The Day Gaza Felt Seen
Every morning, as I walk into Qatar Science & Technology Park (QSTP), I am reminded that some journeys begin long before we realize we are on them. Mine began on an October morning in 2012, when I sat beside my mother in our home in Gaza, watching His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani make his historic visit to the Gaza Strip, becoming the first Arab and world leader to break Israel’s siege on Gaza.
By then, Gaza had been living under blockade for six years. Isolation had become part of everyday life, and visits from world leaders simply did not happen. Yet that morning felt different. Streets were lined with Palestinian and Qatari flags, banners welcomed His Highness with messages of gratitude, and conversations everywhere revolved around his visit. One banner has stayed with me ever since. It read, “Thank you, Qatar… You kept your promise.”
His visit was far more than symbolic. That day, he laid the foundation stone for Hamad City and the Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics, reaffirming Qatar’s commitment to rebuilding Gaza. Over the years, those projects became part of our everyday lives, reminding us that even after destruction, rebuilding was possible.
Long before His Highness arrived, my mother and I had already switched on Al Jazeera. We sat together with cups of tea, waiting for the live broadcast to begin. My older brother, who was studying at the Islamic University of Gaza, attended His Highness’s speech before returning home later that afternoon. I still remember watching His Highness make his way through the streets of Gaza. He smiled warmly, waved to the crowds, and greeted people with a humility that immediately stood out. As the cameras moved closer, I found myself studying his face. There was a calmness about him that has stayed with me ever since. Even through a television screen, his kindness reached us.
As we watched him greeting people and later delivering his speech, my mother and I couldn’t hold back our tears. They weren’t tears of sadness. They came from relief, gratitude, and the overwhelming feeling that someone had crossed every political and geographical barrier simply to tell us that Gaza had not been forgotten. For the first time in years, we felt seen.
Later that day, my brother came home carrying a small Qatari flag. The moment I saw it, I eagerly took it from him and began waving it around the house before placing it beside the Palestinian flag in our living room. The two remained there together for years, quietly reminding us of that extraordinary day, until they disappeared beneath the rubble of our family home during the genocide in Gaza.
Although His Highness left Gaza after only one day, the story his visit began is one I am still living today.
When His Vision Reached Me
The visit lasted only one day, but its impact stayed with me long after the crowds had gone home.
In the months that followed, I found myself thinking about Qatar more often than ever before. I listened to the Qatari national anthem on my mother’s laptop so many times that my older brother eventually laughed and said, “We know you love Qatar already.” He wasn’t wrong. Although I couldn’t fully explain it then, something about that visit had quietly taken root in my heart.
Growing up in Gaza, Qatar was never simply another country on a map. I saw its presence in neighborhoods rebuilt after war, roads, schools, and projects that restored hope. I also grew up hearing people pray for Qatar and for His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the late Father Amir of Qatar. Only years later did I understand why.
After graduating from university, my older brother sent me a link to a scholarship at Hamad Bin Khalifa University. I had always imagined pursuing my master’s degree in the United States after my exchange year there, but my brother encouraged me to explore the opportunity, and my mother gently insisted that I apply.
She reminded me that Qatar shared our language, culture, and values. More importantly, she believed I would find a place where I belonged.
As I learned more about Hamad Bin Khalifa University, I was drawn to its innovative Master of Arts in Digital Humanities and Societies, unlike any other program in the region. But another thought stayed with me. Years after watching His Highness walk through the streets of Gaza, I was applying to a university that proudly carries his name.
Looking back now, I realize I wasn’t simply applying for a scholarship.
Years after His Highness invested in education, that vision quietly reached one young Palestinian in Gaza.
When the acceptance email arrived, I read it over and over before walking to my mother. We embraced, and we both cried. Smiling through her tears, she simply said, “I always knew you could do it.”
Later that day, she baked my favorite apple and cinnamon cake to celebrate.
Leaving Gaza was never simple. Because of the blockade, I arrived in Qatar almost three weeks after the semester had already begun. Yet every difficulty faded the moment I stepped into Education City.
When I opened the door to my studio room for the first time, I stood quietly, taking it all in. Having lived in student accommodation during my exchange year in the United States, I thought I knew what to expect. I was wrong. Even small details surprised me, from having my own kitchen to finding a dishwasher there. It wasn’t simply a place to stay. It was a space where students were given everything they needed to live comfortably, focus on their studies, and make the most of their university experience.
That evening, after wandering through Education City, I looked up at the sky and whispered, “Alhamdulillah,” thanking God not only for helping me arrive safely, but because, for the first time, I felt that the horizon stretched far beyond the borders I had grown up within.
When I called my mother later that night, I couldn’t stop telling her about everything I had seen. She listened quietly, and I smiled as I realized she had been right all along.
Looking back, we weren’t simply celebrating an admission offer. We were celebrating a future neither of us could yet imagine.
Before long, Qatar no longer felt like the place where I was studying. It simply felt like home away from home.
Only Then Did I Understand
For years, I never stopped to think about how all the pieces of my life fit together.
I graduated from Hamad Bin Khalifa University, built my career, and eventually returned to Qatar Foundation, this time as a Content Writer at QSTP. At the time, I simply saw these as different chapters of my professional journey. I never paused to ask what connected them.
It wasn’t until after the passing of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani that I found myself looking back.
One morning, as I walked through QSTP, I caught myself asking a simple question:
How did I get here?
The answer wasn’t a single decision, a scholarship, or even years of hard work. It was a story that had quietly begun long before I ever arrived in Qatar, on the day His Highness visited Gaza.
Only then did I understand that his vision was never limited to rebuilding homes, hospitals, roads, or cities. By investing in education, research, innovation, and people, he created opportunities that would continue changing lives for generations.
Years later, I realized that I wasn’t simply benefiting from his vision. I had become part of its legacy.
Today, whenever I walk through Education City or Qatar Foundation, I no longer see separate universities, research centers, startups, or innovation hubs. I see the living expression of that vision.
Sometimes I pause and smile because I realize that, wherever I go within Qatar Foundation, I am still walking through a legacy that first reached me years ago in Gaza.
Over the years, I also came to understand something I never expected.
In Gaza, I always felt that Qatar was somehow with me. Today, in Qatar, I carry Gaza wherever I go.
They no longer feel like two separate places, but two parts of the same story that continue to live within me.
Looking back now, I realize that His Highness’s greatest legacy was never only what he built, but the opportunities he created for generations of people, including me.
The Gift I Never Got to Give
When I heard the news of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s passing, I struggled to process it. Like many people, it didn’t feel real until I watched the funeral.
Seeing His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani carrying his father’s coffin alongside his brothers was the moment everything became real. I will never forget the look in his eyes. There was a depth of grief that words can hardly describe. He stood with remarkable strength, carrying not only his father’s coffin, but also the unimaginable weight of saying goodbye. As I watched those images, something inside me broke, and, to my own surprise, I burst into tears.
I had never grieved the passing of a leader that way before. It took me time to understand why.
As those images unfolded on the screen, memories began returning one after another. I remembered His Highness walking through the streets of Gaza, my mother beside me, the tears we shared that day, the small Qatari flag that remained in our living room for years, and the scholarship that eventually brought me to Qatar. I even found myself thinking about an early morning in Gaza, only weeks before the war, when I went swimming with my brother and friends. From the sea, I looked toward the Qatari Committee for the Reconstruction of Gaza building overlooking Al Rasheed Street, the coastal road rebuilt by Qatar that stretches the length of Gaza. Looking toward it, I remember thinking that, somehow, Qatar was still with me.
In the days that followed, I kept seeing His Highness’s photograph across Doha, accompanied by the words, “Indeed, we belong to Allah, and indeed to Him we shall return.” Every time I passed one, I paused. I realized I wasn’t simply witnessing a nation mourning its leader. In my own way, I was mourning someone whose legacy had quietly shaped my own life.
His Highness may no longer be with us physically, but his legacy continues to shape lives every day, including mine. I see it in the universities educating future generations, the researchers advancing knowledge, and the entrepreneurs transforming ideas into reality.
Some legacies are measured in monuments. Others are measured in lives transformed. His Highness’s legacy is both.
Sometimes I find myself wishing I had met His Highness, if only once. When I left Gaza in late March 2024, one of the very few personal things I carried with me was a small collection of seashells gathered from Gaza’s shore. I still keep them today.
I often think I would have given them to him. To anyone else, they might seem like ordinary seashells. To me, they carry a small piece of home, a reminder of the sea I grew up beside and of a place he never forgot and never stopped helping rebuild. I think he would have understood exactly what they meant.
I didn’t write these words because I work at Qatar Foundation. I wrote them because this story has lived quietly inside me for years. This article is simply my way of saying thank you. It is the gift I never had the chance to give in person.
Perhaps these words are the closest I will ever come.
When His Highness visited Gaza in 2012, I thought I was watching history unfold. I never imagined I was watching my own future begin.