On his 24th birthday, Palestinian writer and poet Yahya Al Hamarna had more than one milestone to mark. On August 11, the same day he turned 24, his first book was launched at a celebration in Cardiff, Wales.
The collection of poems and essays trace the complexities of his everyday life. Guests gathered, readings were held and words were spoken about the young writer’s debut. Yet, unlike those who came to celebrate, Al Hamarna was not there. He was thousands of miles away, under siege in Gaza.
Over the following week, the book was launched with events in London and the Netherlands, where Al Hamarna’s friends organised readings and art performances. For him, it was a bittersweet achievement – one he could only watch from afar. Until he is evacuated, he cannot even hold a physical copy of his own book.
“I finished most of the text in a displacement tent, during a long journey that lasted more than 22 months,” Al Hamarna tells The National from Sheikh Radwan, west of Gaza city, where he is now taking shelter.
“During this time, I moved between Rafah and Khan Younis, then back to Gaza, then a new displacement to western Gaza. Every time I began to adjust a little, shelling would force me to leave.”
Often by the glow of his phone when fuel and electricity were cut off, sometimes by candlelight, Al Hamarna persisted. Through explosions, rubble and dust, he worked on My Voice Cannot be Bombed – a book that reflects not only his life, but also his condition as a refugee in his own city.
A student at Al-Azhar University – one of several higher education institutions damaged or destroyed by Israeli air strikes in recent years – Al Hamarna’s studies in international relations and diplomacy were repeatedly disrupted. He hopes to resume his bachelor’s degree online next month, with the ambition of pursuing a master’s degree in the future.
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Thanks to the support of friends abroad, the book was published by Iskra Books, a non-profit, independent scholarly publisher run by volunteers. For Al Hamarna, it is an attempt to preserve the fragments of life that “make us human despite what is happening around us”.
The work, he says, is an archive of small details that once felt self-evident. “It’s a record of the ease and simplicity that seemed natural before they were taken away from us,” he says.
Across 32 pages, My Voice Cannot be Bombed captures both devastation and memory. The poem In Just One Minute documents the stress of evacuating seconds before an Israeli air strike, while The Sound of Birds recalls a world before war – coffee on a bright morning, birdsong, children playing outside – the sounds of peace.
After a Long Wait, A Hug reads as a love letter to Gaza itself, likening the enclave to an old friend longed for in absence. The collection weaves together poetry and essays, the latter drawing on both personal testimony and collective memory.
“The poem closest to my heart is When I Survive, because it’s more than just a literary text; it’s personal testimony,” he says. “I wrote it as I recalled the details of my simple routine: a cup of coffee in the morning, listening to old music, reading a book by the window, meeting friends at a cafe, walking the streets of my city, sitting in the university garden, travelling, discovering cities and cultures, hearing Fairuz’s voice and morning music – all small details, yet they built my daily life and gave it meaning.
“After the war, these things became unattainable. Simply drinking a cup of hot tea without fear became a luxury, and sitting quietly without the sounds of bombing became a deferred dream.”
Completing the book was itself a feat of endurance. With constant power cuts and prolonged internet blackouts, sending material to publishers abroad was fraught with difficulty. “Sometimes I sent small portions of the book via friends outside Gaza, and sometimes I had to resend texts that had been lost due to the network outage,” he says. He often wrote from his destroyed home before completing most of the work in displacement tents.
“The bombing cuts short every idea before it is complete. Sometimes I wrote on torn paper, other times on my small phone by candlelight. But this just reminded me that writing is not a luxury, it’s a necessity.”
In the end, Al Hamarna believes the book is more than a collection of texts. It is a testament to survival. “I was writing to remember that I was alive – and to prove that a voice can emerge, even from under the rubble.”
