sYNTHESIS

I searched a Gaza war crimes archive for my family. I quickly realized I wasn’t using it the way most people would. I wasn’t browsing it as an activist, researcher or journalist. I was looking for my family. My heart sank as I filtered the archive by the dates we lost them and searched for someone I loved. I found footage I hadn’t seen before of the bombing of the Church of St. Porphyrius, where my cousin Soliman was killed. I searched for the day my great aunt Elham was murdered, and the day Nahida and Samar Anton were killed by Israeli snipers at the Holy Family Catholic Church. Eyewitnesses told us Elham was crushed by an Israeli tank. I have graphic photographs of her body that were sent to me by church workers in Gaza, but I found no footage of what happened. It made me wonder how many people died without leaving behind any visual record. The realization stayed with me. Here was a digital graveyard where pieces of my own family history are preserved for journalists, historians, truth seekers and, undoubtedly, those seeking to exploit or consume human suffering. I know I won’t be the only person to experience this. Other Palestinians searching for loved ones almost certainly will too. But it struck me that this is a form of grief that could scarcely have existed before our time. It’s a form of grief I never imagined could exist.