Before the war, my life was simple. Like many young women in Gaza, I took a mixture of ambition and anxiety in me. My dream was to obtain my diploma from the Islamic University with honors and to become a writer. My fear was that the constant attacks and the instability in Gaza would somehow hinder my pursuit of education and a career as a writer.
However, I never imagined that everything I knew – my house, my university, my friends, my daily routine and my health – could disappear, leaving me to continue.
When the war started, we thought that it was only another short fighting duration – one of the many climbes we used to Gaza. But something at that time was different. The explosions were closer, stronger and lasting longer. We quickly realized that this nightmare was not going to end; It would only worsen.
On December 27, 2023, we received our first “evacuation order”. There was no time to think. We had just started to collect some personal effects when the sound of bombings became stronger. The upper floors of the building in which we lived were targeted.
We fled the building in a hurry, carrying only a small bag. My father pushed my grandmother in his wheelchair, while I was holding my younger brother’s hand and I was running in the street, not knowing where we were going.
The neighborhood looked like a scene from the horrors of the day of judgment: people were running, cried, cried and wore what remained in their lives.
The night fell and we found a temporary shelter in a parent’s house. Sixteen of us slept in a room, without intimacy or comfort.
In the morning, we made the decision difficult to take refuge in one of the travel camps declared “humanitarian zone”. We have almost nothing. The weather was extremely cold, the water was rare and we only had a few covers. We have washed, cleaned and cooked using primitive methods. We have turned on fires and prepared food as if we had returned to the Stone Age.
In the middle of all this, we received the news: our house had been bombed.
I refused to believe what I had heard. I sat down and cried, unable to understand the tragedy. My father’s goldsmith’s workshop was on the ground floor of the building, so when it was destroyed, we have not only lost walls and a roof-we lost everything.
The days passed slowly and heavily, wrapped in desire and misery. I lost contact with most of my friends and I no longer heard the voices that filled my heat days. I checked my nearest friend, Rama, whenever I had a brief chance of connecting to the Internet. She lived in the north of Gaza.
On January 15, 2024, my friend Rawan sent me a message. He did not immediately reach me. It took days because of the communication failure.
The words were simple, they broke me from the inside: “Rama was martyred.”
Rama Waleed Sham’ah, my nearest friend at university. I couldn’t believe it. I read the message again and again, looking for a different end, a denial. But the truth was silent, hard and ruthless.
I couldn’t say goodbye. I did not hear his last words, I did not hold her hand, nor said he “that I love you” one last time. I felt like I was breathing without a soul.
While I was still dealing with this sorrow, I received even more devastating news: on February 16, 2024, the whole extended family of my father – all his cousins, their wives and their children – were killed. I saw my father break in a way that I had never seen before. His sorrow was so deep that the words could not describe it.
Then death struck at our door.
On June 8, 2024, we had just moved from our tent in a rented apartment, trying to start our lives again, when the Israeli army surrounded the region. I was the first to see the tank rising slowly in the street. I panicked and ran to my father, shouting. But I did not reach it. At that time, a missile struck the building in which we were. Everything I saw was thick smoke and dust filling the air.
I didn’t know if I was alive or not. I tried to say the Shahada, and by the grace of God, I managed to do it. Then I started to scream, calling my father. I heard his voice slightly at a distance, telling myself not to go out because the drone was still bombing.
I took a few steps, then I lost consciousness. All I remember is that they transported me to the building and covered me with a blanket. I was bleeding. I regained consciousness for a few seconds, then lost it again.
The ambulance could not reach our street because the tank was at the entrance. My mother, my sister and I bled for two hours until young men in the region managed to find a way to get out. They transported me to an ambulance cover. Paramedical paramedics started my injuries just in the middle of the street in front of everyone.
All along, I heard their whispers, saying that I was between life and death. I heard them, but I couldn’t speak.
When I arrived at the hospital, they told me that I was injured in the head, hands, legs and back. The pain was unbearable and the absence of my mother added to my fear. I was rushed to an emergency surgery.
I survived.
After leaving the hospital, I had to return to dress the changes. Each visit was a painful experience. I would suffocate every time I saw blood. My father, who accompanied me each time, would try to relieve these visits, saying to me: “You will be rewarded, my dear, and we will pass it all.”
I fell into a deep depression, suffering from physical and emotional pain. I felt like I was drowning in an endless spiral of sadness, for fear and exhaustion. I no longer knew how to breathe, how to continue, or even why.
We did not have a roof to shelter. Finding food was a fight. The painful memories of dear beings who had exceeded haunted me. The fear that my family and I could lose my life at any time makes me feel completely helpless. I felt that everything shouted that I could not continue.
However, in the darkness of despair, I continued to live, day after day. I was in pain, but I lived.
I went back to reading – whatever the books I could find. Then, when my university announced that it would resume conferences online, I signed up.
My hand was still broken, wrapped in a plaster, and I could barely use it. My mother helped me, sometimes holding the pen and writing what I dictated. My teachers understood my situation and supported me as much as they could, but the challenges were numerous. I had trouble accessing electricity and the internet to load my phone and download conferences. Sometimes I lost exams due to power or bad network, and I had to postpone them.
However, I continued. My physical condition has gradually started to improve.
Today we are still living in a tent. We find it difficult to guarantee the most basic needs, such as clean water and food. We know famine, like everyone in Gaza.
When I look at the war scars engraved in my body and my memory, I realize that I am no longer the same person. I found in me a force which I did not know existing.
I found a path through the rubble, a sense in pain and a reason to write, testify and resist despite the loss. I made the decision to stay alive, to love, to dream, to speak.
Because, quite simply, I deserve to live, like all human beings on earth.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Tel Aviv Tribune.