Deir el-Balah, Gaza – It was not a nightmare, it was real. The war had returned, like that, without warning.
The clock read 2:10 am when we woke up in terror to the deafening sound of air strikes. A violent noise shook all around us.
My daughter, Banias, woke up shouting in fear: “Baba!
She was right next to me, crying with terror, but I couldn’t even reassure her. My mind was in full chaos.
Is this bombardment again? What’s going on? Who attacks us?
In a moment of denial, I thought: are these Yemeni missiles on Israel? Does this strike strike us?
The undoubted sounds of the genocide
Oh my God. The explosions intensified and the sound was undoubtedly, the one we knew too well – the Israeli air strikes on Gaza.
My husband held Banias, trying to calm her down.
I ran to my phone, scrolling the groups of local journalists. Everyone asked: “What’s going on?”
The minutes passed before the news started to roll: a targeted house in Deir El-Balah, a strike in a house in Nuseirat.
Several tents for displaced families have been bombed in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, and there were artillery bombings in Rafah.
An entire residential building was hit in Jabalia, north of Gaza, and there have been strikes in the Al-Karama district. A “belt of fire” was unleashed on the center of Gaza.
Then came the desperate pleadings: “A family is trapped under the rubble.”
“A residential block has been leveled.”
“We need ambulances.”
People have shouted for help, calling for civil defense teams.
And yet, the bombing continued – violent, relentless.
Images of fear and death
Photos and videos have been flooded – broken body, martyrs, the wounded filling each functional medical center of the band. Scenes that we had barely started to forget, returned.
A few moments later, Israel officially announced that he was repealing the ceasefire and resumed his war against Gaza.
It was like a blow to the head.
“What does that mean?” My sister, who had come to spend a few days with me, shouted. “No, God, no!
We all looked at the news, eyes widened with shock. “Oh my God, enough … enough.”
Always enriching my phone, I scrolled more – images of infants killed in air strikes, burning tents, whole residential blocks reduced to rubble.
Oh my God, the same images, the same suffering, the same nightmare.
The war picked up exactly where it had stopped – without embellishment, unpretentious, without disguise. Just Killing, bombing, extermination and an endless blood.
My family around me asked: “And the north?”
We were trapped.
In Gaza, you cannot plan a tomorrow
Last night, I invited my father and my twin sisters, both in the twenties, for an Iftar from Ramadan for us in Al-Zawayda, near Deir El-Balah in the center of Gaza. It was a simple family gathering, and I convinced them to spend the night, providing that we all head north the next morning.
We had planned some Ramadan visits and a few races to buy clothes for children before the arrival of Eid and the summer. As always, each visit to the North was also an opportunity to explore new stories.
Now, all these “plans” did not make sense. At a time, life had overturned. The war was back.
Planning has become a crime there. Planning your day, it doesn’t matter how common, even something as simple as shopping or spending time with your family is an unforgivable luxury.
Here, you are guilty of expecting a normality, you are condemned to live in a constant alert state – every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every year.
My sister, who works in the media for a humanitarian organization, suddenly realized: “Oh my God!
Guilt consumed me. It was I who convinced them to stay, it was my fault.
What if they closed the roads? What will the next war phase look like? Will war begin in the north? Or will they invade the central area?
There is only Deir El-Balah now. Oh my God, what kind of trap is it?
My mind has dropped, leafing through thoughts – should we once again wear our protective press vests? Return to working in hospitals?
But we had already dismantled our tent workspace there. The journalists had withdrawn, dispersed between the North and the South, trying to start again.
Wait, what about the Banias school? I had just recorded it in a school last week, it was surely finished now. We were back in war.
My heart hurt me. When the ceasefire started, we felt a certain relief, but never security. Fear, hesitation and confusion cling to us.
We did not know where to start, we did not dare to plan and each time we do it, the missiles reminded us of our error.
The closet
Two days ago, my husband and I went shopping and for the first time, I dared to buy a single carpet, a table and chairs, plates and spoons, and some kitchen essentials.
Since he moved here, everything we had was four mattresses, four covers, four plates, four spoons and a small pot for cooking.
Throughout the war, we refused to get something else. Our clothes were stacked on a sheet spread out on the floor in a designated room, divided into sections for each of us, we called it jokingly “the locker room”.
It was always a mess, organizing the clothes on the floor was a daily battle and each time we enter the room, my husband and I said: “We need a cupboard.”
A closet was a great luxury, it took us a ceasefire to even think of buying one, although we hesitate to stay in the south or move north. We have always chosen to travel light, ready to flee at any time.
But yesterday morning, I finally excited our winter clothes and told my husband: “Let’s buy a closet.”
Now I had my answer. This renewed bombardment meant that the closet was no longer an option, chaos was waiting for … The chaos of my thoughts, my broken plans, the chaos of a life that I could no longer control, no matter how much I tried.
And despite all the destruction and the ruin around us, as if it was not already enough, we know that we can no longer dream, plan no longer, not wishing anything, expecting nothing.
All we want is to survive.