In line with its commitment to intercultural dialogue and to culture as a driver of social change, QM incorporates the finalist stories from the latest edition of the literary contest A Sea of Words into its editorial programme through a serialized publication.

Maltese writer Nadine Zammit, a member of the jury in the 2025 edition and winner of the previous one in 2023 with her story “Design of Betrayal”, sponsors this initiative. Her inspiring words are presented here as a symbolic gesture of passing the torch between generations of creators who, through their stories, have been able to imagine the Mediterranean we aspire to.

The Human – When Carried by the Sea

By Hamza Mohammad Tawfiq Al-Halabi
Palestine – Gaza

It had become unbearably dull to hear the footsteps of employees heading off to work in the morning, the murmurs of schoolchildren along the long road, the clanging of metal in the small factories, and the voice of Umm Kulthum from the nearby café.

And it was dull too—my sunrise each morning with the sun, leaving home for my university classes, leaving my consciousness behind, asleep in the house. I used to forget breakfast, as I had the habit of waking up late.
But one morning awakened me in full awareness. It pulled me out of the monotony of my time into a halo of nothingness—or a state of absurdity. I thought then: as long as the human is human in essence, and race or ideology is merely incidental to the human being, how can the incidental override the essence? How can I erase the existence of others for the sake of a transient thought in my head?
I had to realize, then, that all a human needs today is simply another human being—because that is the one truth we need not fight for. It is the lasting common ground between all people.

I grew up, along with my family, in a small town on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The city looked like an old creature, worn down by time, resisting aging with residents full of youthful energy and childhood dreams—even though everything in it aged quickly.
We lived near the shore, but we couldn’t see it.
The sea, that endless blue being, had become a boundary—not a dream.
A barrier of wire, not a mirror for the sky.

My father always instilled in us the love of people—all people. He used to say:
“My son, if the children of Gaza, Tel Aviv, Beirut, and Naples gathered in one square and played together, no one would need to write a peace treaty.”

I didn’t understand him then. But on that strange morning I mentioned, I realized that play has an echo—just like war—but it doesn’t frighten.

I grew up, and the sea grew with me. I used to see it as closer, more intimate when I was young, but it began to drift away.
The distance between me and it was not measured in meters, but in fear—in small losses piled on top of each other, like ancient stones in the city’s old wall.

Our house had an old wooden door that opened onto a narrow alley, and my father would open it every morning, murmuring verses from the Qur’an.
I would ask him: “Why do you always mumble when you open the door?” He’d say:
“So only peace enters with us.”
I used to think he exaggerated, but now I understand. Anyone who wants to survive here must negotiate with the door every morning, convincing it not to open onto a bullet or a shell.

At fourteen, I saw my first friend killed. His name was Yasser, and he resembled me in everything—even in his small dreams. He wanted to become a football player, to play for a European club and send us videos from green stadiums.
But instead of watching his goals, we watched his funeral.

I don’t remember how I cried. All I remember is that I didn’t speak for days, as if my voice had declared mourning. From that moment, two voices began to live inside me:
One wanted to scream, to take revenge, to destroy everything.
The other wanted to walk against the fire—to plant something that could not burn.
These two forces battled within me for years.

One night, I spoke with a university professor who taught us “international conflicts.” I had asked him:
“Can justice be achieved without revenge?”
He said:
“Justice is not revenge on the killer—it is safety for those who remain.”

That sentence opened a window in my head. I began to see the world differently. Everyone who had been ‘against me’ was no longer an enemy—but another victim of a false narrative.

I decided to write. Not as a great writer, but as someone trying to understand. I began to record my reflections:
Why do we fear difference?
How can one idea kill?
And does writing save—or merely delay the explosion?

At university, I met a girl named Mariam. She studied French literature and dreamed of translating and working in peace organizations. She believed that words could stop a bullet—if written at the right time and place.
She once said to me, as we looked at the sea through the bars:
“You know? This same sea touches Italy and Spain and Turkey… Do you think it knows it has to take a side in the war?”

I laughed then, but she didn’t smile. She truly believed the sea was the first teacher of peace; it doesn’t fight those who cross it, but carries them all. That vastness was what she missed here.

In a joint university project, we began writing letters to students from other Mediterranean universities—from Athens, Tangier, Marseille. We exchanged stories and music. We began to discover that we live with the same anxiety, asking the same questions:
What does it mean to be from this region?
Are we destined to carry the legacy of wars to our children?
Or can we truly break the chain?

One of those students was named Michel, from Marseille. He wrote to me once:
“When I hear about Gaza, I think of fear. But when I read your letters, I think of hope. You’re creating a new image of the city—an image that resembles all of us.”

Those words were enough to change the course of my studies. I shifted from political science to cultural anthropology. I began to believe that studying humans as humans—before identities and flags—is the real key to peace.

My father died in the last aggression. He had gone out to buy bread.
His funeral was quiet, just as he always liked. The imam said a word I will never forget:
“He believed that death should not create more enemies—but more reasons to live.”

Months later, I traveled on a scholarship to Barcelona.
There, for the first time, I felt that the sea is the same here as it is there—
but the people were different only because they were allowed to be different without fear.
I participated in a workshop on “narrative-making for peace” and read my first text about Gaza—my voice trembling, but the applause long.
A Moroccan girl stood after me and said:
“Peace doesn’t need treaties—it needs stories. Stories like this raise children who won’t pick up guns.”

In Barcelona, everything changed. Not because the city was perfect, but because it gave me what I had been denied: the right to quiet.

At one literary gathering, a Greek writer said to me:
“Peace is not forgetting the war, but refusing to repeat it.”
That was when I felt I had found the answer I’d been searching for.
Peace is not weakness—but the strongest form of resistance.

Now, I return to Gaza with a new message. I won’t promise to change the world, but I promise to tell everyone I meet:
“We don’t just live in Gaza. We are born here every day.
And we must choose each time: to be the beginning of a new story—or the repetition of an old one.”
And I have chosen to be a new story.