I thought of writing a will.
I did not expect to feel death so close to me. I used to say that death suddenly comes, we do not feel it, but during this war, they made us feel everything … Slowly.
We suffer before it happens, as expected that your house is bombed.
It can still be held since the start of the war, but this feeling of fear remains in you. This fear carried my heart, until I have the impression that he cannot manage anything more.
Since the start of the war, I have been fighting with the Israeli army so close to us. I remember the moment when the tanks entered the Netzarim region, and I sent a message to all my friends, shocked: “How did they go into Gaza?
I expected that they withdraw from Gaza, so that it is again free, as we had always known. Now they are so close to where I am, in Al-Fukhari, east of Khan Younis and north of Rafah. This is the point where Khan Younis ends and Rafah begins.
They are so close, forcing us to hear terrifying explosions at all times, making us endure these endless sounds.
This war is different, so different from what I have experienced before.
Remember my story
I don’t want to be a number.
It has been stuck in my head since I saw martyrs who are called “unknown people” or placed in mass pits. Some of them are even parts of the body that could not be identified.
Is it possible that everything he would say about my shroud would be “a young woman in a black / blue blouse”?
Can I die as “unknown person”, just a number?
I want everyone around me to remember my story. I’m not a number.
I am the girl who studied for the school and the university in exceptional circumstances where Gaza was under a very tight seat. I finished the university and looked for work everywhere to help my father, who was exhausted by the headquarters and had lost his job several times.
I am the eldest girl of my family, and I wanted to help my father and so that we have a good house to live.
Wait … I don’t want to forget anything.
I am a refugee. My grandparents were refugees who were forced by the Israeli occupation to leave our land occupied in 1948.
They moved to the Gaza Strip and lived in the refugee camp Khan Younis, west of the city.
I was born in this camp, but the Israeli army did not let me continue my life there.
They demolished our house in 2000 and we were left homeless for two years. We moved from an uninhabitable house to another, until UNRWA gave us another house in 2003 in Al-Fukhari.
This wonderful area, with all agricultural land, where we have tried to build a life in the neighborhood which was named “Housing European”, after the European hospital there.
The house was small, not enough for a family of five, with a father and a mother. He needed additional rooms, a living room and the kitchen needed work.
We lived there for about 12 years anyway, and as soon as I could, I started working around 2015 to help my father.
I helped him make the house comfortable to live. Yes, we realized it, but it was so difficult. We have finished building our house three months before October 7, 2023.
Yes, almost 10 years, I spent rebuilding it piece by piece according to our financial capacity, and we managed to finish it just before the war.
When the war arrived, I was already exhausted, from the siege and the difficulty of life in Gaza. Then the war came to empty me completely, carry my heart and make me lose my concentration.
I wake up while running
Since the start of the war, we have been fighting for something.
Fighting for survival, fighting so as not to die of hunger or thirst, fighting so as not to lose the head of the horrors that we are witnessing and experiment.
We try to survive by all means. We went through the trip – in my life, I lived in four houses, and each house found itself near the bombing by the Israeli army.
We don’t have a safe place. Before the ceasefire, we lived 500 days of terror.
What I did not do during the war, unfortunately, was to cry. I tried to stay strong and keep my sadness and my anger inside, which exhausted my heart and weakened it even more.
I was positive and favorable to everyone around me. Yes, northern people will return. Yes, the army will withdraw from Netzarim. I wanted to give force to everyone, when in me there was a great weakness that I did not want to show.
I felt that if it showed, I would perish in this terrifying war.
The ceasefire was my great hope of survival. I felt like I did. The war was over.
When people wondered: “War will she come back?” I replied with confidence: “No, I don’t think it will be. The war is over. “
The war came back and closer than ever to me. I experienced continuous fear caused by endless bombing. They used all kinds of weapons against us – rockets, shells of planes and tanks. The tanks continued to shoot, surveillance drones continued to fly; Everything was terrifying.
I haven’t really slept for over a week. If I doze, I am awakened by the sound of the explosions and I wake up during execution. I don’t know where I try to go, but I run in the house.
In constant panic, I put my hand on my heart, asking myself if it would resist much more.
This is why I sent a message to all my friends, asking them to talk about my story so that I am not only a number.
We live through unbearable days while the Israeli army destroys the neighborhood around me. There are many families who still live here. They don’t want to leave because the trip is exhausting – physically, financially and mentally.
The first trip I remember was the one in 2000, when I was about eight years old.
The Bulldozers of the Israeli army entered the Khan Younis camp and destroyed the house of my uncle and that of my grandfather. Then, for any reason, they stopped with us.
So we left. It was Ramadan and my parents thought we could come back later. They found a dilapidated shell of a house to shelter us, temporarily, they thought.
I could not endure the idea that we had lost our house, so I returned home where all these beautiful memories were with my grandparents, and I would take some things to bring back to my mother.
The Israeli army demolished our house the day before Eid, and I and my family went there on the first day of Eid al-Fitr. I remember celebrating Eid on the rubble, wearing my new Eid outfit.
The Israeli army does not let us keep anything; This destroys everything, leaving us only sorrow in our hearts.
I do not know what the future has in store for us if the world does not save us from this terrifying army.
I don’t know if my heart will resist these endless sounds. Never forget me.
I fought hard for my life. I worked hard, as a journalist and teacher for 10 years, dedicating myself.
I have students that I like and colleagues with whom I have great memories.
Life in Gaza has never been easy, but we love it, and we cannot like any other house.
