I was overjoyed to read in the Guardian that Amjed Tantesh has resumed teaching children in Gaza how to swim. (He took this photo for the newspaper.)

A couple of years ago, I read about his crusade to reduce, fractionally, the fear many residents of Gaza feel towards to their beautiful beaches. Most have never learned to swim and many die in those waters. Without the infrastructure (that’s an understatement!) to provide lessons, life guards and education about water safety, Tantesh organized his community to build pools out of the rubble of bombs.

After the horror that has befallen Gaza since then, I often wondered if he was still alive. He is, and he’s back in the water.

According to the Guardian,

His biggest challenge when the classes first launched was persuading parents to sign up their children. “People were terrified by water, the sea looked like a monster to them as it consumed dozens of people annually,” he said.

For the first few years children learned to swim in Gaza’s port, where breakwaters protected children from the waves. Then he constructed a series of pools along the coast for classes, where about 11,000 people learned to swim.

The biggest, built with rubble from homes bombed by Israel in 2014, was more than 1,000 square metres. Israeli attacks since 2023 razed all the pools, killed tens of swimming students and at least six coaches, and injured countless more.

Restarting classes seemed almost impossible. “I only had the sea, but the sea is dangerous even during summer. You have jellyfish, you have high waves, strong currents, rocks,” he said.

So he came up with the plan for new pools, for the sake of Gaza’s children and as a tribute to his brother [who was killed in the bombing]. Seeing the children leave the horrors of war behind for a brief period, when they dive into the sea, has also been healing for him.

“Actually the first person I helped with this project was myself,” he said. “It has given me a great feeling of happiness and recovery. I am alive again.”

Swimming has always been a bit part of my life and I remember the thrill when supporting hands let go and I was able to paddle and float on my own. Treading water and visiting with friends while our children played in the shallows was heaven. The luxury of watching grandchildren dive for trinkets, ride wave-tossed logs, and stand comfortably on paddle boards is something I never take for granted.

Reading that first article two years ago, I wanted to find a way to vent my anger at the ways in which the Israeli government stymied Tantesh’s positive contributions and to acknowledge the brilliance of those who, in the most difficult circumstances, find ways to create joy. So I wrote this poem.

Swimming for Gaza

Girls ride a camel on a Gaza beach
grinning for their dad, Amjad Tantesh,
who taught ten thousand citizens to swim.

He stacked intifada rubble and dug
a pool safe from deadly currents laying
siege to all who dared the Gaza beaches.

The world swam in solidarity,
photos of gleeful children holding hands,
lessons learned, their bodies floating free.

Goggles and flippers confiscated, water
cut off. Sewers blasted, the sea a toxin.
Bombs dig pools in the deadly Gaza sand.

A bed unmade, pictures crooked, the streetside
wall is dust.Some magic vanishing act.
Starving teaches children how to shrink.

It’s hard to swim with just one leg, an arm
gone missing, brothers and mothers atomized.
This boy alone looks for a teacher. What might
he learn adrift In Gaza’s bomb bright night?