BEYOND MY EVACUATION FROM GAZA TO ITALY

SEVEN MONTHS OF INCOMPLETE RELIEF BLENDED WITH ‘SURVIVOR’S GUILT’

Fanrivista is honored to publish the testimony of a genocide survivor, although she explains in this article that there are hurdles incredibly hard to overcome, even when you reach physical safety.

Sara Awad is a Palestinian writer who has been living and studying in Italy for 7 months. Her work has been published on several news outlets: ‘Kritica’, ‘Il Manifesto’, ‘Il Domani’, ‘Drop Site News’, ‘Truthout’, ‘We Are Not Numbers’, ‘The Intercept’, ‘The Independent’, ‘Al Jazeera English’, ‘Middle East Eye’, ‘TRT World’,‘PRISM’, and ‘El Salto’. Depicting human experiences and amplifying underreported stories, her work is centered on social issues, resilience, identity, and hope amid the ongoing genocidal war and occupation in her homeland.

I thought building a new life away from home would feel like a fresh start, but I didn’t realise the weight of carrying two lives at once—one of them scarred by war.

At night, in the middle of winter, on 15 December 2025, I began a new chapter of my life. At 22, I left everything I knew behind and chose to start over—alone.

My age is more than a number. I grew up with six wars shaping my life. The latest one is still continuing in my home, even though, for me, it ended the moment I left. I survived by leaving, while my family remained behind. That is the part I struggle to live with—the feeling that I escaped while the people I love are still trapped in the war. Survivor’s guilt follows me every day.

This is Sara Awad, a Palestinian writer from Gaza who has spent the past two years documenting the genocide in Gaza. If anyone had told me that one day I would be writing this article, I would not have believed them. I had imagined my life very differently: graduating with a degree in English Literature from the Islamic University of Gaza, becoming a teacher, and spending a long life surrounded by the people I love in my hometown. It was not an extraordinary plan. It was simple, ordinary, and, I thought, within reach. But none of it came true. My plans were destroyed, along with so much of what Gaza once was.

HOW I SURVIVED GAZA’S WAR

Dreaming tastes strange when it comes with guilt. I had long hoped for a scholarship to study abroad, like any other international student—and now it’s real. I have won a place in Italy to complete my bachelor’s degree, just as I always dreamed. But I never imagined my scholarship would arrive in the middle of a genocide. I never thought it would be my ticket to survival.

Islamic University of Gaza before the genocidal war. Picture by Sara Awad.

The process began in the early months of the war, when I realised Gaza was no longer the place I had once known. I told my family I wanted to complete my bachelor’s degree abroad, no matter how long it took. Amid starvation, bombs, death, and unimaginable conditions, I held on to my dream.

I spent hours on my phone—no matter how many times the electricity or internet failed—searching for a scholarship that could realise my dream. I applied dozens of times to different countries and degree programmes and, somehow, I found the strength to keep going, even while sheltering from the war.

Every email notification was a promise of escape, but it always ended the same way, with a rejection. I remained trapped in Gaza, with no clear way out. But I kept pursuing my dream, even when the world around me was telling me there was no hope.

Then, good news finally arrived: I was granted a scholarship in Italy. I remember vividly where I was when hope finally touched me: sitting in the tent at our displacement site—it was October 2025. I prayed that this time it would be real, that my heart would not break again.

While waiting for my evacuation date, I spent days and nights without sleep. I was torn between chasing my dream and the guilt of leaving my family.

It felt unbearably cruel to hold a single ticket to survival while being part of a family of eight who had no similar way out. For a month, I waited. For a month, I asked myself the same questions every day: ‘why must I leave Gaza to have a future? Why does life for Palestinians always feel incomplete? Why is our joy always complicated?’.

THE EVACUATION

On November 24, my phone rang. I held it like a child reaching for a long-awaited toy. I answered, and I heard someone speaking English on the other end. I knew immediately: this was my survival call. Someone from the Italian embassy called me to confirm the date of the evacuation. It was later confirmed to be on 15 December.

All I was concerned about was my family’s faces. I finished the call with the embassy—only four minutes—I still remember every detail of that day. And I immediately hugged my father. He was watching me answer the call as I finally touched one of my dreams. Then I hugged my mom, then my five siblings. I felt nothing but shame to have this happiness without them.

Tears still fall as I write this. Can you imagine how much I miss them? For me, we are the best family. We endured the war and its unbearable conditions together, hand in hand. We shared the pain with patience and hope. In reality, survival meant nothing without them. Eight months without them beside me—I don’t know how many more months I will endure.

FREEDOM

After days of exhaustion and fear, the journey was finally over. I arrived in Italy. I had expected to feel happy and relieved, but the truth was the opposite. Life outside Gaza seemed completely normal, too normal, while my people continued to suffer, even during the so-called ceasefire.

Italy was safe, clean, beautiful, and welcoming. And yet, it just kept reminding me how unfair life could be.

Milan Cathedral. Picture by Sara Awad

I am writing this article on 17 August 2026, which marks exactly seven months since I arrived in Italy. My life here looks almost like a dream. I have access to everything I once took for granted: food, water, transportation, education, a home—and, most importantly, safety. Yet I cannot fully feel the happiness I thought these things would bring me. Something is always missing. My family. My best friend. The dream of completing my English Literature degree in Gaza. And, perhaps most of all, my peace of mind.

I survived, but survival did not mean that I left everything behind. I brought the war with me in a different form: in the silence after a phone call, in the fear of an unanswered message, and in the constant knowledge that the people I love are still in Gaza.

I am now a student at the ‘Università per Stranieri di Siena’ (‘University for Foreigners of Siena’), a university that opened its doors to a future I once thought I had lost.

Learning Italian has become part of this new chapter of my life. It is one of my favourite languages, and it is now becoming my third.

I have also started collaborating more with Italian magazines, alongside the English-language platforms I have worked with. Writing remains one of the places where I feel most like myself. Whether I am writing about politics or society, telling the truth through my work has always been one of my deepest commitments.

In many ways, I am building the life I once dreamed of... But it is not the life I originally imagined.

I am thankful, but more than that, I feel deeply grateful and privileged to have this opportunity. I know that there are students my age in Gaza who are dreaming of having just one of my ordinary days here in Italy: attending university, walking safely through the streets, learning a new language, and planning for a future.

I carry that awareness with me. My safety and education are not things I take for granted. They are opportunities that many of my peers in Gaza are still waiting for.

I am grateful to Italy, to the Italian people, to the universities that opened their doors to us, and to every person who thought of Palestinian students from Gaza when so much around us had been taken away—except our dreams of education.

If there is one thing I want people to take from this article, it is this: do not see the evacuation of Palestinian students from Gaza as the end of our suffering. It is only the beginning of a different kind of suffering—one that happens from a place of safety.

We are safe, but we are not at peace. We can study, eat, sleep, travel, and build new lives, while our families remain behind. We can be grateful for the safety we have been given and still grieve for everything we have lost. These two truths can exist at the same time.

Leaving Gaza saved our lives. But it did not mean leaving Gaza behind.

Sara Awad

Many voices and stories want and deserve to be heard, especially the voices of regular people in Gaza and in Palestine, but only a few organizations and news outlets are willing and interested in listening to and sharing them. More often than not, those media organizations are not the mainstream ones, hence they are more precarious, like Fanrivista, The General Press Fanzine. If you found this content useful, please, support our independent journalism: there are far more important causes to support than Fanrivista, but if you have some spare change for a coffee, consider buying us one virtually. You can also support us by following our ‘anti-social media’ profiles, sharing our content, or boycotting mainstream social media and connecting with us through our Fediverse profiles.

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