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“I lose hope but I find it too”

On the many voices that cry freedom

Emily Writes

11 Aug 2025 — 5 min read

I lie in bed, my black and white kitten on one side and my fluffy puppy on the other. They both curl into me, warming themselves on my skin. And my little boy hums and writes his lists, a hot water bottle on his lap.

I don’t want to get up. I turn the volume down to silent on my phone, and I start reading my messages. Devastation from Gaza - every day. Every moment of every day. Horror on horror and grief that is truly unimaginable.

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I get the children off to school. Rug them up warm - beanies and scarves that they complain about and don’t want to wear.

I begin my mahi. I answer emails. I respond to messages. I pick up a script from the chemist. I am put on hold calling the bank, and I give up again, thinking I’ll ever get through.

I check my messages.

“Our hero! Our voice is gone,” - It’s from a family we support in the North of Gaza. Their child calls me ‘aunty Emily’.

“They took our voice from us,” says another.

Anas Al-Sharif.

A mother in a camp that I won’t name so she isn’t targeted tells me she calls him ‘the hope of Gaza’.

Called him.

He told their stories to the world. He broke down on camera. He was starving - his stomach empty, his heart full of courage. Israel killed him as he used his only weapon against the genocide of his people: his voice.

“I lose hope,” a boy I have been talking to for 14 months tells me. We are video calling, and the line is fuzzy.

“I lose hope, but I find it too,” he says. His mother was killed last year, and he just turned 17.

Anas Al-Sharif’s last words were posted one hour after he was murdered. He knew Israel would murder him.

“This is my will and my final message. If these words reach you, know that Israel has succeeded in killing me and silencing my voice,” he began.

He talked about his commitment to the truth, his people, and his precious family.

“I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world. I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.”

My son arrives home from school on the bus and kisses me on the cheek before rushing off to his friend’s house next door.

Later, I hear music blaring from his room. His aunty gave him an amp as an early birthday present.

I walk into his room to encourage him to turn it down and find him typing. He is answering emails. His fundraiser, Kids Rock 4 Palestine, is next week. I lean over his shoulder and watch him answer emails from other children and young people. They all want to be part of the day. He has too many performers and not enough time at the venue.

“Mum, I need to make a phone call,” he says. He is nervous. He calls the Wellington chapter of a solidarity network. “I am Eddie I am organising Kids Rock 4 Palestine” he says in one breath.

I don’t believe in any gods anymore. But I believe in people. I believe in us. I believe in the spirit of Anas Jamal Al-Sharif. I believe his courage changed hearts the world over. I believe Palestine is the heart of our world, and I am grateful for her people who have taught us so much about courage, survival, and freedom.

I think about my son, who will be a teenager next month. And I think about the teenager in a camp in Gaza who misses his mother so, so much. My ten-year-old tells me 16,301 kilometres separates this young man from us.

“If you could fly, it would take 18 hours to get to him, ok Mama?”. He points to a map - “But you can’t because nobody is allowed in to help them,” he says.

“This is mother,” he says. And he holds up his iPad: الأم.

He is learning Arabic on Duolingo. He shyly says “as-salamu alaykum” on video calls, then hides behind his hair. He put his Eurovision t-shirts in a pile and said, “Please sell these for Palestine. I think you will get about $201.”

I think about what this young man in Gaza said - “I lose hope, but I find it too”.

I lose hope every day. And I find it every day. I find it in my children’s love and commitment to a country they will never know.

I lose hope, and I find it in the mother who says ‘Habibti!’ when she connects with me online. She speaks a few words of English. I speak a few words of Arabic. She calls me from a camp where you can hear drones circle overhead. She laughs at pictures of my dog. She calls me ‘daughter’.

She sends me videos of her granddaughter in her tatreez. Her daughter dances in this beautiful dress with intricate embroidered patterns. “Before”, she says.