by Haifa Bassam Abu Shamla
GAZA, Oct. 20 (Xinhua) -- On Gaza's shore, I draw my bow across a cello that survived the bombing of our home. Its wooden body bears the scars of war, but it still makes music.
I do not want my identity to be reduced to a number in a death toll or to the image of a musician playing among ruins. I am a cellist, a visual designer, a young woman born and raised in Gaza who has spent years learning, creating, and building a life around art.
My name is Haifa Bassam Abu Shamla. I am 22 years old, a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza, where I studied information technology and computer science, and one of the few cellists still playing in the enclave.
Perhaps in most people's minds, the sound of Gaza is the weeping of loved ones, the cries of children, and the drone of unmanned aircraft and artillery fire. But beyond those sounds, I can still hear the whisper of the Mediterranean breeze, the song of the waves, and the melody of my beloved cello woven together.
I began my musical journey at the age of 11, when I joined the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in Gaza in 2015. Over the years, the cello became much more than an instrument; it became a way to express emotions that I could not always put into words.
Growing up in Gaza meant living through repeated wars, uncertainty, and loss. But music existed alongside all of that. It gave me a space where I could remain connected to something that was mine.
When the war began in October 2023, that connection was suddenly taken away from me. My family was forced to flee. There was barely enough space in the car for clothes, bedding, and other necessities. There was no room for my cello. I had to leave it behind.
Forty-nine days after we fled, our home was bombed. The destruction of our home was not simply the loss of a building; we had spent more than 10 years building and renovating it into the home we wanted.
We had lived there for less than two years when the war took it from us in a matter of moments.
My father, a mechanical engineer, returned to see what he could repair. He was devastated by what he found.
"I am sitting here removing the rubble of the house I spent years building," he told me, tears running down his face. "Ten years of hard work are gone. All that effort, all that exhaustion, all those years of trying to build something for us -- gone."
About a year later, I finally returned to our home. It was a painful moment. The house was still standing, but it no longer felt like home -- its walls were burned and scarred by helicopter fire, its rooms that once held our memories now empty and exposed.
But my cello was there, though badly damaged. The glue holding its wooden body together had melted; its soundboard was broken. Yet I decided to repair it without hesitation, though it cost around 200 U.S. dollars -- a small fortune in Gaza.
When I held it again, repaired and ready to play, it felt like recovering a part of myself.
My cello had become a mirror of Gaza itself -- scarred, damaged, but still here. According to a recent UN satellite assessment, approximately 82 percent of Gaza's structures -- about 200,000 buildings -- have been damaged, with two-thirds of them destroyed.
A few months after I returned home, my family was forced to leave again. Once again, I had to leave my cello behind. This cycle continued through displacement after displacement.
During our most recent displacement, for the first time, there was enough room to take the one thing that had accompanied me through so much of my life. So I took my cello with me, a reminder that my life was more than displacement, destruction, and survival.
As Gaza's shoreline became crowded with displaced families, I began taking my cello to the beach and playing there. Along that shore, I played pieces that carried emotions of grief, fear, loss, and hope. Among them was John Williams' theme from "Schindler's List," a piece associated with another historical tragedy. Playing it in Gaza connected different experiences of human suffering and reminded me why music can sometimes speak where words fail.
Even after the so-called "second phase" of the ceasefire was announced, little has changed in my daily life. The bombings are fewer, but they have not stopped. The crossings remain largely closed to many of the things people need -- not just food and medicine, but also the strings, rosin, and spare parts that keep my cello alive.
We have learned not to trust promises written on paper. We trust only what we can hold in our hands. For me, that is this battered wooden instrument that still, somehow, sings.
One moment has stayed with me. One day a child living in a displacement camp saw my cello. He had never seen an instrument like it before. When he learned that the cello was made of wood, he asked me whether I could give it to him because his family could use it as fuel for cooking or heating water.
That moment often reminds me of the enormous distance between the world of music and the reality of survival in Gaza. For me, the cello represents expression, memory, and identity. For someone struggling to find fuel, its wooden body becomes something as basic as warmth.
And yet, I still believe that art matters precisely because of this reality. War does not only destroy buildings. It also threatens people's ability to imagine a future. That is why I continue to play.
I am the founder of "Beyond Gaza", a multidisciplinary collective of young women artists from Gaza. Through our work -- blending music, visual art, and performance -- we aim to show that our identity is not defined solely by war and loss. We create because we are still alive, still dreaming, still capable of imagining something beyond survival.
I do not know when I will next stand on a proper stage before an audience gathered simply to celebrate music and life. But I know that I will keep playing.
If the world hears my cello, I hope it hears more than a story of struggle and survival. I hope it hears us -- still here, still imagining, still making music.
Editor's note: Haifa Bassam Abu Shamla is a Gaza-based musician.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.■
