My life was simple before the war. Like many young women in the Gaza, I wore a mixture of ambition and fear in me. My dream was to complete the Islamic university with distinction and become a writer. My fear was that the constant attacks and instability in Gaza would somehow hinder my pursuit of education and a career as a writer.
However, I would never have imagined that everything I knew – my home, my university, my friends, my daily routine and my health – disappear and try to continue.
When the war started, we thought it was only a short round of the fight – one of the many escalations that we got used to in Gaza. But something about this time felt different. The explosions were closer, louder and took longer. We soon found that this nightmare would not end; It would only get worse.
On December 27, 2023 we received our first “evacuation order”. It wasn’t time to think. We had just started to collect a few things when the sound of the bomb attack became louder. The upper floors of the building in which we lived were targeted.
We fled from the building in a hurry and only wore a small bag. My father pushed my grandmother into her wheelchair as I held my younger brother’s hand and ran to the street without knowing where we went.
The neighborhood looked like a scene from the horrors of the day of the court: the people ran, screamed, cried and carried what remained of their lives.
The night fell and we found temporary protection in the house of a relative. Sixteen of us slept in a room without privacy or comfort.
In the morning we hit difficult to take refuge in one of the shift camps, explained a “humanitarian zone”. We had almost nothing. The weather was bitter cold, water was scarce and we only had a few blankets. We washed, cleaned and cooked with primitive methods. We lit fire and prepared the food as if we had left into the Stone Age.
In the middle of all of this we received the news: our house had been bombarded.
I refused to believe what I heard. I sat and called and couldn’t understand the tragedy. My father’s goldsmith workshop was on the ground floor of the building. When it was destroyed, we not only lost walls and a roof – we lost everything.
The days passed slowly and heavily, wrapped in longing and misery. I lost contact with most of my friends and no longer heard the voices that filled my days with warmth. I would check in with my closest friend Rama if I had a short chance of connecting to the Internet. She lived in Nordgaza.
On January 15, 2024, my friend Rawan sent me a message. It didn’t reach me immediately. It took days because of the power failure.
The words were simple, they shattered me from the inside: “Rama was martyrded.”
Rama Waleed Sham’ah, my closest friend at the university. I couldn’t believe it. I read the message over and over again and searched for another end, a rejection. But the truth was quiet, hard and merciless.
I didn’t say goodbye. I haven’t heard her last words, I didn’t hold her hand or told her “I love you” one last time. I felt like I was breathing without soul.
While I was still working on this grief, I received even more devastating news: On February 16, 2024, the entire extended family of my father – all of his cousins, her women and children – were killed. I saw my father break in a way that I had never seen before. His grief was so deep that words could not describe it.
Then death knocked on our door.
On June 8, 2024, we had just moved from our tent to a rented apartment and tried to start our lives when the Israeli army surrounded the area. I was the first to slowly move the tank up the street. I panic and ran towards my father. But I didn’t reach him. At that moment a rocket hit the building in which we were. Everything I saw was thick smoke and dust that filled the air.
I didn’t know if I was alive or not. I tried to say the Shahada and through the grace of God I did it. Then I started screaming and asked my father. I heard his voice weak and said to myself that I shouldn’t go out because the drone was still bombarded.
I took a few steps and then lost consciousness. I just remember that they took me down the building and covered with a blanket. I bleed. I would regain awareness for a few seconds and then lose it again.
The ambulance could not reach our road because the tank was at the entrance. My mother, sister and I bleed for two hours until some young men found a way out of the area to get us out. They carried me into a blanket to the ambulance. The paramedics started my wounds in the middle of the street in front of everyone.
I heard her whisper and said I was between life and death. I heard her, but I couldn’t speak.
When I reached the hospital, they told me that I suffered injuries to the head, hands, legs and back. The pain was unbearable and my mother’s absence added to my fear. I was integrated for emergency operation.
I survived.
After I left the hospital, I had to go back to dress up changes. Every visit was a painful experience. I would suffocate every time I saw the blood. My father, who accompanied me every time, tried to alleviate these visits and to say to me: “You are rewarded, my dear and we’ll get through all of this.”
I fell into deep depression and suffered from both physical and emotional pain. I had the feeling that I was drowning in an endless spiral of grief, fear and exhaustion. I no longer knew how to breathe, go on or why.
We had no roof under which we had under protection. Finding food was a fight. The painful memories of beloved people who had passed persecuted me. The fear that my family and I could lose our life at any moment made me feel absolutely helpless. I had the feeling that everything shouted that I couldn’t go on.
But in the darkness of despair I lived on day by day. I was in pain, but I lived.
I went back to read – no matter what books I could find. Then, when my university announced that she would resume lectures online, I signed up.
My hand was still broken, wrapped in a line -up, and I could hardly use it. My mother helped me, sometimes captured the pen and wrote down what I dictated. My professors understood my situation and supported me as much as possible, but the challenges were many. I tried to access electricity and the Internet to recharge my phone and download lectures. Sometimes I lost exams due to power failures or a bad network and had to move them.
Still, I continued. My physical constitution gradually began to improve.
Today we still live in a tent. We have difficulty meeting the most basic needs such as clean water and food. We experience famine, just like everyone else in the Gaza.
When I look at the scars of war in my body and in my body and in memory, I realize that I am no longer the same person. I found a strength in me that I never knew that it existed.
I found a way through the rubble, which means in pain and a reason for writing, certificate and resistance despite the loss. I made the decision to stay alive, love, dream, to speak.
Because I simply deserve to live, just like everyone on earth.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial attitude of Al Jazera.