Wafaa Abu Al-Qomboz is twenty-two years old and studying English at Islamic University in Gaza. She is a very proud Palestinian and Gazan. Since she was a young child, she used to hear many stories about Palestinian suffering due to the Israeli occupation, and stories about Israeli soldiers attacking houses, killing children and women, and working very hard to destroy everything related to the identity of Palestinians. Wafaa lived through the two wars on the Gaza Strip: Cast Lead and Pillar of Cloud. She says, “Those two wars affected me significantly. I will not forget the sight of children who were mercilessly killed.”
Wafaa was raised on the Palestinian values of tenacity and resisting injustice. Therefore, she started to think of something to help her defend her country and to let her express her frustration and anger at the occupation and to show her love to her country: writing. When she was eleven years old, Wafaa started writing simple short stories about Palestine, and only recently was she encouraged to write in English. She is planning to continue writing in English.