Gaza strip – At the UN shelter in central Gaza where I live with my family, the courtyard and corridors outside our room are covered with blankets every night. Below, people seek protection from the cold.
During the day, the same people venture out in search of anything they can bring back to their starving families – a frantic search for anything that might have survived the bombings.
The times I join them, I see children searching the ruins for their dolls, teenagers searching for their schoolbooks, their parents searching for food, and elderly people searching the rubble for their property and their missing sons, daughters and grandchildren.
More than 100 days after Israel launched its war on Gaza, destruction is everywhere. Israel has killed more than 24,000 people. The entire Gaza Strip is in ruins. Its inhabitants, whose freedom of movement is restricted, stumble through the destruction in search of help, goods or loved ones buried under the rubble.
Above them, the daytime sky is filled with the roar of warplanes while the night is lit by the blast of explosions.
Destruction smells. The stench of burnt and rotting flesh from bodies lying beneath the rubble is unavoidable, leading to health risks and more trauma. It harasses the imagination, forcing researchers to recognize it for what it is, the last trace of people, like us, but unfortunate not to have escaped the bombings.
No end to the nightmare
A few days ago, a day like any other, while waiting in line for water – it’s not clean but it’s all we have – I met Abu Ruhmy, 63 years old .
He told me how he lived in his son’s apartment before fleeing to the UN shelter. “I lived in Shadi’s apartment, my only son,” Ruhmy said. He described how his son had lived there with his wife and two children.
Ruhmy lost contact with them seven weeks ago.
“I heard they were all killed,” he said, his desperate eyes communicating more than words. “His wife, Razan, was eight months pregnant when she was killed. »
“They all hoped for a future outside of Gaza and were waiting for the war to end to get out,” Ruhmy continued.
He paused for a moment before continuing: “Now I can’t find their bodies. Not any of them.
“It was too much. I went straight back to the bedroom where I was sleeping with my wife, child and parents. My chest felt heavy. All I thought about was that at some point I would wake up, that all this would be nothing more than a nightmare – a nightmare that would have an end.
Shortage of aid
Aid remains limited. Medical care, access to clean water, electricity, food, heat, shelter or any other service we need to stay alive are all very expensive.
After our family home was bombed on the morning of December 7, we had to stay in bed for a month, battling fevers that lasted for weeks. As the fever persisted and our wounds bled, we had only makeshift first aid supplies.
Much of Gaza is in the same situation.
Clinics, pharmacies and medical complexes are still struggling with the destruction and lack of medical equipment, already insufficient to meet the needs of the hundreds of thousands of people who now need it. Most hospitals have been bombed or deprived of essential equipment and are therefore no longer functioning.
Almost everything that happens in Gaza takes place at Israel’s discretion. Those displaced south are forced to stay put, prevented by roadblocks and tanks from reaching their homes or residences in northern and central Gaza. Reports of people being shot while trying to return home are now commonplace.
The further we advance in the war, the more each day loses its definition, becoming simply another marker in an endless bombardment.
There is nothing and no one in Gaza that has the capacity to recover from these horrors. We must heal. What we experienced was extraordinary. However, in the eyes of much of the world, it has become normal.
We need a permanent ceasefire. We need calm and time to grieve. We need to know that our lives have value.
Until people have the freedom to live in peace and security, promises of temporary solutions will do nothing to meet Gaza’s needs. We are a population bruised by more than 100 days of war. All we want is what everyone wants: peace and security.