It’s from the ceaseless buzzing of the Israeli drones that are flying over Gaza at all hours of the day. How can that not drive a person mad? Some of the people in the videos use emotional manipulation and speak in English, knowing that the world is watching and every video is also an excellent propaganda tool. Melodramatic music is added to heighten the feeling. These guys are masters of this short-form medium.
TikTok is not an exact science or a scholarly examination. It’s easy to jump to all kinds of conclusions. Israelis seeing these videos will say that the Palestinians aren’t so bad off or that they’re not really starving because they posted a video of them frying luf (tinned beef) with egg. There’s lots of luf. All day long – luf, luf, luf. If luf is the proof that all is hunky dory with the Palestinians, then I think we all have to find better justifications for what we’ve done, and for the dead end that we and they are caught in.
These videos are evidence of the war’s failure and of the pointlessness of Israeli vengeance. Every Israeli should watch them and understand that the Palestinians aren’t going anywhere, that after nine months of fighting and non-stop destruction raining down on Gaza, Palestinians don’t appear to be “surrendering” or “breaking.” They’re just trying to survive.
Which is why, by the way, they’re receiving empathy from the entire world. Last week, I saw Damon Albarn, lead singer for one of my favorite bands, Blur, shouting from the stage at Glastonbury Festival: “Are you pro-Palestinian? Do you think this war is unfair?” The crowd responded with roars and cheers. It’s hard to blame them. From the filmed imagery, this looks like a war that has lost all justification. A war without a real purpose or sane strategy.
It will take years for these Gazans on TikTok to rebuild their lives. In the meantime, they’ll keep making videos, and Israelis will go on thinking that ultimate justice is on their side, and so on and so forth, until total defeat.
This article is reproduced in its entirety