Eric Reidy
Today on What's Unsaid, we’re doing things a little bit differently. We’re asking: What’s Unheard.
Rita Baroud
I am so exhausted about writing or telling others how we are living our life, but I believe that my words can change something. I don't know how, I don't know when, but I still believe in this.
Reidy
This is What's Unsaid, a podcast by The New Humanitarian, where we explore open secrets and uncomfortable conversations around the world's conflicts and disasters.
My name is Eric Reidy. I’m the editor managing coverage of Gaza at The New Humanitarian. On today’s episode, we’re flipping the script to talk less about what’s unsaid, and instead amplify voices that are unheard – or increasingly ignored.
Despite intense media coverage over more than a year and a half, the day-to-day, human reality of life in Gaza is difficult to imagine. Often, it is overlooked or obscured, even as the genocidal nature of Israel’s war becomes increasingly difficult to deny.
Since the beginning, we have been publishing first-person articles by Palestinians in Gaza. We recently gathered them together into an ongoing series called “Don’t look away”. Each article is an intimate testament to how individuals’ lives have been upended and thrust into terror and uncertainty by unimaginable violence, deprivation, and intentional starvation.
Baroud
I always mention that I am so depressed, that I'm so tired, that I'm so close to quit this job. But in the end, I always just document about everything, because I am a human and I believe in humanity.
Reidy
Today, we’re talking to one of the authors of these articles, Rita Baroud. She is a 22-year-old journalist from Gaza City. I’ve been working with her since last August, and I have to say, it is a tremendous privilege to have her on the podcast. I feel like I have really gotten to know Rita through her writing. Her articles are among the most powerful, beautifully written, and heartwrenching I have ever edited or even read. If you haven’t, you should really take the time to give them a read.
Rita was recently able to leave Gaza with her family in a rare and limited evacuation organised by France – an experience that was incredibly fraught. I hesitated to ask her to do this interview because of how difficult it is for her to continue talking about what she’s been through and what is still happening in Gaza. But her voice and her experience are so important, and Rita wanted to talk to try to make sure the world does not look away.
Baroud
I lived for more than 573 days in Gaza. But I still can't believe what's going on in Gaza. All I want to know is why the world can't do anything?
Reidy
The conversation is raw, and parts of it may be difficult for listeners to hear, but it is also brutally honest. I started by asking her to take us back to life before October 7th 2023.
Baroud
Well, before the 7th of October, I was only 20. I was just a normal girl who's trying to go out of Gaza, to have my master degree, to do my study abroad. I tried also to enjoy my life, you know, but when you are in Gaza, you can't do anything, because every some year, you have a war, war, war. So okay, even if I was trying to live a normal life, everything was so complicated, but I was hanging out with my friends, living life with my family, studying. I was studying languages. I was planning to do international relations. But now, I don't have any idea about the future.
Reidy
And, even before October 2023, I feel like Gaza was a place that was difficult for people outside to imagine. You know, there's so much death. There's so much destruction. The image of Gaza now is the cities that have been razed to the ground, but I kind of want listeners to understand what Gaza was, even when it was a very difficult place to live, but still a place that was full of life, full of community, where the social fabric hadn't been torn apart the way that it has been now. You talked about spending time with your friends and family. Can you tell us what you would do?
Baroud
To be honest, the only thing that I did in Gaza is just going to the sea, because it was the only place you feel freedom when you go to the sea. But for others, you know, the only thing that you can do is just going out to a cafe or restaurant and have a good meal, drink your coffee, or visit your family and friends, and that's it. But yeah, Gaza was so beautiful with people, not with places.
Reidy
What do you mean by that?
Baroud
People there only just want to live a simple life. So, even if you don't have many places in Gaza, people can make everything so good. But for me, Gaza was not the place that I want to live in at all, because it was so small for the hopes or the dreams I have.
Reidy
And that's because it was under occupation?
Baroud
Yes, because under occupation, and I don't want to live my whole life with war.
Reidy
It's been under Israeli blockade since 2007 which already limited what could enter. And there were four wars, like you said, between 2008 and 2021. That's most of your life. How did all of that affect you?
Baroud
Well, growing up in a place full of wars, is like growing up in nothing. People think that they understand what's going on in Gaza, even before the 7th of October, but actually, no, nothing. No one can understand what's going on in Gaza.
Reidy
In your articles you've written about your family home in Gaza City. Can you describe your home for us and explain what happened to it?
Baroud
Yeah, we had a family building, with five floor, and Israel targeted it at the third day of this genocide. They targeted us with no reasons, no warning, and when I'm talking about my house, or especially my room, like I spent 20 years in this house, I grew up in this house. It's so difficult to imagine that it's gone, you know? And now, it's gone. So, I just don't know, like when you're talking about your house, and it's not there anymore, you feel like you can't describe anything about it.
Reidy
Yeah. How did you start working as a journalist, and what were you hoping to communicate through the articles that you've written for The New Humanitarian?
Baroud
Well, working as a journalist is not something that I choose to. I had to do it because, you know that international journalist, it wasn't allowed for them to come to Gaza because of the Israelian occupation. They didn't allow for anyone to come to Gaza or to enter Gaza. So we - the civilians people, the normal people - had to become journalists, because we were the only ears and voice that they left in Gaza to talk about Gaza. And how I started in journalism, like at the third day of war. They contacted my father. Many outlets. Because they wanted me to become a journalist. But that time, I was in shock, because I just lost my house, and now you are asking me to talk about Gaza. So, I refused at the beginning, because I thought that it will be just a normal war, like it will end after two months, or something like this. But when I saw it's not just a war, it's a genocide - a real genocide - I said, like, now, I have to do something. So, I started at February 2024, and from that time till now, I didn't stop working in journalism.
Reidy
And, what do you want to communicate with the articles that you write? And specifically the articles that you've written for The New Humanitarian.
Baroud
To be honest, when I started working in journalism, I was talking about massacres, murdered people, what's going on in Gaza and these things. And then I said, like, I am okay journalist, but okay at the same time I am a human. I am a person who is living in hell, and I want other people to know how we get water, how we eat, how we are making money, these things that other big outlets don't describe it, and this is how I started with The New Humanitarian, because I want to write something that when readers are reading what I'm writing, they understand or they become so emotional about the situation. Because, I really want the people all around the world to understand what's going on in Gaza and how people live, or are living their life in Gaza.
Reidy
Can you give us an example of what day-to-day life was like in Gaza for you over the course of, you know, the past 20 months? What was that actually like?
Baroud
Okay, well, when I started working with you, you asked me to write about daily life. And the first thing I told you, like, Eric, you can't just say, like, oh, write a daily life because, you know, in Gaza people just, they are trying to survive. They are trying to live just for one hour, not for another one day, because they may be killed any time. It's totally hard, because all they think about is how to get food, how to get water, how to fill water, how to find clean water, how to find flour, how to find something for babies. And when we are talking about surviving - surviving also, it's not just about food or water. It's about also hospitals. It's about traffic. It's about everything, everything, even it's about their cash money, because you know that the comminution of cash money nowadays, it's up to 50 percent. Can you imagine, like if you have 3000 and you want them in cash, so you pay 6000 to get 3000, so it's the double.
Reidy
Yeah.
Baroud
So, everything is so crazy there. It's like burning alive in hell.
Reidy
Before you left, you visited the site of your house in Gaza City. Why did you want to go before leaving Gaza, when you knew that you were going to leave?
Baroud
Because I felt like I'm not going back to Gaza. I just need to accept that I don't have a house anymore. Like, the only thing I have in Gaza right now is my people. That's it. Everything is destroyed. All my friends have been killed. And the only thing that I have now is my people.
Reidy
And you recently were able to leave through this evacuation program. There were only 115 people, and it's the only evacuation of the sort that I've heard of. Can you tell us about how you actually left? How did that happen?
Baroud
The French consulate evacuated us, because my father has a scholarship here in France, and he's an artist, and he was able to take or, to evacuate, all of his family, that's why. But it wasn't easy. We have been waiting for this for more than 19 months.
Reidy
You wrote that ‘Leaving felt like abandoning my people and betraying everything I believed in. Staying felt like a form of resistance.’ Can you talk a little bit more about this internal conflict that you felt making the decision to leave?
Baroud
Well, I wrote this because I still feel like I don't deserve to leave Gaza. Like someone else deserves to leave, but not me. You know, when you are a journalist, you feel like it's too early to leave, especially like I spent 20 years of my life thinking about just leaving, leaving Gaza, but when I became journalist, everything changed inside me because I don't want to leave my people behind me. Even here in Marseille or in France, I still feel guilty, I still feel like I don't deserve this. It's another kind of death. But, this kind of death is so hard because you feel like you are not able to do anything. You feel like you are hopeless. You are helpless, that you want to do something for your people, but you are helpless. And from the day that I evacuate till now, I couldn't sleep. I don't have any rest. I don't do anything but work, writing, documenting, and talking with my people, to make sure that they are so good. But yeah, the month that I left Gaza, everything it changed. Like, okay, I experienced that there was no food even before leaving. But now, literally, even if you have money and you need to buy anything, there is no food. And the worst thing - the American humanitarian aid. And when Israel tell people like, okay, come to Rafa or come to Netzarim to take your humanitarian aid, and then they open fire on people. This is insane. Why you are treating other people like this? Like they don't deserve to eat. They don't deserve anything? And then Israel target people. They starved them. Like, why?
Reidy
So, now you're in France, and recently you had a meeting with President Macron of France, can you tell us a little bit about what message you had to deliver to him?
Baroud
Well, I have a conference about two states, and I told them, like, how you can talk about peace while there is a genocide in Gaza. And how you are asking about humanitarian aid, as if it's a reward to people in Gaza, but it's a right for the people in Gaza, and you just can't decide anything about the people in Gaza. Ask people in Gaza what they need, like open borders. The humanitarian aid must go to Gaza or enter to Gaza, with no limit and when I met Macron, I told him, like, can you just please end the war? You have to end this bloodshed. You have to stop this bloodshed.
Reidy
Do you have any hope that that's going to happen?
Baroud
I don't know. Now I feel hopeless about everything. But, sometimes I feel like, why not?
Reidy
Yeah.
Baroud
I'm trying my best to do something, even if I am in France or I am out of Gaza. Like, meeting them also is something good. Like I just evacuated, and now I'm meeting with Macron after one month. I just don't know.
Reidy
I know it's really hard to talk about, and you've been through so much. And, yeah, I really appreciate you being willing to talk about it and being willing to continue to write about it, even though it is so difficult. And I can't imagine the emotional toll that it takes for you to continue to talk and advocate like you do. Can you talk about that a little bit, just what it's what it's like for you to feel so exhausted, to feel so hopeless, and to also feel like you have to continue to talk about what's happening.
Baroud
You know when, when people, they feel like they are so depressed, they always choose the negative way to escape from the reality. So now, I feel nothing, and I feel like I'm killing myself by not eating or not caring to take care of myself. And that's why I am always writing, and even if you are writing, you are writing about Gaza. You are not writing about something else, like for others, maybe, if they evacuate, khalas, they will say, like, now we deserve to live our life, but this is not me. I told you, especially when you become a journalist, you're only human, and you have your people there. Why I keep writing? Because I feel helpless, and the writing is the only thing that I have to do right now.
Reidy
It gives you a sense of agency?
Baroud
Yeah.
Reidy
That there is, at least something that you can do.
Baroud
Yeah.
Reidy
If you, if you want to leave listeners with one thought about Gaza. What would it be?
Baroud
Before the 7th of October, it was normal life, and people were just trying to live their life, okay. But now, it's worse than hell. Like, no one can imagine how the situation is so bad in Gaza, even me. All I want to know is, why? Why the world can't do anything? Why the leaders let us alone? Why the only thing they are just doing is just negotiating about us, without us. So, yeah. Why?
Reidy
Yeah, and we've titled the series that your articles are a part of “Don't look away”. Do you feel like people are looking away from what's happening in Gaza?
Baroud
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. You know, I am here in France, and you know, I have some friends that they told me, oh, Rita, you work so hard. You have to have some rest. And I told them, like, okay, but I have people because I have to make sure that they are good, and they are just like, we can't take this anymore. We just shut off the news, not reading about Gaza, because khalas, we can't. You can't read the news about Gaza? But can you imagine how people in Gaza are living this every single second, and you are talking to me like you are here, living your life, have some silly problems and whenever you feel like you are tired because of news in Gaza, you shut your phone down, and you shut off the news and khalas. You live your normal life. You live your daily life. Sometimes I don't believe that people care about Gaza, because no one care. No one will understand anything, even if they pretend that they care or they are with Gaza, that they are not. I can't believe anything anymore, anything. How you want me to wait something from people outside of Gaza?
Reidy
Yeah, the way people talk about it, the way people interact with it, has become sort of disconnected from the reality on the ground, maybe?
Baroud
I can't put any excuse for others. Sorry for this - or not sorry, I'm not sorry - but I can't put any excuses for others anymore.
Reidy
While we've been talking, the one thing that made you smile was when you talked about the sea in Gaza. You're in a city now by the sea in France. Does that bring you any sense of comfort or peace?
Baroud
No. At all. Okay, it's the same sea in Gaza and here in Marseille, but no, of course, no.
Reidy
Can you say why?
Baroud
Because I am not in Gaza, and there's a genocide in Gaza. I told you, if the genocide stops and ends, if my people evacuate or they are good, I will be good.
Reidy
Rita, thank you so much for speaking with us today. I know it is really difficult to have conversations like this and we, I, just really appreciate you being willing to continue to speak and continue to write about what's happening.
Baroud
Thank you.
Reidy
Rita Baroud is a journalist from Gaza City. Find all of her articles, and please follow the “Don’t look away” series, on our website TheNewHumanitarian.org. We’ll also add links in the show notes.
And let us know what people are afraid to talk about in today’s crises? What needs to be discussed openly? Send us an email to [email protected].
Also, subscribe to The New Humanitarian on your podcast app for more episodes of What’s Unsaid, Rethinking Humanitarianism, and Power Shift.
This episode is produced and edited by Freddie Boswell, sound engineering by Tevin Sudi, with original music by Whitney Patterson. And regularly hosted by Obi Anyadike and Ali Latifi. Thanks for listening. I’m Eric Reidy.
