"Come, look, the cinema is burned down!"
My name echoed from one end of the street to the other, and I lifted my gaze in worry. Worry – because this wasn't just any street but the main one, Omar al-Mukhtar Street, and the city wasn't just any city but Gaza itself. And the one who called my name from afar, her voice thick with shock as she pointed toward a blackened building that had once been a movie theater – the famed al-Nasr Cinema, torched by Hamas men – was my wife, Yael. To my ears, the street had fallen silent, and only the Hebrew from her lips, a language absent from the city's soundscape for many years, rang out loud.
It was 20 years ago, in 2005. Gaza before Hamas's takeover was still steeped in hope, despite the Israeli occupation that strangled it from every side and the malignant settlements planted within it. We were the only Israeli visitors then: myself, a journalist for Haaretz come to cover the life of music in Gaza accompanying the Belgian NGO Music Fund headed by Lukas Peiron, and my wife, who joined me as photographer.
"You're a married couple? You have children? It is irresponsible to enter such a dangerous place!" the officer at the checkpoint chastized us severely. "Why, have you ever been inside?" Yael asked him. He kept silent.
