Abdallah Aljazzar: From asking for a cigarette to seeking asylum — my journey from Gaza to Ireland

Living in a tent and surviving rocket attacks was my ordinary a year ago, but now ordinary is a lovely day in West Cork, while my family endures the daily horrors of life in Gaza

Abdallah Aljazzar was on holiday in West Cork when he found out the camp his family were living in had hit by an airstrike.

It’s almost September. I really can’t believe it. This day last year, I left Rafah on the Irish evacuation. The playback of my film would show the bus trip through the ruins of Rafah, my home; the Israeli checkpoint soldier — a teenager with a machine gun, who was determined to not let us through, the taste of real food for the first time in a year, the constant fainting in that first week, those two nights stuck at an Irish hospital. 

But it's funny when I look back from a year beyond — it is not a memory so much as a taste that comes to me about all this time. No, it's not bitterness or sweet, it's cigarettes. That’s what got me through.

Cigarettes are something I promise myself to keep in my pocket, and they are what I asked the Irish authorities for when we first met at the Kerem Shalom exit during my evacuation. Cigarettes have been a friend since then, the taste of home that helps me endure my new life as a master's student at Maynooth University.

We hadn’t had decent food in Gaza for months and I weighed 60kg at the isolation facility where I stayed for a day and a half for medical check-ups soon after I landed in Dublin. There, I used to smoke with a kind nurse named Paul. There is a secret fellowship known only to smokers, formed outside or in the hall. 

I never met him again, but he’s in there as one of the first memories — smoking and feeling welcome. That is what the taste means, I think. As I was about to complete my master's in Maynooth, I met a professor who asked me: "Do you remember a nurse named Paul?” I said: "Of course." "He is my brother. He said he had met you.” By then, I had gained 22kg, as my body had been trying to recover from the Gaza famine.

In Ireland, after a year of my evacuation, I am starting to see my home in Gaza as the world sees it and not how I lived it. My family remains in a tent. For me, it was home. My brother Nour is still missing. My little siblings are trying to make up for the loss of years of education. 

Thus, I do understand the language of Gaza in a different way; my cousin tells me straight: “I live in absurdity," my brother indicates our tent as "home" in a phone call, just as I used to, but not anymore. 

Living in a tent is not home for anyone. One sibling feels like he doesn't exist. The other comes to terms with living in a tent. Hell is home and nothing much has changed since the so-called ceasefire bombings and empty promises and no medicine and no school. It isn't weird if what we can get used to is normal. Picture: AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana

Living in a tent is not home for anyone. One sibling feels like he doesn't exist. The other comes to terms with living in a tent. Hell is home and nothing much has changed since the so-called ceasefire bombings and empty promises and no medicine and no school. It isn't weird if what we can get used to is normal.

I pull a cigarette out of my pocket, and surprisingly it’s the last one. What shall I do? Centra sells them at a price I can't afford. I call Inez, my friend who frequently travels through airports for work: "I need you in a duty-free market soon." Her wife takes the call and convinces me to join them on a weekend off in West Cork.

I go to a lighthouse in West Cork. I stroll through the wet green grass, holding on to the rhythm of my breathing. I try to enjoy the moment and follow the advice I have been given about how to live with panic attacks and PTSD. I hold my mobile to capture the moment, but a notification pops up: “An Israeli airstrike hit Tabria camp in Khan Yunis Almwasi.” This is where my tent is. That is where my family is.

Surviving such rockets has become the usual for my mum. It was my ordinary a year ago, but now ordinary is a lovely day in West Cork. Picture: AFP via Getty Images

I call. It rings out. I call again. Nothing, again. Answer the phone, I scream, please, please, answer the phone. I notice my tears. The fear inside my heart grows. I grab a cigarette and take a few puffs before I light another one. 

Finally, my mum answers the phone: "We are okay; we are okay. I start to breathe again. Are you safe? Were you hit? How is everyone else? "No," she says, with little emotion, “the rocket was 50m away from us." 50m away, 50m — Jesus, how can that be “okay”, Mum? 

She says: "We are safe for now, so stop worrying, son.” 

It’s the usual conversation, me trying to lend support to them surviving unspeakable horrors and ending with them supporting me, telling me to calm down. Surviving such rockets has become the usual for my mum. It was my ordinary a year ago, but now ordinary is a lovely day in West Cork. I end the call and say "okay", but of course it’s a lie. How can it be ok? But what can I do?

Smoking, they say, is an addiction, and it creates a craving, but I think there is a deeper craving, a longing for home. As much as I love Ireland, I want to go back home. Smoking helps calm that longing that alone proves I am in exile. 

My family, now stuck in an uninhabitable tent for more than two years, is mourning what cannot be recovered — surviving the harsh reality of the tent. They have lost so much, and sitting here in this West Cork haven, I have to recognise that they have also lost me. 

I am not there anymore — the tent kind of life had drained me before my evacuation to Ireland in August 2025. But my life has changed, and now I have to imagine how worse it might have become.

“You are in the liminal space between Gaza and Ireland,” a friend of mine once told me. He gave me permission to map this in-between world and be gentle with myself when I get confused. 

Sometimes it’s a weight off one’s shoulders to accept the reality the way it is — it is not my fault. Just put one foot in front of the other and press on. I have had so many new experiences this past year, more than one would have in 10 years: my first time learning a different language and culture. 

But it consoles me that the Irish also love to smoke and that I am not the only one. I have found good company. I know the standard story arc would script me into some sort of Hollywood success, that Abdallah, after his first tumultuous year, lived happily ever after, but no, when you see me sneaking off for a smoke, it's me covering my confusion. 

I still am not sure of the ground I walk on. I am always judging myself for not measuring up, not doing what is expected, and not making my family proud. Taking out a cigarette is me trying to look as if I know what I am doing. But does anyone?

This fraternity of smokers makes up a global family of exiles — not just because smoking is not a healthy thing to do in public, but because in all of us, there is this compulsion to get away, even for a minute. We are tasting something else along with the tobacco. 

When my fellow Gazan students meet up, I notice that same pattern — those of us who have to go outside for a smoke. Sometimes it's to break the tension, because some of us Gazans are combatants for grief, trying to prove who carries the greatest burden of mental illness. “I need a smoke” is a good way to de-escalate the nonsense. Why argue about the past when the future is ahead of us?

Last week, with my Irish friends in a pub, I sneaked outside for a cigarette and I had a sudden panic — oh my God, the year is done — what next? My current visa allows me to only stay here for a few extra months. I have no way to go back home. I grab another smoke and look up. I see a man walking with his kids and he looks like my brother Nour. I hear his voice inside me: "It's ok — this is your new tent, Abdallah — make it home.” 

The panic goes away. I stride back to my table in the pub and I tell my friends: “I’m seeking asylum."

The following morning, I woke up, lit my cigarette and smuggled my ass into the W6 bus to City West, seeking asylum. At this moment, I’m waiting for the results of my asylum interview as I’m waiting for my missing brother Nour to come back, and martyred cousin to come back.