The Nakba in Colour
An interview with Hadeel Jalal in Gaza.
Hadeel Jalal, a content creator from Gaza, made her first YouTube video in July of 2019. Her earliest uploads consist of vlogs, e.g. a birthday party, a tour of her university campus, or tips about studying and productivity. In other words, fairly common YouTube fare. Jalal’s channel quickly pivots to focus more on content creation, however, and here she seems to hit her stride; the videos take on a high level of polish and professionalism and, in the span of a few years, subscribers grow to nearly half a million. (Jalal has seventeen thousand followers on Instagram.)
This may not surprise you: In October, Jalal’s regular video uploads stop, and she has published only two videos since (more on those below). Like many Gazans, the content creator started a crowd-sourcing campaign to help her family escape; it was through that fundraiser that we connected and shared a few messages. I suggested the interview and she agreed; given the difficulties in connecting to the internet in Gaza (more on that below as well), our exchange took place via email, in stages. I’ve made light edits to the questions and answers for clarity and concision.
You can support the GoFundMe for Jalal and her family here.
How old are you?
I am 27 years old.
Your LinkedIn profile states that you went to the University of Palestine and acquired a Bachelor of Engineering. Did you specialize in a specific subject?
Yes, I studied Architectural Engineering.
Could you tell me a little bit about your work experience after university?
I have been working as a digital content manager and digital marketing specialist since 2020. I create posts and videos for a global digital media solutions company, where we help content creators monetize their content and grow their audiences.
Why did you start making videos and vlogs?
My childhood dream was to be a journalist. I loved standing in front of the camera and speaking to so many people – but as you know, it's not always easy to follow your childhood dreams. After I graduated from university, I had enough time to try standing in front of a camera and speaking to many people and I wanted to share with them what I learned. I started my channel for fun, but it ended up being a great business model.
A human moment. In one of Jalal’s first videos, a vlog, she attends a party; we see a cake on a table, a group of people singing in the background. Someone tries to light a sparkler on the cake, but it does not work; another individual intervenes and spends about thirty seconds trying to get it going. He’s successful – but when he places the sparkler on top of the cake, it falls over, and goes out. A hand reaches in to right it, and the sparkler goes up in flames, briefly and harmlessly, before falling over again. The crowd laugh and clap along in the background.
Your Instagram profile states that you are an “ambitious” content creator. What were your ambitions, prior to October?
Before October 7, I was working on launching my new digital marketing company, “Artistic Reach”. And my online course, “YouTube Academy”.
In four years, you built your channel to a following of 500,000 subscribers, which is impressive. How did you learn about video, editing, music, graphics, etc?
My first time learning about editing was with the Windows editor 😂 – I think I was 12 years old. When I was in university, I used to make video projects for my architectural designs, so I’d search for things online and teach myself.
In December of 2022, you published your first video in a studio setup – was this in your home? What equipment did you use to make these videos?
Yes! It was in my home, my professional studio. Oh, these memories bring me to tears … For lighting I used two soft boxes, and a neon pink light with my name for the background, also a side light from Godox. For sound, I used a Mackie wireless microphone and I filmed with my new camera back then, a Canon 80D.
Can you describe a day in your life as a content creator, before the war?
I woke up early to pray, write in my journals and read for ten minutes. After that, I would check my calendar and make my to-do list for the day. Normally I started with emails, then if I had to film, I prepared the studio and got ready, or if I had consultants I prepared my work and uploaded the material I would send to my clients and set up my equipment. In the afternoon, I would go to the gym and listen to a podcast. After I returned home, I would check new comments and messages on my social media. In the evening I liked to gather with my family to chat and watch our family series. Before bedtime I do some social media brainstorming and that’s about it.
How are you accessing the internet right now?
I use the internet out on the street: It’s an internet provider who makes cards with login information and I buy one card for one hour. The internet is very slow – it’s one megabyte 😅 – but it’s enough for basic browsing. I can buy one or two daily, so it’s two hours every 24 hours. It’s pretty far from where I live, so sometimes and because of the heavy air strikes I can't get out and have to wait for things to calm down.
In Jalal’s first video since October, she describes how the war has two separate stages for her and her family: The first, while they were still living at home, and the second after evacuation, on Day 82. Leaving her house, Jalal states, was one of the hardest decisions she ever made: “You do not know what you want to take and what you want to leave [...] You wish you could put the whole house in a small bag and take it with you.” She adds: “It was as if we were living the 1948 Nakba1, like our grandparents used to tell us, but in colour instead of black and white.”
Moving to October: There have been numerous assaults on Gaza by Israel over the years (e.g. 2008-2009, 2012, 2014, 2021), lasting anywhere from one week to a few months. When the current war started, did you think that this one would be different?
Yes! Definitely, within the first minutes of this war beginning I knew for sure I would not survive.
Can you describe your living situation? Are you staying in a house belonging to family or friends, for example?
Me and my family are staying in a place belonging to my mother’s family. There are other families here with, us also displaced from their homes. We’re 25 people.
Can you describe a day in your life now?
Yeah! So I wake up early to have morning tea; because of the lack of cooking gas we make tea twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. After that I help my family with cleaning the place. Then we collect our phones to take them for charging outside, in a tent that has a solar panel. If this is the day that the water – which is polluted – comes from the municipality, then it’s our lucky day. It’s like we have a celebration: we can clean, shower, and store some water for the days to come. After that I try to get internet access to follow up my work and check on my friends. In the afternoon, we start to prepare for lunch; I can go to the market if we need something. After lunch I go to the roof with my family to sit down together and chat under the sound of the drones and sometimes we see explosions from the air strikes around us. We have some quality time together. If it’s evening, then it’s our second tea time. We use the flashlights on our phones to make it. We drink tea while watching a movie that we bought – since we don't have internet in Gaza, some people started a business selling movies and series. Cool ha?
What do you do for food?
We buy the food that we find in the market, and there have been times that we can’t find any food to eat.
Apart from the bombing, which has been non-stop, there’s the constant sound of the drones or zanana.2 Are you able to sleep at night?
Some nights the sound of zanana is very loud, it makes it hard to sleep. Our days are very hard and busy, so when it’s bedtime, sometimes we can sleep and we wake up when there’s bombing nearby with the huge sound of explosions. So, there are more difficult sounds than zanana, but we have gotten used to it. When I wake up in the morning sometimes and I don't hear the sound of the drones, just the sound of the birds, I feel like there’s something weird.
In Jalal’s latest video, she mentions that the fundraising campaign has raised enough money for one person to leave Gaza. She could leave, she states, and with access to the internet and electricity, work to help the rest of her family – or, in her words, “stay in Gaza, where we will all live, or we will all die.”
In your last video, you talked about the decision of leaving alone or staying with your family in Gaza. Have you made a decision?
Yes actually, I will leave alone and try to help my family from outside and hopefully they can evacuate before the attack on Rafah. It wasn’t easy to make this decision, it’s a type of hard sacrifice that we must make so we can live as normal people. I have to leave and live with the fear of knowing that my family is not safe and without water, medicine, good internet, and communications – and to expect to hear that they have been killed at any time.
Is there anything you'd like to tell the rest of the world?
I just want people outside Gaza to think about if they were in our places, what they would want others to do to save them – and please, based on that answer, try to help Gazans.
The term Nakba refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. “By the first half of 1949, at least 750,000 Palestinians in total were forcibly expelled or fled outside of their homeland” (The Nakba did not start or end in 1948, Al-Jazeera.)
Zanana is Arabic slang for the drones that have been a constant presence in the skies over Gaza since 2000; aside from the threat of bombing or surveillance, they also represent a form of psychological torture due to their buzzing sound. (For more, see Sleepless in Gaza by Dr. Atef Abu Saif.)