Emad, a thirty-five-year-old Palestinian man, has a dog named Shuhaybar. He’s a small, white fluffy guy with hair hanging over his eyes. Americans call him a West Highland White Terrier. Emad calls him a friend. He looks completely out of place in Gaza, yet somehow he fits. Maybe it’s Emad’s handmade chamois sombrero that he places on the dog to protect him from the sun. Or the piece of silver tarp he uses as a dog collar. Whatever the reason, this snowball, nose to the ground, never complaining canine, who accompanies Emad wherever he goes—bread lines, water lines, charging lines…et cetera—would rather die than run away from his master.
Emad documents their times together with videos and photographs on social media. Shuhaybar walks, plays and sleeps like any other dog, but these simple activities have taken on a new meaning. From the bodies and the rubble at the edge of Khan Yunis, to the pieces of cardboard, wood and plastic strung together that form the barest of shelters, Emad lives a life made of misery. Yet Shuhaybar makes us laugh, and humor is a relief for Emad, his Facebook friends and me. Its momentary lapse of reason transcends the daily scenes of death and destruction, and for an instant we see nothing but the beauty of Palestine and the love of its people.
Reem Bandaged
That’s important for Emad, because his wife Abeer (Arabic for aroma) and three-year-old daughter Reem (Arabic for graceful) went to live with their aunt after the shelter they shared burned down in an airstrike on June 7th, 2024. The IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) has chased them from place to place, but this is the first time his family’s been separated and it hurts. I can tell by studying his selfies that he’s lonely. At least I think that’s true, but I’m not always right. I used to think that Emad was naturally thin. Then I saw photographs of him before the war. He’s lost forty kilograms (eighty-eight pounds) since the war began. I now realize why his wife and child look so skinny. They’re starving! And Emad’s losing hope, just like he’s losing weight. His eyes and face radiate a sadness I see throughout Gaza: the look of an oppressed population desperate to be free.
A mutual online friend led Emad to me. He has a lot of things to say about what’s going on behind the scenes. But, like many refugees, he understands that sometimes it’s better to say nothing, less you offend the powers that be. So I go to the place where he finds relief: Shuhaybar. Two days after losing his wife and child indefinitely, he gained a canine companion—a faithful animal sent by God to ease his suffering.
But some pains cannot be healed overnight. And Emad’s pain is immense, for he has lost far more than the scent of his beautiful wife and the gracefulness of his three-year-old daughter. He has another child. Heba is her name. No one knows if she’s alive or dead. In February, when she was born, she had trouble getting oxygen to her brain. She remained in the NICU at the Emirati hospital in Rafah throughout the spring. In May, the Emirati evacuated its patients to the Indonesian hospital. Then the Israelis came. At the end of the month Emad called the new hospital to check up on his daughter.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have any records of your daughter ever being here,” they told him.
Those words sound like something you hear in a horror movie. But this is a horror movie. Emad fears the occupation took her. They did. They took her away before she was even born, before she was thought of, before her parents were born or thought of. In 1948 her great-grandparents were taken out of their homeland during the Nakba, the expulsion of the Palestinians from the places they had lived in for centuries. They were placed in an internment camp called the Gaza Strip, a jail-state protectorate, obedient first to Egypt, then to Israel, and then to a blockade as they were told “Now you’re free!” Free to work as day laborers on Israeli farms like paid slaves.
A colonial system arose. Palestinians who had been forced from their own land, now returned to it in order to eke out a nominal living. Before October 7th, 2024, the lucky awoke before sunrise and returned late at night after toiling under the blazing heat. After October 7th, those working in Israel would be detained and tortured before being released back into Gaza or the West Bank. The unemployed were the focus of the Occupation who, with midnight raids, removed any trouble makers as they pilfered their homes before bulldozing them to pieces. This is a common experience among Jews in the Ghettos colonized people.
What’s worse is that the Israelis have taken, by some accounts, two thousand bodies out of Gaza. For what? Their organs? Medical experiments? They sound psychotic. What would they want a baby’s body for? To humiliate the Palestinians? Let us go back to our current nightmare.
Emad posts slices of a half-lived life throughout early summer. The sound of jet engines, drones and gunfire moves unimpeded through the atmosphere, while Shuhaybar huddles in the corner seeking shelter and shade. Is he shaking? Does his canine mind think the remains of a corner wall will protect him from the bombs as well as the sun? Emad posts a video of Shuhaybar eating breadcrumbs. It’s a good thing dogs are omnivores just like us, because it’s been nine months since either man or beast has eaten meat.
Abeer keeps Emad updated on his daughter’s life. Photos show Reem’s healed from the head wound she got in an explosion. Now she’s wearing a pink fisherman’s hat to protect her from the summer’s heat. Reem smiles and plays, dancing in the streets. That’s all a father really needs to hear about his child for his mind to be at peace.
Emad posts the same photograph of Heba over and over again, still hoping she’ll be found. She’s rail thin. I’ve never seen a baby that’s just skin and bones. With all of their belongings destroyed, this photo will be all that remains to say she even existed.
On July 2nd, the IDF dropped leaflets foretelling another exodus. Run as fast as you can to get away from thee, the papers seem to be proclaiming. Panic spreads like a disease. Mother and daughter must flee. Chaos reigns on desiccated streets. Emad searches for his family relentlessly. No landmarks, no street signs, no shops, no homes, just avenues of dirt and rubble. In a miracle he finds them. Photos reveal the joy of their reunion. Reem beams with glee, and looks good considering she’s been running for her life. Abeer’s eyes peer out from behind her face covering in an expression of happiness and relief. For a moment their suffering has ceased.
Emad finds a place to erect a new home of tarps and twine in a small grove. Reem plays in a basin of water underneath the canopy of a lemon tree. Olive trees, the symbol of Palestinian fortitude, mill in the background, waiting to be harvested. An orange cat keeps Reem company. Soon, she will stumble upon a cotton candy vendor with her father. The delights of Gaza fill just a slender paragraph.
A few days later Emad posts a photo of his missing daughter with a caption: “Praise be to God… It seems my daughter Heba, after her disappearance, has sent us a gift from Heaven. We have just discovered my wife is pregnant.”
But the celebratory mood is soon over, because Emad now faces the issue of feeding his family. Between his loved ones and his faithful friend, any choice will hurt. Luckily, the dog’s owner has recovered from his injuries, and wants him back. Emad makes a final video bidding farewell to his companion as he walks with him. The caption reads: “Goodbye, my friend Shuhaybar. I am sorry that I can not provide you with enough to eat. I am sending you to a safer place where you will find food, water and a veterinarian.”
And, like the ending of an old Western, our canine hero walks off into the sunset.
You can learn more about Emad here.