We finally arrived in Gaza at around 7:00 p.m. Since there is no direct route into Gaza, we had to fly into Cairo before making the drive to the Rafah Crossing. I had lost count of the number of Israeli checkpoints we passed through — a daily reality for Palestinians living under apartheid. We were staying at the port near the Rimal district of Gaza City; out of the window, I could see Israeli patrol boats, which stopped Palestinian fishermen from sailing more than three kilometers out to sea.

In the morning, we made the short drive to Al-Shati refugee camp. Located on the Mediterranean coast in the north of Gaza, Al-Shati is otherwise known as “Beach Camp.” Established in 1948, the camp initially accommodated around twenty-three thousand refugees who had been displaced by the Nakba. By the time I visited in 2013, that number had grown to ninety thousand people, cramped inside 0.5 square kilometers of land.

Inside Beach Camp is a primary school. Run by dedicated, hardworking teachers, the school’s philosophy was to create an atmosphere for discovery, music, theater, and art. Some of the children showed me their work. There were drawings of planes, fences, and bombs. But there were other drawings, too: of their parents, brothers, sisters, and friends.