This morning, while I was sitting in a language class, my father sent a message to our family WhatsApp group. He was thanking God that my uncle and his family were alive. The Israeli military had bombed a house beside the apartment they had rented after being displaced. Their apartment was damaged too, but they had survived. I thought about how the meaning of ordinary words changes during a war. In our family, “Thank God you’re safe” has become a familiar expression. We no longer say it only when someone returns from a journey or leaves a hospital. We say it when someone survives the bombing of a neighbouring house. Before October 7, my uncles and their families lived close to us in a small neighbourhood in Jabalia. Our houses were separated by walls, but our lives were not. We shared weddings, meals, and grief. There was always a door we could open without knocking, someone who knew we were troubled before we spoke. Then our neighbourhood was destroyed. Some of us were killed. The rest were scattered, some to tents, others to damaged apartments. We became strangers in our own city. People we had once seen every morning now had to arrange a meeting to see one another. A family that had once shared everything now exchanged news of its survival through WhatsApp. I was thinking about this while my teacher explained a grammar rule. I looked at my phone, then at the board, then at my phone again. “Are you with us?” she asked. “Put your phone away for now.” I did not know what to answer. Only minutes earlier, I had been following her lesson. Then a message had arrived, and I was back in Jabalia, wondering whether my uncle’s family would have to flee again, whether the apartment was still habitable, whether another message would follow. My teacher knew that I was from Gaza. Perhaps she had seen the war on television. But how could I explain what had happened in those few minutes? Where would I begin? With the neighbourhood that no longer existed? With the relatives we had buried? With the years of displacement? Or with the message that had arrived that morning? How could I fit three years of my life into an answer to a simple question? Sometimes I feel that I am living two lives at once. In one, I attend classes, buy coffee, and prepare for examinations. In the other, I wait for news from Jabalia. Here, the teacher continues speaking, the students take notes, and buses arrive on time. People worry about examinations and appointments. They go home in the evening. I wish these were my family’s worries too. Before the lesson ended, another message arrived. An evacuation order had been issued for a house beside the place where another of my uncles was living. He and his family had fled before the threatened house could be bombed. That morning, one uncle’s family had survived a bombing. Before the end of class, another had been forced to flee. Between the two messages, I was expected to learn a new language. I sometimes feel guilty for being here, where I can plan for tomorrow, while the people I love cannot. And then I feel guilty for being unable to concentrate on the life I had so desperately hoped to begin. I want to live. I want to learn. But I am beginning to understand that it is possible to leave a war without the war leaving you. I left Gaza. I could not take my family with me, and I could not leave my fear for them behind. Perhaps this is what I wanted to tell my teacher. That I was trying to be there, to understand her words, to learn her language, to begin again. But part of me was still in Jabalia, waiting to know whether my family would survive until evening. Instead, I said nothing. I put my phone in my pocket and looked at the board. The teacher continued her lesson. I tried to follow. I was learning a new language to begin my future, while waiting for a message to tell me whether the people I loved still had one. #SurvivalTestimony