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April 21, 2026, will remain etched in history forever. Alhamdullah, we have officially opened the first library to be built during the genocide in Gaza.
I survived, even after all my expectations had utterly failed. I never imagined that I would stand here among you today; I never imagined that I would soar once again. Like a phoenix, I have risen, carrying in my right hand a legacy that refused to die, and in my left, the very ashes with which epics of steadfastness were written. When the ink ran dry, I wrote with what remained; the ink dried, and blood flowed, so that our first lines were written by a martyr—a witness to our undying struggle.
In Gaza, building a library during a genocide is an act that rises to the level of liberation—perhaps, it is liberation itself. Every book I carried on my shoulders while displaced, and every book I rescued from the rubble, was a stolen homeland. A homeland whose pages they tore, yet the hope of reclaiming it remains alive within us for as long as we live.
Because our Palestinian curriculum and educational system are monitored by the Israeli occupation, we must read. We must read so that we do not become machines fashioned by their hands. We must break free from this 'factory' and become like the olive trees—plants that found their path through the soil of Palestine, emerging in the most beautiful form of struggle and resilience.
In an age obsessed with valuing knowledge based on its material return, I was forced to fight many battles to convince those who argued with me amidst the shelling: 'What good will these books do you? Why do you take them with you every time you are displaced?'
Perhaps they were right; at that time, a loaf of bread was more precious and costly than anything else. But I held a deep, unshakable faith that I would be here one day.
Someone once told me: 'There is a hand that, were it not for its vigilance, we would perish.' He passed away, but my left hand remained, writing and writing and writing, until today I have three books—and a wound that never heals.
In closing, I wish to thank every human being who had a hand in the Phoenix’s rebirth.
-Omar Hamad.
English
