My wife and I have never been gamblers (with the exception of childhood card games) and never looked for the easy way out. We worked hard all our lives and put the welfare of our children ahead of everything else. Miriam was a registered nurse. Before she retired, she worked in prisons and was devoted to giving inmates the best care she could provide. I had a much less dramatic career as a high-school English teacher at the Walton Memorial School. With our combined income, we were able to afford a modest three-bedroom ranch in our hometown of Elkhorn, Nebraska. Now, our kids are grown up, and with the money we put aside for our golden years, we can afford to get away from time to time without worrying about breaking the bank.
One year we drove to Niagra Falls and stayed with my sister Louise. And for our 25th wedding anniversary we went to Walt Disney World in Orlando. (It was worth every cent.) Neither of us has ever traveled outside of the U.S. except for that one time when we went to St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. Our last trip was to Las Vegas. It’s something Miriam has always wanted to do. Not for the gambling of course. We both dreamed about attending one of those big splashy shows they put on. And we wanted to have a taste of the nightlife on the Vegas Strip before we get too much older. I mean, we live a pretty quiet life in Elkhorn, and don’t get out too much, except to visit friends, go to a movie on the weekends, or attend one of our church’s social events.
I tried to book us a room at The Mirage but then found out it had closed in 2024. I was really disappointed. So was Miriam. We were looking forward to seeing the volcano in front of the hotel. My golfing buddy went to Vegas on some sort of junket with his family back in the 90s, and he told me the volcano erupted on cue and seemed like the real thing. But then my wife found out that Wayne Newton was performing at The Flamingo, so as luck would have it, we were able to get a good rate for five nights.
This time instead of driving all the way from Nebraska to Nevada, we flew on Southwest from Omaha for a pretty good price. Not first class, but the trip wasn’t that long, and we had decent seats. I have no complaints about the hotel. The service, the room, the amenities — everything was top notch. I’m something of a penny pitcher, but on this trip, I wanted Miriam and I to have the time of our lives. Maybe that’s what got me to give the casino a whirl. Remember, I said I don’t gamble, never have (except for those childhood card games I mentioned earlier). But on our second night in Vegas, Miriam had one of her migraines and didn’t feel like leaving the room. So I had the night to myself. I went down to the lobby and for a few minutes tried to decide whether to go for a walk along the Strip or check out the casino. My best instincts told me to keep walking. And that’s what I did. I walked through the lobby and went out through one of those revolving doors.
It was past ten in the evening and still hot as you know what. The Strip was as busy as it was in the afternoon. Neon lights ablaze, marquees advertising revues, showgirls, pop stars, magic shows… you name it and there was a place for it on the Strip. I must have walked for a solid mile and got stopped I don’t know how many times by these guys in flashy shirts lined up on the sidewalk. They were handing out pornographic advertisements, mostly for escort services. Bill, the fellow I go golfing with back in Elkhorn, told me they’re called porn slappers, and there’s really nothing the city can do about banning them. I tried my darndest to keep my eyes looking straight ahead, but I have to admit that once or twice I bowed to temptation and threw a quick glance at whatever the slapper was trying to hook me with.
By the time I got back to The Flamingo, I was tired and thirsty but not quite ready to go up to our room. It wasn’t that late, and I thought it might be fun to order a cocktail and hang out in the Count Room, which makes you think you’ve stepped back in time to the Roaring Twenties and the days of Prohibition with shady bars selling bootleg liquor. So that’s what I did, and I have to tell you, I liked sitting there and imagining I was a 20-something kid again getting a taste of the nightlife in a city like Las Vegas and being open to whatever came along. I ordered a martini and then another — extra dry — and then switched to a white Russian. When the white Russian arrived, I was already feeling a bit woozy. (I’ve never been much of a drinker. I’m more of a teetotaler.) My vision started to blur, and all sorts of crazy thoughts bounced around my head. One of them hung around longer than the others. I kept thinking about my life and how I always played it safe, avoided taking risks I was afraid would take me too far off the beaten path… threaten the life Miriam and I had carved out for ourselves and our children. I laughed out loud seeing myself sitting alone in a bar in a Vegas hotel and leaning more and more into a good old-fashioned drinking spree. I prayed to the Lord Almighty that Miriam wouldn’t suddenly appear and find me liquored up and hardly able to stand. I don’t know if she would have forgiven me.
But that’s when I saw it — a free-standing sign holder illuminated by floor lights shining upward with blue, red, and yellow light. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen the sign before, but there it was, calling to me, or at least it seemed that way in the state I was in. I got up and walked over to the sign, making every effort to appear sober as a postman. I put on my reading glasses and squinted at the words, with my nose practically pressed to the glass:
Ever dreamed of going to an exotic locale for the experience of a lifetime? Then this Mediterranean paradise is the place for you. It’s the deal of the century, and you can have it all for nothing. Trump Enterprises wants to take you there — to beaches of white sand, 5-star hotels, gourmet restaurants the envy of Europe’s finest dining establishments. And if betting is your passion, we’ve got you covered. Our casinos are guaranteed to give you a run for your money and leave you with a fortune of memories you can take to the bank. …
In smaller print, the sign directed would-be guests to simply fill out one of the attached cards and leave it at the front desk: “Drawings are held each Friday at the luxurious Flamingo hotel,” it said, “and those fortunate few whose names are chosen will receive an all-expenses paid vacation at the fabulous Gaza by the Sea resort. So take a chance for an intoxicating taste of old world culture, charm, and cuisine nicely nestled within new world extravagance. Dream big. Dream now. You deserve the best that life can offer.”
What the heck. I’ll give it a shot, I said to myself as I filled out one of the cards: “Daniel and Miriam Satterthwaite, 150 Sherwood Avenue, Elkhorn, Nebraska 68022.” I dropped off the card in the hand of a receptionist working the night shift. “Good luck, Mr. Satterthwaite,” she said. As I walked away, she called out, “Mr. Satterthwaite, would you be interested in our complimentary stack of casino chips? They’re worth 50 dollars.” There were ten chips in a holder marked with the hotel’s logo. I took all ten and thanked Elena, the receptionist. I had come, as they say, to a fork in the road. I could call it a night and go up to our room or walk on the wild side with a 50-dollar stake courtesy of The Flamingo. What the heck. I headed for the casino.
What happened next remains beyond my comprehension. When I was a kid, I played card games with friends. We all knew the basics of poker and bet with whatever loose change we had in our pockets. And if we didn’t have any money, we used checkers and pretended they were poker chips. I was never much good and usually folded early in the game. And that was the sum total of my gambling experience. So how in the world do I explain my run of unbelievable luck in a Vegas casino. I can’t explain it. All I know is that I stepped into the casino with 50 dollars in chips and left 10 thousand dollars richer after I cashed in my winnings and was handed a freshly cut check. I studiously avoided the slot machines for fear of losing everything to one of those one-arm bandits. Instead, I tried my hand at blackjack, craps, and roulette. I watched the other players to learn as much as I could before I placed a bet. It’s not like I never lost, but by God, I felt possessed. Like some sort of inexplicable force had taken over. Maybe it was how electrifying the atmosphere felt in that room. Maybe it was all those glamorous women who made no bones about flaunting their beauty and their wealth. Whatever it was, I started to feel like a winner for the first time in my life… a player on the same level as the other gamblers I was rubbing shoulders with. And my winning streak didn’t end with a one-night stand in a Vegas casino.
On Friday, with Miriam at my side, we joined the other contestants, each of us hoping to win the jackpot — that all-expenses paid holiday at Gaza by the Sea. My wife looked youthful and full of childlike delight as she took in our sumptuous surroundings on a perfect summer day. I was relieved she had finally retired after spending so many years tending to the needs of others. Now, finally, she was tending to her own needs. While we waited for the drawing to begin, I took some photos of her in the new outfit she bought just for our trip. That day, she wore a floppy straw hat, large fashionable sunglasses, and a long, loose-fitting sundress with a motif of tropical flowers. Hibiscus, I think.
The drawing was held outside in front of the Flamingo Pools with their surrounding palm trees and waterfalls gushing over a rocky promontory. The atmosphere was so tense you could cut it with a knife. The emcee wore a pink blazer with a matching tie and a white carnation in his lapel. A band hired just for the occasion treated us to a medley of show tunes that culminated with Wayne Newton’s signature song “Danke Schoen,” and then the great man himself appeared, and we went wild with cheering as he stepped onto a round dais and brought the song to a rousing finale. I thought Miriam was going to pass out from the excitement. She’s been a fan ever since she heard his first big hit in the early 60s. The dais was trimmed with bright bunting and had one of those brass drums used for raffles and such. Mr. Newton gave a short, off-the-cuff welcome, reminded us to come to his show that night, and then cued the band. With the flair of a true showman, he gave the drum a good spin, and when it stopped, he opened the gate, reached inside, and selected the first of three cards.
I held my breath. One card down, two to go. Then two down, and one left. On the third drawing, Mr. Newton read the names of the third and last winning couple: “Daniel and Miriam Satterthwaite.” Miriam and I threw our arms around each other and nearly tumbled into the pool’s perfectly turquoise water. We won, for Heaven’s sake, and would soon be on our way to Gaza by the Sea.
“YouGoGold,” a corporate offshoot of Trump Enterprises, arranged our itinerary and made all the necessary reservations. A month after our Vegas vacation, we took a direct flight from Omaha to New York’s JFK and from there to the Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv. Miriam and I were both apprehensive about flying such a long distance… especially over water, for Heaven’s sake. But once we were in the air, she settled down, opened a book, and soon fell fast asleep with the help of what she calls her “magic blue pill.” No matter what I did to distract myself, I couldn’t get comfortable. Every time there was any turbulence, I imagined the pilot frantically trying to keep the plane on course, only to lose control as we plunged to our death in the icy Atlantic.
(Looking back on our time in Vegas and then at Gaza by the Sea, I’ve done my darndest to recapture a few of the most significant encounters and interactions Miriam and I experienced. They’re not perfect, word-for-word reconstructions, but I think — and Miriam agrees — they’re pretty darn close. The one that got me started on this road is the conversation we had aboard our flight to Israel.)
The fellow sitting opposite me, on the other side of the aisle, must have sensed how anxious I was. He switched on his overhead light (by now, the sun had set and most of the passengers were settling down for the night) and asked me if I needed anything. I almost said, yes, a dry martini. Instead, I thanked him for his concern and tried one more time to relax. But he didn’t give up.
“My name is Yousef,” he said, as a flight attendant passed between us.
“I’m Dan. Daniel Satterthwaite.”
We shook hands across the aisle.
“American?”
“Yes. My wife and I are on holiday.”
“May I ask where you and Mrs. Satterthwaite are going?”
“A resort. Gaza by the Sea. We’ll be staying at the Gaza Tower Hotel.”
“Have you ever been to the Middle East, Mr. Satterthwaite?”
I shook my head.
“I see.”
There was a long pause.
“Do you know anything about the history of… Gaza?”
“A bit,” I said, embarrassed by how little research my wife and I had done to prepare for our trip. All we wanted to do, really, was to take in the sights, have a good time, and then go back home to Nebraska with stories and photos to share with friends and family. Yousef smiled and touched the tips of his fingers together. His face took on a thoughtful expression.
“Mr. Satterthwaite, allow me to tell you about the place you are about to visit. I’m not from there. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, and I have a doctorate in applied economics from Wharton College.”
Yousef was younger than me by several decades. He wore a nicely tailored navy blue suit and was impeccably groomed. While Miriam slept, I listened carefully to what this well-spoken young man told me about Gaza and the rest of Palestine. It was a story I found hard to believe. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I suspected Yousef was up to something. Was I being biased in imagining he had a sinister purpose in telling me how Gaza by the Sea came to be? He did admit that the Saudi company he worked for had a long-term contract in building new beachfront condominiums for “discriminating clients” (his words, not mine). But at the time, I thought there was nothing wrong with these kinds of development projects. What’s good for business is generally good for people, or so I believed at the time.
The sun was rising when we landed at the airport in Tel Aviv. A distinguished-looking older man holding a sign with our names printed on it met us in the baggage terminal. “Welcome to Israel,” he said with the warmest of smiles. Whatever second thoughts I might have been having about the circumstances that brought us here melted away in his presence. “I am Elias, and it is my good fortune to drive you to one of our proudest achievements. This way.” We followed him outside where a limousine was waiting. It took less than an hour to reach our destination — Gaza by the Sea. Our route took us along the coast, so we had a clear view of the Mediterranean most of the way from Tel Aviv south to Gaza. Along the way, our driver pointed out some of the major attractions we must make a point of visiting, he said. Once we reached the northern part of Gaza, the view changed entirely. Along the coast was a series of spectacular buildings, some of them rivaling the skyscrapers in Dubai, which we once saw on a PBS special.
We pulled over for a rest stop just to take in the view and stretch our legs. As we were looking out across the sea, I spotted a cruise ship crossing our line of sight. It was close enough for us to see hundreds of passengers leaning over safety railings on each deck. They were all gesturing, holding up their phones to take pictures of the coastal panorama. From where we stood, we could see high-rise hotels and very futuristic office buildings, like something out of a sci-fi movie. There was even a giant Ferris wheel like the one in London. (I think the London one is called the Millennium Wheel.) Only this one seemed a lot taller. And in the morning sun, it gleamed with golden light. Miriam said, “Honey, I read somewhere that it’s actually trimmed with imitation gold leaf. I don’t know. But it’s certainly spectacular.”
I started thinking about what Yousef had told me during our flight to Tel Aviv. I’m not a history buff by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t even follow the news much. Between teaching, coaching the freshman soccer team, and doing volunteer work in the community, I didn’t have the time to keep up with things. Now that I’m retired, I try to take it easy. I mean, I knew there had been some kind of conflict between Israel and the people who used to live in Gaza. But there’s always something going on in that part of the world. Like what happened under Jimmy Carter when our people were taken hostage by those students in Iran. And then when Saddam invaded Kuwait. At least now, I thought, things have calmed down, and Gaza is like the Middle East version of Las Vegas with millions of visitors each year. Of course, with all the money that must have gone into developing Gaza, it’s probably more like Monaco or Monte Carlo and other places where people with lots of “real” money go.
Our driver, Elias, dropped us off at the Gaza Tower Hotel, a truly majestic hotel (and the dominant building in the resort). The hotel was only a short walk from the coast and its mile-long boardwalk. Management had prepared a royal welcome for us as winners of the drawing sponsored by Trump Enterprises. Performers dressed in what looked like traditional Arab clothing put on a real show in our honor. The women were doing what I think of as belly dancing, and I said as much to my wife. But Miriam corrected me. She had taken dance classes at our town’s senior center, and her teacher explained that “belly dancing” is a Western term that doesn’t do justice to the tradition behind this form of dance, which is about much more than one part of the female anatomy. The instruments that accompanied the dancers included the oud (which I was vaguely familiar with) and a percussive instrument that looked like a tambourine. Miriam, reading from a brochure, whispered, “It’s called a daf.” As a grand finale, a group of dancers (woman and men) invited us to take part in what we were told is a traditional Palestinian dance — the dabke. We did our best to learn the steps, but as hard as we tried, we just aren’t cut out for this sort of thing, especially given our somewhat advanced ages (I’m 72 and my wife is 69). When the performers came together to take a bow, the ensemble’s leader informed us that they were all members of the Israeli Kibbutz Dance Collective, and every night in the Date Palm Lounge they would be performing for guests of the hotel.
And so began our week-long holiday at Gaza by the Sea. The next day, after a late breakfast (we hadn’t yet recovered from jet lag), we boarded a tour bus with other hotel guests. Before we departed, each passenger received a decorative bag with a bottle of sparkling water and a bagel sandwich — in case we couldn’t wait for lunch. The driver took us from one end of Gaza to the other (it’s only about 25 miles in length), with stops along the way at major attractions. Our guide, a lovely young Israeli woman named Hannah, stood at the front of the bus and pointed out a state-of-the art hospital whose oncology department treated patients from around the world. We also passed European-style bistros and restaurants some of which featured Michelin chefs. There were even eateries that served Arab cuisine and featured classical Arab motifs, Hannah explained. I wrote down some of their names in my trusty old notebook (the names were in Hebrew and English): Sword of Allah, Taboon and Pizza, House of Darwish. We had lunch at a seaside bistro known for its sabich and schnitzel, neither of which Miriam and I had ever heard of. Hannah told us these were two very popular foods in Israel.
We ate outside at round tables with wide umbrellas to shade us from the sun. As I was finishing my sabich (a sandwich made with fried eggplant and tahini stuffed in a pita pocket), I noticed some children walking across the beach toward the boardwalk where our group was sitting. “Pay them no mind,” Hannah said to us. “They are what you call ragamuffins. Please, don’t give them anything. If you do, they will keep asking for more.”
“Where do they come from?” my wife asked.
“Who knows,” Hannah answered, shooing the children away as if they were flies or mosquitos.
“What about their parents? Do they even have parents?” I asked.
“This is not our concern,” Mr. Satterthwaite. They are sad reminders of what was here before.”
“Before what?” Miriam asked.
Hannah looked at her watch. “Oh, dear. I had no idea so much time has passed. Shall we gather up our things and return to the bus. I’m sure our driver is anxious to get going — as am I. There are still many interesting things I want to be sure you see on your first day in our version of a secular paradise.”
Miriam and I stayed behind as the rest of our group followed Hannah to the parking lot. We were both curious about the little band of children who had approached us with their hands outstretched and hunger in their eyes. One of them climbed a short flight of stairs up to the boardwalk while his companions made their way down the beach, perhaps to another gathering of well-heeled tourists. Something about the boy held us there. The look in his eyes, perhaps. His torn and filthy clothes. The way he looked at us — imploring us for something beyond food. He stood there with his arms at his side, and an expression of utter dejection. I pointed to myself and repeated my name. The boy caught on and said his name: “Samer.” Miriam handed him the untouched half of her sandwich and the apple she had taken from the hotel, and lightly touched his cheek. I gave him my bagel and the bottle of sparkling water. He smiled and took something from under his shirt to show us: a crumpled photograph of a large family. Samer pointed to one of the children in the photo and then to himself. The boy in the photo was well dressed, chubby, and grinning from ear to ear.
“Where is your family, Samer”? my wife asked, forgetting that he likely didn’t know a word of English. The young man who had taken our lunch order approached and began speaking to the boy in what I assumed was Arabic. Then he translated the boy’s answer: “He says his family is gone. Killed. He is no different from the other children in his group. They have no family. All of them killed.” The young man turned toward us and lowered his voice as he spoke. “I am Palestinian. I am not supposed to speak with outsiders. But I think you should know about the situation here.”
“Hussain!” a heavy-set man shouted from the back door of the restaurant. “Table 4’s order is ready.”
With a gentle nod, Hussain put his hand over his heart before going back to work. The boy reached into his pocket and removed what looked like a medallion, and put it in my hand. It had the imprint of a soccer player on the front. Samer pretended to kick a winning soccer goal. I got the message and tried to return the medallion, but he shook his head and said something in Arabic. “He wants you to keep it,” Hussain called out from table 4. “Now you are his friend, and he will not forget you.”
The bus pulled out of the parking lot and took a sharp right turn on the main road. Samer waved and watched us go. We hadn’t gone very far when we came to a detour sign with uniformed workers shunting oncoming cars off the main road and onto a narrow street. The street was still under construction and riddled with potholes and what looked like tread marks from a bulldozer. Hannah, our guide, held on for safety to an overhead pole as the bus bumped along.
“I’m so sorry for this interruption,” Hannah said between bumps. “Our driver has assured me the new extension is just up ahead. If you look to your right, you can see the regional headquarters of Microsoft, and the glass tower next to it is the home of Amazon Mideast. And off in the distance is something I never imagined seeing in my country. But there it is — Israel’s own Magic Kingdom right here in Gaza. Of course, it’s owned by the Walt Disney Company, but it has proven to be an economic bonanza for Israel.”
Miriam and I were suitably impressed by the elegant beauty of these office buildings, and the royal blue turrets and golden spires of the Magic Kingdom, but we were more interested in seeing authentic cultural attractions. I was about to ask Hannah if there were any on the agenda when our bus came to an abrupt stop. The driver hadn’t seen a deep rut in the road, and now one of the front tires was stuck. “Please stay seated,” Hannah said. The driver has called for emergency help, and we should be good to go in a matter of minutes.”
Our guide launched into a history lesson on the Biblical origins of the land and Israel’s many achievements in animal husbandry, reforestation, and agriculture over the last few years. While folks listened, some in apparent awe of the nation’s ultramodernity, Miriam and I noticed some heavy construction equipment working on a big pile of stones and such. Actually, we could see several piles, some of them over 30 feet high or higher, and scattered among them were the remains of buildings — windowless, doorless, some with no roofs and with walls blackened from fire. And moving among them were bulldozers, cranes, construction workers — it all seemed totally incongruous with everything we had experienced so far in Gaza. “I’m curious,” Miriam said, interrupting our guide. “What’s going on over there?” She gestured toward the construction site.
“You call it ‘urban renewal,’ don’t you… in the West, I mean,” Hannah answered. “We have the same thing here. It’s nothing, really. Just a necessary part of reclaiming what has always been ours. That’s all.” Hannah went back to her ad hoc lecture while the driver went back to his two-way radio and complained to the dispatcher about having to wait so long for help.
We had to convince Hannah to let us leave the bus in order to stretch our legs. “Don’t be long,” she said as we walked around the back of the bus and then headed toward the construction site. A strong wind was blowing in our direction and with it came a sickening smell. I wanted to go back,
but Miriam shook her head. She was determined to press on. We got close enough to see the bucket of a giant earth mover scoop up a mass of stones, electrical wires, steel bars, and the wooden frames of doors and windows. The driver emptied the bucket in a dump truck and then swung around for another scoop.
“Dan, look,” Miriam said, pointing toward the bucket swinging back toward the truck. “Do you see it?” When you come upon something like this, at first you can’t believe your own eyes. It’s so far removed from your ordinary, day-to-day experience. But there it was — the skeletal remains of a child, possibly a little girl, her arm dangling over the side of the bucket. She couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 when she died. A colorful scarf still covered her skull. Her clothes, or what was left of them, had turned to rags. A bracelet on her wrist sparkled in the light. My wife and I were both in shock and could do nothing more than stand there, uncertain if what we were seeing was real or our eyes playing tricks on us.
“Time to go,” we heard someone say. It was our guide standing a few feet away. “Hannah, shouldn’t we do something?” Miriam asked. “That child… we can’t just let her be treated like… I don’t know what… debris, rubbish to be gotten rid of.”
“Mrs. Satterthwaite, I understand your concern,” Hannah said. “Really, I do. No human should be treated that way. But you have to understand that she is one of many, and there is no point in making an issue out of every poor soul we find in this… condition. I’m sure our workers will retrieve the remains and have them disposed of properly.”
Hannah glanced at her watch. “We really must be going. So, please, come with me. Our tour is far from over.”
“How did she die?” my wife asked. “And why was her body left to rot under all those stones? I don’t understand.”
For a second, Hannah assumed the erect bearing of a soldier feeling badgered by too many inconvenient questions. “There was a conflict,” she said. “And now it’s over, and we are tasked with cleaning up the mess left behind. That is all there is to it.” She turned abruptly and headed toward the bus.
It wasn’t over for us. We sat in silence during the rest of the bus ride while our guide went back to being an attractive young Israeli woman proud of how far her nation has come and eager to share Gaza’s present glories. It was past four when we returned to the hotel. The first thing we did was go to the bar and order a round of stiff drinks. And when we finished those, we had a second and then a third round. Our first day in Gaza was turning out to be something neither of us could have expected. We started to feel like we weren’t so much on vacation as unwilling participants in some sort of cover-up. That night, before falling asleep, I remembered some of the things that Saudi guy Yousef had told me. They were starting to make sense. At the time, I didn’t believe him. Miriam and I had watched the documentary about the Holocaust — all nine hours. (I think it’s called Shoah.) So how is it possible, I asked myself, that the same people who had suffered the atrocities committed by the Nazis would treat the people of Palestine as if they were something to be gotten rid of? After what the Jewish people had suffered during World War II, my wife and I both found it inconceivable. Yousef was lying. Or was he?
When I finally did fall asleep, I had a dream that stayed with me the next day. I don’t usually remember my dreams. In fact, I hardly dream at all, and when I do, my dreams are pretty simple and straightforward, nothing to spend much time thinking about or analyzing. But this one was different. I said to Miriam over breakfast that it felt like a massive, alien object had collided with my sleeping mind and left me reeling.
An exception to my usually boring dreams was one I had in my twenties. I dreamed about a flock of birds that could create images by putting their wings together in different configurations. The only one I remember is the image of a carousel floating in the sky. It had crystal horses, slightly iridescent, with reins of polished gems. As the carousel turned, I heard such beautiful, entrancing music. But when I woke up, the music was gone, and I couldn’t recall any part of it. I don’t know why this image stayed with me after all these years. But the dream I had on our second night at Gaza by the Sea had something in common with this dream of birds in so far as the images were made of bits and pieces, fragments of things I’ve read, seen on TV, heard about, and in some cases actually witnessed in my waking life. All the pieces came together in one disturbing image after the other. The worst one, the one that woke me up was of a roulette wheel. It had a strange hypnotic power that kept drawing me toward it. Instead of numbers on the wheel, there were more images. I saw a heavy-set man spin a gold medal in the opposite direction of the wheel, and each time the wheel stopped, a different image emerged. I saw a child who resembled Samer, the boy who came to our table at lunch and gave me his medallion. I saw mountains and mountains of rubble with smoke rising up from them and people trying to put out fires or digging frantically for anything that was salvageable. I saw a boy with no arms standing on a broken chair with tears streaming down his face. I saw women and men covering their faces with their hands while kneeling beside bodies wrapped in shrouds. I saw the little girl whose remains had been added to a load of rubble. In the dream, her body was restored. She pushed the dirt and stones off her and crawled out of the bucket that held her, and began walking toward me. I wanted to run away, but I couldn’t move. She kept coming closer, and I saw that she didn’t mean to harm me. There was a deep wound on one side of her head, possibly from a bullet fired at close range. The blood kept flowing, kept flowing, kept flowing till we were up to our necks in a pool of blood. … And that’s when I woke up. And I understood something I hadn’t understood before.
I told Miriam I wanted to go back to the place where we had met Samer and his friends. “Don’t ask me why,” I said. I don’t know why. But I have to go back. Will you come with me?”
“Sure,” she said. “But first, could you go up to our room and get a few things to take along.” She had already made out a list in case I forgot what she asked for — sweaters for the two of us, our phone charger, sun glasses, sunscreen, and the pills she took for migraines. I stuffed everything in my daypack and then took the elevator down to the lobby. Miriam was chatting with the concierge, a nattily dressed young fellow named Dave. He reminded us that the hotel provided mopeds for guests. Ours of course would be free of charge.
Dave gave us directions to that seaside bistro and handed us a picnic lunch — another courtesy of the hotel. We checked our phones to make sure they were fully charged and off we went, both of us in sandals, shorts, casual tops, and hats. (It was in the high 80s, and there were no clouds in the sky.) The place was about five miles away. We parked our scooters and walked down to the beach. It was like every public beach you can think of. Seagulls in the sand, foraging. Kids in the water bouncing around on tubes, riding the waves on foam surfboards, playing catch. Grown-ups sunbathing, reading, or just gabbing about this or that, with a cooler near at hand. The only language we heard as we strolled along the shore was Hebrew, of course, since Gaza had become part of Israel. (Apparently, at the time of our visit, the Israeli parliament was still debating about whether to give the area a new name — something more in line with its Israeli identity.)
We stopped after an hour or so and sat down in the sand. For a while, it felt good just to be there, absorbing the sunlight, watching the children play, forgetting about the things we had seen yesterday. As we were getting ready to continue our walk, I heard a child call out, “Mister.” I looked behind me. It was Samer. He and a few of his friends were standing behind us. There was no one there to translate for us, so Miriam and I didn’t know how to respond except to smile and wave. The children returned our smiles and sat in the sand beside us. Each one had something to show us, something that must have been precious to them and had survived the terrible things Yousef had told me about on the plane and would always remind them of who they were, where they came from, and what had been taken from them. One child opened her hand to show us a tarnished silver ring. Another held up a family photo. A boy who couldn’t have been more than 5 showed us the little teddy bear he kept with him. An older boy opened a pocket-size Quran and read a passage out loud. A dark-haired girl in a stained blue dress showed us a locket with no picture inside. I think her name was Adeel. She seemed desperate to communicate with us. But she spoke in Arabic, and all we could understand was the mounting sadness in her voice and the tears that filled her eyes. My wife put her arm around Adeel, and this simple kindness helped a little.
We each took a turn saying our name. Miriam and I tried our darndest to repeat the children’s names in Arabic, and this gambit had them all laughing like there was no tomorrow. Then Samer, who appeared to be something of a leader, stood up and gestured for us to follow him and the others. “You see, Miriam, I just knew coming here was a good idea,” I said. She was more than a tad leery. But despite her misgivings about following Samer and his friends, she went with me, and I was glad to have a partner willing to share this experience, even though we couldn’t be sure whether we were taking too much of a risk. The children led us up the coast a short distance. (We were heading north.) Some of the people we passed stared at us in a way that made us feel extremely uncomfortable. A few said things as we walked by. By the tone of their voices, we knew they weren’t giving us the time of day. But we kept going until Samer, out in front, pointed toward a damaged building about 300 yards from the shore. At one time, it might have been an apartment complex or maybe a seaside hotel with shops on the ground level. But now it was an abandoned wreck of exposed girders, collapsed roofs, and gutted rooms on each of the floors.
“It looks like it was destroyed in a war or something,” Miriam said.
“Maybe,” I said. “But why hasn’t it been demolished and the pieces hauled away?”
There was a chain link fence around the building and signs in Hebrew and English that warned against trespassers. That didn’t stop Samer and the others. They led us to an opening in the fence, out of sight of anyone who happened to be passing. Two of the children, with their bare hands, widened the sides of the opening so we could squeeze through without too much difficulty. Miriam and I both had second thoughts about going any further. But then the children (all five of them) jostled their way to the other side of the fence and stood there cajoling us to join them. “Come,” Samer said with a dash of English and a winning smile. So we did, but not before looking around to make sure no one was watching.
Given our ages, we had to be extra cautious making our way around slabs of concrete and other scattered building materials. The whole site was something of a minefield in which one wrong move could send us reeling toward a sprained ankle or worse. Samer made a point of looking back to make sure we were okay as we followed him and the rest of the group. We came to a collapsed roof about six feet off the ground, and under the roof, there was a passageway that led directly to a protected enclosure behind the ruins. And there on the rocky, rubble-strewn ground within this small space was a gathering of men, women, and children huddled around a fire. Samer, leading the way, said something in Arabic to the group. Then one of the older men signaled us to join them. He introduced himself as Dr. Bilal Abu Hassan and invited us to sit with him. He revealed that Samer, our temporary guide, had told him about meeting us the day before. We were struck by the doctor’s unmistakable British accent and the preposterousness of the whole scene.
(What transpired in that somewhat barren enclosure was unlike anything either of us had ever experienced. It was so distant from our normal lives that I felt compelled to put it all down on paper — after we got back to the hotel of course. I wrote down everything I could remember about Dr. Bilal, his companions, and what we talked about. Miriam checked my handwritten notes and made some changes, but all in all, I think what follows is a reasonably good reconstruction of our initial meeting. Once the formalities wore off and our conversation became deeper and more substantive, Miriam suggested we record our conversation with Dr. Bilal, with his permission of course. I have since transcribed the recording and added some narrative touches.)
From my notes:
Dr. Bilal was in his 40s and balding. He wore a dark jersey with the words “Medecins Sans Frontieres” under a red logo. “Doctors Without Borders,” Miriam said. (She had taken three years of French in high school.) He had such a kind, open face we felt instantly at ease in his presence. Dr. Bilal spoke to one of the young men, who rose to his feet and arranged a pair of cinder blocks to use as seats as the others made room for us around the fire. “This is my son, Hassan,” Dr. Bilal said, putting his arm around the young man who had placed the cinder blocks. “And over there, sewing her child’s shirt, is my sister Bushra with her husband Ahmed, and their daughters Maria and Hala.”
“My name is Daniel, and this is my wife, Miriam. Please forgive our curiosity, but we are wondering if you studied in the U.K., Dr. Bilal.”
The doctor laughed. “No, I am Palestinian by birth and inclination. But in medical school, we had to learn English, and one of my language teachers was quite British.”
“Would you care for tea?” the doctor asked. “Once the sun goes down, it can get chilly here.”
“Yes, please,” Miriam answered. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Dr. Bilal smiled. “It is no trouble at all.” An older woman in dark blue clothing prepared two cups from the pot of water over the fire. “That woman is my mother, Umm Maher. Maher was my older brother. Shortly after the last war began, an Israeli airstrike hit the building in southern Gaza where we were sheltering. Maher, his wife, their five children, and our sister Safira were all killed.”
Dr. Bilal turned away and looked off into the distance as if to regain his composure. “Maher was an ambulance driver,” he continued, “and his wife was a physiotherapist at Nasser Hospital. I don’t know how the rest of us survived. It is a miracle. I lost hearing in my left ear from the explosion, and my daughter Alaa was injured by shrapnel. In 2023, I worked as a volunteer physician with Doctors Without Borders. I still have the shirt I wore in those days. I could have left Gaza with my family, but I would not be able to live with myself if I hadn’t stayed and done whatever I could to help my people.”
While the doctor spoke, his daughter Alaa sat apart from the others and hardly looked at us. She couldn’t have been more than 10 or 11, and seemed to have lost the spontaneity and rambunctiousness of childhood.
“My daughter misses her cousins, who died in the airstrike,” Dr. Bilal told us. “She draws pictures of them in the notebook she keeps with her. She is afraid if she stops making these drawings, her cousins will be gone forever, and she will forget them.”
“Is your wife with you, Dr. Bilal?” Miriam asked. The doctor didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be struggling to find the right words.
(It was during this break in the conversation that Miriam thought of using our phones to record what Dr. Bilal was telling us. At first, he was reluctant to have us record him, but we assured him we would not use the recording in any way that might jeopardize him and his family. When he finally gave his consent, we felt honored by the trust he had placed in us.)
From the transcription:
“Hours before the missile struck our building, my wife, Maha, went into labor. We lived one floor down from my brother and his family. There was nothing I could do for them. They were all dead. I didn’t want Maha to have to give birth at home. It was too dangerous. And there was no time to wait for an ambulance that might never come, so I pleaded with a neighbor to drive my wife and I and our daughter to the nearest hospital. Many people were killed or injured that night, and the hospital was flooded with the wounded. I wanted Maha admitted, but the director told me there were no more delivery beds. Even though I am a surgeon, I could do nothing when she miscarried on a blanket in a hospital corridor and began to hemorrhage. I called for help, and when a nurse finally came, it was too late. Maha died in my arms.
“She was 35 and still beautiful. An artist. She loved to paint and draw and showed her work in galleries when life was still somewhat normal in Gaza. But after October 7, 2023, the Israeli military destroyed all the galleries and cultural centers, and many artists were killed. Israel wanted to leave no traces of Palestinian identity. But that didn’t stop my wife from continuing her work. She turned her art into a form of defiance, and sometimes I think that is why we were targeted. They wanted to silence her and didn’t care how many other innocent people were killed. Even when simple painting supplies were no longer available, Maha was undeterred. She began collecting tin cans, bottles, food cartons, old shoes and scraps of clothing, even metal from exploded American bombs and Israeli missiles. And from these found materials, she constructed sculptures that showed how the war had disfigured our lives, our communities, and had no other purpose beyond causing the greatest amount of suffering. Maha placed her work among the remains of houses and buildings destroyed in the bombing. She wanted the world to see through her eyes what Israel was doing to Gaza. A camera shows what things look like from the outside, but art, she believed, even in its crudest forms, can show how violence and oppression crush the human heart. But my wife was a fighter and would never accept defeat, which is why she kept creating and believing in the power of art.”
Miriam and I put on the sweaters I had brought with us and warmed our hands by the fire. We were deeply moved by what Dr. Bilal had shared with us and for some time sat with him in silence. I again recalled my conversation on the plane with the Saudi Arabian economist, and I realized he hadn’t been deceiving me. Everything he said about Gaza and the history of Palestine completely contradicted what I had taken on blind faith. I had deceived myself into believing the world was one way when in fact it was something else entirely.
By now the sun was beginning to set. The wind had picked up. And I thought we should be heading back to the hotel before it got dark. But Dr. Bilal insisted that we stay a while longer. He stirred the fire with a metal rod and threw on some scraps of wood. The flames picked out our faces in the dimming light.
“We do not often have a chance to speak with outsiders,” he said. “Especially Americans. And there is much I would like for you to know about our circumstances. I fear that Americans have yet to grasp what has happened to my people.” I turned toward Miriam, and I could see that she was not ready to leave.
Dr. Bilal spoke in Arabic to the others. “I told them what I have told you about our family.”
His son, Hassan, put more wood on the fire then joined the others in thanking us for coming and wishing us a peaceful night. “They will sleep up there,” Dr. Bilal said, pointing to a collapsed part of the building we had come through. “Under that ledge, there is an enclosed area, away from the wind. The ground there is not so hard, and we put down our prayer rugs to sleep on. But we do not have enough blankets, so we must share.”
Miriam and I moved closer to the fire. “Do you like stories?” Dr. Bilal asked. We nodded. “It is my hope that you and your wife will take my story home and share it with others. If more people know the truth, then perhaps there will be positive change. Even a small change will be better than what we have had to endure.” The doctor put on his jacket, rubbed his hands together over the flames, and then began:
“In the last war, the Israelis wanted to destroy everything — our homes, our schools, our hospitals and libraries, everything that made our lives possible. Above all, they wanted to kill as many of us as they could. Young or old, it didn’t matter to the snipers, the operators of armed drones, or the pilots of fighter jets. Even children were fair game. All of this killing and destruction had one overriding purpose — to destroy our society, our way of life, our past, present, and future, and to take away our land and make it their land. I don’t say all Israelis thought this way or saw us as unworthy of living in peace. Perhaps you are aware that Jews in Israel and around the world rose up in defense of our rights, spoke out against the extremist government in Jerusalem, and opposed the annexation of our land even at great cost to themselves. Their resistance inspired our own and reminded us that our differing religious faiths stem from a common source and share a commitment to social justice.
“I must correct myself. I called what happened a “war,” but that’s not what it was. It was the killing of a people and their culture. There is only word for what the Israelis did, and that word is genocide.”
Miriam took my hand. I looked at her. She was holding back the tears. “Dr. Bilal,” she said, “my husband and I saw the body of a little girl that had been buried in rubble. She was scooped up along with stones and bricks and other kinds of debris. The Israeli woman who was our guide didn’t think there was anything out of the ordinary about this.”
“It doesn’t surprise me, Mrs. Satterthwaite. We are not human in their eyes. After they kill us, they leave our bodies to rot under mountains of rubble. Once the fighting stopped, and the Americans and Israelis reached an agreement about the future of Gaza, they started to remove the rubble. To this day, they are still clearing away the debris and uncovering the remains of entire families. Most of them were killed by American-made bombs wherever the families found shelter — in schools, mosques, churches, even hospitals, and in their own homes. One of the truly horrifying aspects of our situation is what Israel, the U.S., and their EU partners have done to my country without regard to our history, our traditions, our deep love of the land itself and all it has given us.
“They have turned Palestine into a bizarre tourist attraction — a fantasy land, a playground, an exclusive club for those who consume the lion’s share of the world’s wealth. There is a stink that will not go away in Palestine. It is everywhere. It contaminates the air, the food, even the most intimate moments between people. It is the smell of death. Not just physical death. But the death of the world that was here long before the Israelis launched their most ferocious war of aggression. Look around you, my friends. The skyscrapers, the resorts, the banks, the corporate headquarters — they are the rank and putrid outgrowth of large-scale murder and cultural erasure. Under the whole of Gaza, there is a solitary decomposing corpse, and nothing will get rid of the smell until these monuments are razed and the people are allowed to return.
“The Zionist government of Israel forced Palestinian Arabs to leave Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem. That was worse than the catastrophe of 1948 when most of my people were permanently expelled from Palestine. We call what started in ’48 the Nakba, which means catastrophe. Between 1947 and 1949, the people fled to other Arab countries or ended up in refugee camps. They were either driven out of their towns and villages by Zionist militias or the Israeli army.
“This time, the Americans blackmailed Egypt, Lebanon, and Jordan into accepting hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees. We were given no choice. The Israelis called it “voluntary migration.” The Americans said we were finally free to rebuild our lives in peaceful communities without fear of military violence. Your third-term president, Donald Trump, assured the world we would be happy. We would have good jobs, good schools, and plenty of opportunities we didn’t have in Palestine. My family was sent to the Sinai, which is part of Egypt. We lived in a tent, like the other families. In summer, it is very hot during the day — 30 degrees Celsius or hotter. And there is no air conditioning in the tents.
“We got none of things we were promised. There is only poverty, disease, and spiritual death. We Palestinians are not permitted to work in Egypt. But still we must provide for our families. So we do whatever we can, sell whatever we can without losing our pride and our dignity in the process. My son is 19. He dreamed of becoming a pioneer in software development. But no college would accept him because he did not have residency status. He took to selling scrap metal and whatever else he could salvage from piles of rubbish in our camp in the Sinai. I am a doctor, but I could not legally practice medicine there. People who knew I was a doctor came to me for advice and for treatment. Most of them had no money to pay for my services. Instead, they gave me canned foods or fresh vegetables they had grown themselves, or even something made by hand.
“That was no kind of life. I decided after much praying that I would take my family back to Gaza. My sister Bushra thought I must be crazy. ‘Bilal,’ she said, ‘you know the border crossings are closed to Palestinians. They will not allow any of us to return. If we try to cross, they will arrest us or worse.’ “But I knew that things are not always so black and white. I had heard that in Gaza even now there are Palestinians who did not leave. They have found it practically impossible to assimilate, so they live on the fringes, working at jobs Israeli citizens would not consider for themselves.”
“If the border crossings are closed and there is no right of return, then how on Earth did you and your family manage to find your way here?” I asked Dr. Bilal.
“The tunnels,” he answered.
“What tunnels?”
“Our former government — Hamas — built hundreds of tunnels under Gaza. Some of them stretch all the way to Egypt with many entry points along the way. Israel destroyed most of the tunnels, but a few remain intact or have been re-built. One of the entry points is right here, under this very building.”
Dr. Bilal pointed to the ruins that sheltered us and provided sleeping quarters for his family and the group of orphans who had led us here. “Are you any better off here than in Egypt?” my wife asked. “I mean, what kind of future can you expect given the circumstances?”
“I don’t know, Mrs. Satterthwaite. I only know that we are not alone. Many families are leaving the Sinai and risking everything to make the journey back. We may fail in our attempt to reclaim what is ours. We may be killed or sent back to die in the deserts of Egypt and Jordan. But this is our land, and under the high-rises and the casinos and the hotels are where we built our homes, grazed our sheep, harvested our olives, lemons, and oranges, and practiced a way of life that goes back millennia. We cannot be so easily dismissed and forgotten.”
We thanked Dr. Bilal for all he had shared with us under such difficult conditions and assured him we would “hit the ground running” when we got back home. He asked us what that expression meant, and Miriam explained that we would share what we learned from him and from our experience in Gaza.
“How will you do this?” he asked.
“Through writing and speaking with others,” Miriam answered. “We can’t leave unspoken all that we’ve learned.”
By the time we left Dr. Bilal, it was night. But our luck had not run out, for the moon had risen, and there was enough light for Miriam and I to find our way back to our mopeds. At the hotel, we stopped off at Moshe’s Place (a bar in the hotel) and ordered drinks… just to take the edge off, as they say. Once we were back in our room, I didn’t know what to do with myself. My mind was racing. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the things Dr. Bilal had told us. In the bathroom, with the door shut, I stood in front of the mirror and stared at myself. It was like I was looking at a complete stranger. I mean, I knew I was Dan Satterthwaite from Nebraska, happily married for 47 years, father of three grown children. Retired high school teacher. But what was I doing here, in this glitzy, soulless resort far from home, with so many terrible thoughts spinning inside me? I felt a bout of vertigo take over and had trouble keeping my balance as I walked from the bathroom back to the bed.
Miriam lay there looking up at the ceiling. “Dan,” she said, not looking at me. “What are we going to do? Just go on like we’ve been doing… as if there’s nothing wrong, and the past is best forgotten?”
I didn’t have an answer. Not then, anyways. I lay beside her and held her till the room stopped spinning. After a time, we fell asleep.
During the rest of the week, Miriam and I devoted a few hours in the morning to doing research on the internet — something we should have done long before we came to Gaza. In the afternoons, I worked on transcribing the recording we made of our conversation with Dr. Bilal while Miriam organized the notes I’d taken into a coherent narrative. Around 5 each day we could be found poolside reading or just reflecting on how our perspective, our way of seeing ourselves and our way of life was shifting in ways we could never have anticipated. On the last day of our vacation, a fresh batch of tourists arrived bright and cheery while we were having breakfast by the pool. A newly arrived couple sat down in the two empty lounge chairs near our table. They were young, attractive, and clearly enthused about coming to Gaza by the Sea. I couldn’t keep from eavesdropping on their conversation.
The woman was thumbing through photos of the resort’s many attractions on her phone. She stopped at one that she found especially compelling. “Honey,” she said to her partner, “let’s go to the Magic Kingdom. It looks even more fantastic than the one in Orlando. We can buy tickets here, at the hotel, and go tomorrow.”
“Okay, but what do you think about taking a tour first, you know, just to get a feel for the place?”
My interest in them was piqued. I put down my drink (Turkish coffee) and turned toward the couple. “Excuse me,” I said. “I’m Dan, and this is my wife, Miriam. We’re from Nebraska. Where are you folks from?”
“Brookline… Massachusetts,” the woman said. “I’m Rebecca, and this is my husband…”
“Aaron,” the young man said.
Rebecca was thin and wore tan shorts with a white shirt and a necklace of pale blue beads. Her outfit seemed more suited for a stroll in a quiet country town than living the high life in Gaza. Aaron, her modestly bearded husband (he might have been her boyfriend; I never found out), wore glasses with black frames and looked very earnest, as if he were perpetually working on a difficult problem. As a couple, they seemed out of place in the “swinging” atmosphere of the hotel and the larger resort.
The four of us chatted for a while. Rebecca was a travel writer and had come to Gaza to write about the best bargains when it came to lodging , dining out, and recreation, and various do’s and don’ts when navigating a new culture. Her husband was in IT (information technology) and worked for a major pharmaceutical corporation in Lexington, Massachusetts.
They had already traveled to Israel proper as part of Rebecca’s mission to understand Gaza in the context of Greater Israel and to write detailed reports mainly for Americans living and working overseas — expats, in other words. The long days they had spent in Israel’s big cities checking on schools, living costs, shopping districts, etc. had worn them both out. (Rebecca’s husband had done a fair share of the research; the actual writing was his wife’s responsibility.) Now it was their time to kick back and take in the “sights and sounds” of Gaza, especially its number-one resort, Gaza by the Sea.
After we were served a second cup of coffee, my wife asked if this was their first time in the Middle East. It was. “Since I was a little girl,” Rebecca said, “I’ve wanted to visit Israel and learn firsthand how they did it. I mean, how did the Israelis, against impossible odds, turn what was basically a desert into what has become one of the most prosperous countries in the world. In my family, we always spoke of Israel as ‘a light unto nations,’ which is from the Book of Isaiah.”
Miriam gave me one of her looks. I knew what she meant.
“So, what do you know about the history of Gaza?” Miriam asked them.
“Not that much,” Aaron replied. “We’re mainly here to have a good time before we to go back to the daily grind.”
My wife took off her sunglasses so she could see Rebecca and Aaron more clearly. “Dan and I have been here for a week now. Today is our last day. But what we’ve experienced in this short amount of time is… actually, it’s changed our lives.”
“I’ll say this much,” I added. “Gaza is not what it appears to be. And if you have the time, we’d love to share with you some of what we’ve learned. It might change your lives too.”
George Capaccio is a writer, performer, and activist now living in Durham NC since migrating from the Boston area. His concern for the people of Iraq under U.S.-imposed sanctions led him to make numerous trips to Iraq as a witness to the effects of those sanctions. At home, he advocated for their lifting through writing and public speaking while raising funds for Iraqi families. George appreciates hearing from readers. He can be reached by email: [email protected]
