Two Queer People in Gaza

I want to be liberated. I hope my message reaches you. I love you all, and I ask for your help.

Afeef Nessouli is a journalist based in New York who, for nine weeks in spring 2025, worked as a medical logistics coordinator for an international NGO in Gaza called Glia. He has been one of the only foreign journalists on the ground in Gaza since the Israeli assault began in 2023. In the course of this and earlier relief efforts since the start of the genocide, Nessouli has been in contact with many queer people in Gaza, and two interviews with people he has been covering appear in our 2024 release, Queer Palestine. Here, he revisits a conversation with E.S., an HIV+ English teacher living in the north of Gaza with his family, and speaks with a new contact in the north, a trans woman living in a school housing displaced people. These interviews were conducted in June of 2025, the twenty-first month of the genocide in Gaza.

“Amal,” in her own words as a trans woman in Gaza

1. What is your name (you can give a fake name if you want), and how do you identify yourself (Trans, Gay, Palestinian, Queer, etc.)?

My name is Amal, I live in Palestine, specifically the Gaza Strip. I am transgender. I treat myself as a woman, and I like everyone to talk to me in the feminine form, and I love myself very much as a woman.

2. Where are you now, and can you describe your living situation (apartment, school, tent)? Who are you living with/near? Describe what your regular morning routine looks like.

I live in northern Gaza. I stay in a school that houses displaced people in a very dangerous area that is being evacuated, but there is no other place to live. My daily routine begins with difficulty and ends with difficulty. I wake up in the morning to go to the bathroom, and there is a very long line of men and women. I wait more than an hour for my turn to come and relieve myself, then I sit to drink something hot to give me energy, but because of the difficult political situation there is nothing in light of the high cost of living and food. Sitting by the fire and using wood for fuel is a very difficult life. None of my family is with me, and this is the hardest thing I've experienced in this war.

3. Tell me about your sisters. You once explained that they made you feel like your true self. How did they do that? Where are they now?

It's true that my sisters played a big role in my reaching this passion, enthusiasm, and continued transformation. They treated me like I was a sister, not a brother. I used to wear dresses, women's clothes, accessories, and hair extensions and put on makeup in front of them, and they encouraged me to do so. They would tell me, “You are very beautiful,” and we would laugh together and take risks. But now I am alone and don't know where they are! The war took them from me, since we were targeted. They have been missing since then, and I have not heard anything about them for more than a year.

3a. Tell me about your two best friends. What are they like and what do you like about them?

My closest friends are Reem and Nour. They are the most beautiful things in my life. They are transgender too, and they are very beautiful, pure of heart, and beautiful in spirit and face. I love them very much. They are the ones who remain with me in this life, and they are the source of my happiness.

4. What is the biggest problem you deal with everyday that you think people should know about (hunger, bullying, danger from Israel, all)?

I really face many problems such as hunger, danger, instability, lack of security and safety, and bullying: verbal and physical harassment. I want to escape from this society that considers everything forbidden and shameful, while in reality it is freedom. I am very tired, and I want to be liberated!

5. Can you tell me in a few sentences about what your ideal future looks like? What do you look like? What do you do for a living? Where do you live?

I dream and hope for a very bright and beautiful future. I live without fear and with complete freedom. I want to live in America or Canada. These countries are stable and have peace and great freedom. There is no racism or bullying. I want to have a beauty, makeup, and dress center in the future and receive all customers with open arms.I work in this field because I love it very much, and I am at the peak of my happiness when I make something I love.

I like to wear beautiful dresses and simple feminine clothes and to have long hair and a beard that is not too thick, but I want to have a prominent chest and buttocks as well and to wear some accessories and a shiny crown. To show my femininity and softness, I want to wear heels to walk like a gazelle. I want to wear beautiful colors like red, purple, and yellow, and I want to wear soft makeup to highlight my beauty, and I want to wear thick eyelashes and contact lenses to change the routine.

6. Anything else you want to say?

The Israeli army is working on a new evacuation map every day to destroy what remains of the country, and they are killing innocent civilians such as children, women, men and the elderly and preventing the entry of aid. We are dying of hunger, and they are besieging the innocent and killing them. They close all the entrances to the Strip. We cannot travel, and aid cannot be brought in so that we can eat. We are dying of hunger, dying of hunger.

I want to live in peace and security. That's my only concern in this life. I want to live like all transgender people in the world. I want to eat, sleep, and drink, and live a clean life free of bullying. I demand that all international organizations, all gay people around the world, and the LGBTQ community release me and my friends from this huge prison. We want to live a life of luxury, free from restrictions, bullying, and harassment.

I appeal to everyone involved in the LGBT community. I want to be liberated. I want to be liberated. I hope my message reaches you. I love you all, and I ask for your help.

“E.S.,” Living in northern Gaza and living with HIV

1. What is your name, and how do you identify yourself (Trans, Gay, Palestinian, Queer, etc.)?

My name is E.S., and I identify as a queer Palestinian. Being queer in Gaza means carrying an invisible weight—one that people outside may never truly grasp. It's living at the intersection of multiple battles: occupation, societal pressures, and internal survival. I often say it's an occupation within an occupation.

My identity is rooted not only in my queerness, but in my resistance, my love for my land, my chronic illness, and my disability. These aren't just burdens; they are also blessings—sacred intersections that have taught me resilience, introspection, and the power of being alive despite everything.

Especially as someone living with HIV and now a physical disability, I'm in constant awe that I'm still here—not just surviving this genocide, but surviving life.

2. Where are you now and can you describe your living situation (apartment, school, tent)? Who are you living with/near? Describe what your regular morning routine looks like.

I live in a small rental apartment in northern Gaza City, just north of the Gaza Valley/Netzarim Corridor. I share it with my mother, my brother, and our two newly-adopted cats. We used to live in our family home—the same apartment for over twenty years—but it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in October 2024. Along with our home, we also lost our older cats, who were like family to us.

We now rent from a friend of my mother's who evacuated to Cairo. She agreed to let us stay here for much cheaper than the current inflated prices. While the space is tight and sometimes tense, I know how lucky we are to be here instead of a tent. So I hold on to that gratitude even on the darkest days.

My mornings are heavy and often hollow. I wake up to the same dreadful realization—that today will be no different than yesterday. I wash my face. I make my bed. I go to the kitchen to light a fire and prepare something warm to drink. I used to have instant coffee with milk and sugar. Now that those are gone, I drink unsweetened black tea. Sometimes I add a spoonful of molasses—leftover from the last aid we received over two months ago—just to taste something sweet. There isn't much left to look forward to. The days blur into one another, but somehow I keep repeating them.

3. Tell me about your condition right now. You have been in pain for quite a bit and explaining your situation online. Can you tell us a bit about your current status physically?

This year marks a decade of living with HIV—and it's also the third year since my condition developed into a physical disability due to complications and delayed treatment. Before the war escalated, I had hopes for rehabilitation. I imagined that with time, nutrition, and proper care, I could regain some of my strength and mobility. But the genocide stole that possibility from me. Now I live with chronic neurological pain—it's sharp, unrelenting, and wears me down both physically and mentally. I go to sleep in pain and I wake up in pain. It's become my most consistent companion.

Thankfully, I'm still receiving my antiretroviral medications through the Ministry of Health, which distributes them every three months. I consider that a lifeline, even though access to other forms of care has all but disappeared. Malnutrition caused by the famine makes everything harder—my energy is lower, my body weaker, my mind foggier. There's a spiritual exhaustion too, like a fading light inside that I try so hard to protect.

4. What is the biggest problem you deal with every day that you think people should know about (hunger, bullying, danger from Israel, all)?

It's all of it—the hunger, the danger, the isolation, the deep emotional fatigue. The threat of Israeli attacks never goes away. A drone hums overhead or a sudden strike happens somewhere nearby, and all the trauma resurfaces. There's no real "safe place" in Gaza. Even the quiet feels suspicious.

But the hunger is just as painful. We don't plan for tomorrow anymore—we think about how to get through today. Sometimes there's no food. Sometimes just bread and tea. We've grown used to eating less and expecting nothing.

Living as a queer person adds another layer. It's a daily calculation of safety—who to trust, what to say, how to navigate space without drawing attention. I'm not only at risk from bombs, but also from society's judgments. All of these things—the occupation, the famine, the queerness, the chronic illness, the disability—they tangle together into a daily struggle for survival.

5. Can you tell me in a few sentences about what your ideal future looks like? What do you look like? What do you do for a living? Where do you live?

My ideal future is a soft, slow life. One free from pain, hunger, fear, sadness, and resentment. A life where I don't have to shrink myself or hide parts of who I am just to stay alive. I want to live in a world where Palestine is free—not just geographically, but spiritually, culturally, emotionally. I want to be in a space where my queerness, my disability, and my HIV status aren't things to be feared or pitied but simply accepted as parts of a whole human being.

I see myself strong and able—walking without aids, feeling confident and unburdened. I'd love to work creatively—through writing, art, mixed media, or community organizing. Telling stories that move people. Amplifying others who've been made invisible. Creating beauty out of survival. I want a home full of love, with friends and chosen family around me. Maybe more cats. Maybe plants. A safe place. One that no one can bomb or take from me. I want peace for Gaza, and I want peace for the whole world.

6. Can you tell me a little bit about your beliefs around how Western advocates are missing the mark on Gaza?

There's a painful disconnect between Gaza and how the West talks about Gaza. Too often, the stories are filtered through lenses of pity or saviorism—like we're people to be saved rather than people who have always resisted. Capitalism and consumerism flatten our struggles into hashtags and viral moments. Celebrity culture hijacks our grief and makes it about them. We become aesthetic instead of real.

I've felt this deeply. If it weren't for my friend Afeef, no one would have known my story. I would've just become a number. A line in a news report. My life, my dreams, my pain—gone without a trace. And then there's American egoism—the belief that it knows what's best for us, without ever listening. That kind of advocacy often centers itself and forgets the people actually living through this. It takes away our voice rather than uplifting it. What we need is solidarity—real, grounded, uncomfortable, ongoing solidarity. Not pity. Not charity. We need people who are willing to unlearn, listen, and follow. Gaza doesn't need influencers. It needs truth-tellers and allies, who stand beside us without needing to be seen.