Shakespeare in Gaza

I admit that studying literature has changed me. It has shaped the way I think, the way I observe people, and the way I interpret the world. But I never imagined that during a genocide in Gaza, I would think about literature all the time — that I would feel, in every sense, as though I were living inside it.

I remember once, though I can’t recall exactly when. Maybe three years ago, or maybe less. Time slips away from us here, especially under war. And joy, when it does visit, vanishes even faster. Moments of happiness feel like they belonged to another lifetime, like stories you once heard but no longer believe.

It was during the Culture for Sustainable and Inclusive Peace (CUSP) exhibition at the Islamic University of Gaza. I was part of a corner titled How Palestinian Women Are Represented in Diaspora Theater. Each group had its own space and message and among them was a corner dedicated to Shakespeare. A few girls were analyzing the roles of women in his plays, breathing life into his words right there, in the heart of Gaza.

I remember feeling puzzled by the hashtag #ShakespeareInGaza. It felt strange. I didn’t take pictures with anything else, but I did take one holding the hashtag photo banner that had Shakespeare’s head in a Hatta and I’qal. Maybe because something about it felt surreal, even then. As if life were gently mocking us, hinting at a script we hadn’t yet read.

When that Shakespeare corner was voted the most beautiful in the exhibition, I felt as though it was Dr. Refaat’s spirit — his faith in literature, in meaning, in us — that had triumphed.

Now, Shakespeare has returned, but without Dr. Refaat. Now he comes alone, carrying his soul. Not in celebration, but in mourning. Not on a stage, but among ruins. As if he came back only to betray him, to echo his absence in every tragic line.

Because Gaza, once again, is a stage, and all of us are trapped in an endless unscripted tragedy.

"She is my goods, my chattels..."

When we talk about women — in literature or in real life — I cannot help but turn my gaze toward Palestinian women, especially the women of Gaza. These are the women who swallow the bitterness of genocide daily. In Gaza, a woman is either killed deliberately, or left widowed, carrying the burden of survival and responsibility on her back.

I heard something recently: Netanyahu, in an interview, described Palestinian women as "property." A word, one heavy with violence. It wasn't merely a slip of colonial language; it was the resurrection of the misogyny spoken by Shakespearean villains as if to equate them with Palestinian men. 

In The Taming of the Shrew, Petruchio proclaims: “She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house, my household stuff.”

The line was written in a comedy, but the politics are tragic. Petruchio reduces Katherine to furniture, to livestock. Netanyahu did the same in 2025. Only this time, the language wasn’t patriarchal theatre, it was real whitewashed genocidal rhetoric on international media. On this stage, Netanyahu is Petruchio.

Where Petruchio sought to dominate a woman to affirm his masculinity, Netanyahu seeks to erase an entire people to affirm his colonial sovereignty. In both cases, the woman, whether Katherine or the Palestinian mother, is denied voice, agency, and humanity. And unlike Petruchio’s stage, Netanyahu’s performance unfolds in bombed maternity wards and mass graves.

To call us "property" is to admit what we already know: to the colonizer, we are not human beings — we are inventory.

But what he fails to understand is this: we speak.

Like Katherine.

Like Shylock.

Like Hamlet.

And we do not speak to entertain. We speak to indict.

“An old black ram is tupping your white ewe.”

Every tyrannical system seeks first to dehumanize the people it wants to control. It does this not only through violence, but through language, reducing its subjects to something less than human. It is a strategic cruelty.

When people are cast as the Other, as savage or animalistic, it becomes easier for the world to ignore their suffering. This is what psychological warfare looks like.

Iago dehumanizes Othello: “An old black ram is tupping your white ewe.”

The language is racist, loaded, and violent. And it echoes eerily with what Israeli leaders say about us. They call our children the “children of darkness” and theirs “the children of light.” They paint us as savages. Barbaric. Undeserving of life, let alone of empathy.

Sometimes, I feel as if we are wearing taqiyyat al-ikhfa’, an invisibility cloak. It is painful to constantly have to prove your humanity. But perhaps, one day, history will be ashamed of how long it took to listen. It won’t have mattered by then.

“Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions?” The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1

Shylock pleads to be recognized. So do we.

We had hands that once held pens before they held rubble.

We had eyes that read poetry before they scanned the sky for drones.

We had mouths that recited verses before they choked on dust.

We, too, have stories.

“I am not what I am.” Othello, Act 1, Scene 1

Another tragedy is the forced passiveness imposed on us. We are no longer allowed to imagine or pursue futures. I am Lubna, the Lubna who once dreamed of higher studies, of literature, of building something meaningful. But now I am only allowed to think about survival: how much food do we have? How long can we charge our phones? Do we have bread?

I haven’t given up, but I have been forced into dormancy. And I am not alone. All of Gaza is being pushed into ignorance — not by choice, but by design. Universities destroyed. Professors killed. Books turned to ashes. Why? Because it is easier to control a population that is desperate, passive, uneducated.

We are not passive. We are being forced into passiveness.

 “When I perceive that men as plants increase,

Cheered and check’d even by the self-same sky.” Sonnet 15, William Shakespeare

In Sonnet 15, Shakespeare speaks of youth fading, not from time, but from violence. And I think of our youth in Gaza. How they carry water, not backpacks. They memorize survival tactics, not multiplication tables. They lose their limbs before they lose their baby teeth. They are no longer boys and girls, but orphans, gravediggers. They bloom for a moment, then are trampled by tanks, shelled in their sleep, suffocated in tents. Even those who survive are not fully alive.

They are killed metaphorically, daily, by humiliation at borders, by the ache of hunger, by the loss of schools, of friends, of dreams. They are not living, but enduring. They are not growing, but shrinking beneath the weight of war.

We do not age, as we have aged.

“If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart… tell my story.” Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2

These words are not just Hamlet’s. They belong to every Palestinian. I remember Dr. Refaat Alareer standing before a room of students, his voice steady as he recited that line. And then he asked us: “What is the value of resistance if no one tells your story?”

Our stories are our rebellion. Our voices are the only borders we have left. Like Dr. Refaat, we must write not to mourn, but to ignite. We write because silence, in the face of injustice, is a second death, and we refuse to die quietly.

Shakespeare, centuries ago, wrote of betrayal, of injustice, of those who suffer quietly under the rule of the cruel and violent.

But today, from the ashes of Gaza, we do not suffer quietly.

We are Hamlet’s last breath.

We are Othello’s wounded honor.

We are Shylock’s demand for recognition.

We are Dr. Refaat’s last poem, unfinished, because we are still writing.

About the author

Lubna Ahmad Abu Dahrouj, 25, is a writer from Gaza. She believes in the power of words.