A woman in genocide

This piece was published in the New York War Crimes and was translated from Arabic to English.

Being a woman often makes life more challenging, but what if this woman lives in an occupied country, in a place under siege for eighteen years — like Gaza?

Like any working mother, my life revolved around balancing my role taking care of my three children, aged between ten and four, with that as a teacher to hundreds of young students. The difficulty of this task was so overwhelming that I would fall asleep each night without dreams or thoughts, utterly exhausted. The “Israeli” occupation compounded these challenges, affecting many aspects of our lives. For example, the limited hours of electricity each day forced us to organize our lives around the erratic availability of power. Little did I know that this inconvenience would become a distant dream, as the worst was yet to come.

The Genocide Begins

On an ordinary morning, I was packing my son Yamen’s bag for kindergarten when a barrage of rockets suddenly erupted into the Gaza sky. For a moment, I knew it was war, though the reality of what had occurred was still unclear. We glued ourselves to the TV, to images that had once seemed impossible. We wept as we dreamed of liberating all of Palestine and reclaiming the lands we had been denied from for so long. A few hours later, the bombing of my city began, and I realized the true cost of the freedom we had briefly enjoyed. 

The nights of genocide had begun; entire residential blocks burned before our eyes. I held my children tightly, trying to shield them from the terror, but how could I? “This is a new missile, Mama,” said Jumana, my nine-year-old daughter. “It makes a sound like a snake when it falls!”

After five nights of constant red skies from the intense bombing, we watched the residents of the Al-Karamah neighborhood evacuate, knowing that our turn would be next.

On the sixth day, I began packing my essentials in preparation for moving to a safer place. It was the hardest task I had ever faced — how could I fit my entire life into a single bag?

A Woman With Half a Heart

We were experiencing a complete power outage, and I was entirely dependent on news from local radio stations. That evening, I heard reports of a bombing near the area where my sister lives. My heart trembled.

I called, but neither she nor her husband answered. I feared the worst. From six in the evening until ten at night, I anxiously awaited any news. A relative finally called, and I barely remember the details of what happened next. I rushed to Al-Shifa Hospital, hoping to find her there, but all that was recovered were body parts. I didn’t get to say goodbye, didn’t bury her, and didn’t hold a funeral amidst the overwhelming death around us. That night, I was consumed by grief. Since then, I have lived my life with only half a heart.

Displacement Is the Way of Sorrows

On October 13, the sky over Gaza City was filled with leaflets from the occupation army instructing us to leave the city and move to so-called “safe areas” in the southern part of the Strip. We also received evacuation calls on our mobile phones. At the time, I was already displaced in Al-Shati Refugee Camp in Gaza City where my family lived. People stood in the alleys, shocked and confused. Panic spread among us when the international organizations announced that they would start evacuating people to the southern part of the Strip. 

The streets of Gaza City turned into a ghost town filled with waste, the smell of death, and pervasive fear. It was a night of pure terror and complete isolation from the rest of the world, with preparations underway for a Zionist invasion of the camp and continuous bombardment by land, sea, and air. We heard the news only on the radio and were horrified by reports of the Baptist (Al-Ahli) hospital massacre. We cried as we listened to a press conference held among the corpses of children. My children developed fevers from the intensity of their fear, and the danger drew closer. My family refused to leave their home and chose to stay, so I bid them farewell to save my children.

We fled to Rafah, where friends and loved ones welcomed us with open arms, but the bitter taste of leaving Gaza City lingered. The bombing continued there as well, dispelling any notion of “safe areas” from the very first hours, and horrific events continued to emerge from Gaza City. The Al-Shati Camp was indeed invaded, my family was besieged with communication cut off, and I was left without a sister to comfort me or a mother to embrace me. I began to isolate myself from those around me, seeking escape through sleep, but my children needed me, and that was the only motivation pushing me through my sorrow.

The number of displaced people in the house where I took refuge increased, with about thirty families crowded into one building. The siege intensified; bakeries stopped working, and we women had to prepare bread and food in limited rations. Even drinking water had to be rationed. With the power outage, we resorted to hand washing like our grandmothers. To make matters worse, the cooking gas was cut off, so we had to bake and cook using wood. Lighting a fire was a miracle accompanied by many challenges. With no refrigerator, preserving food or excess bread was nearly impossible. I recall having to scrape mold off a loaf of bread and eat it, as there was no alternative. As supplies dwindled, including sugar, yeast, vegetables, and fruits, I was left to find ingredients from nothing. My children longed for the simplest fresh foods, but all we had were canned goods.

In displacement, there was also no privacy. Almost every five families lived in an apartment separated only by curtains. It was challenging, especially for women, to use the bathroom or shower at will. On top of that, there was a shortage of water in the tanks, requiring us to wait for hours in long lines to fill our containers and then transport them and ration the supply for the entire day.

From Teacher to Multi-Tasker

Gradually, I turned from a teacher of hundreds of young students into a mother fully dedicated to the tasks of displacement. My days were filled with preparing bread in the morning, providing water, lighting the fire to cook, washing dishes, laundering clothes, and soothing my children’s fears whenever we heard bombings or distressing news. All the while, I followed the daily news of my city’s destruction receiving no updates about my family. I told my children fantasy stories to help them sleep while watching all of Gaza burn on the TV screen in the home of my displaced neighbors.

When winter arrived, the harsh conditions worsened. I began washing clothes in cold water, which caused my hands to crack. I heated water over the fire so we could shower. We lived in a room with glassless windows that had been shattered in the bombing of a nearby house. I spent winter nights sleeping on a mattress on the cold floor, hugging my little ones just to gain some warmth and a sense of security amidst the horror. I was grateful that we were lucky enough not to be among those displaced in tents or makeshift shelters.

To complicate matters further, infectious diseases began to spread, so I also became a doctor and nurse, avoiding nearby clinics out of fear of infection. As the genocide dragged on, I chose to return to my original profession by teaching my children and other displaced kids what they had missed from their school year.

What Remained of Me

As Gaza lost its landmarks, I, along with many other women, lost my sense of self. The horrors we endured took a visible toll on our bodies, health, and mental well-being. On the night of my sister’s death, my black hair turned gray almost overnight and then began to fall out gradually. My friends in the north had to cut their long hair due to the lack of water and as a last-ditch effort to combat lice. 

Exhausted from malnutrition and the grueling demands of daily life, I rarely had time to look at myself in the cracked mirror in the home where I was displaced. I wore clothes that no longer felt like mine and lived a life I was unaccustomed to. There was no time for the luxury of self-care. I won’t attempt to describe the back pain, the irregularity of my menstrual cycle, my constant insomnia, or the fear of all the possible scenarios of my death and that of my family. I would wait for the evening to cry, and when I thought I was alone in my sorrow, I would hear muffled sobs from a nearby displacement room. I wondered: How does my sadness over the martyrdom of one sister compare to the loss of an entire family? How does the grief of a widow who lost her husband compare to the sorrow of a daughter of martyrs? Is it more painful to lose loved ones whose martyrdom we are certain of, or is it worse to endure the uncertainty of loved ones who disappeared without a trace?

In the morning, I wiped away my tears and returned to the harsh reality of survival.

Nothing Like a Tent

After long months of anticipation, the invasion of Rafah began. Until that moment, I had managed to exist outside of a triangle defined by the occupation: the tent, the prison, and the grave. But there was no escaping it any longer.

We were forced to buy a tent, which was supposed to be free, but we ended up paying the equivalent of $700 for it. The advertisement claimed that it was a Norwegian tent, but after setting it up, I discovered that the Norwegian government had relied on German aid to provide it. And just like that, the German flag hanging over the tent seemed to mock me every time I lit a fire, cried out in frustration, or when life became increasingly difficult.

During the summer, the tent was a miniature hell, the heat of the day unbearable. We only had access to salty water, which ruined everything—our bodies and skin, which peeled from bathing and washing in it, and our dishes and clothes, which were coated in salt. Everything tasted salty, and even clean clothes looked worn out.

Gas was scarce, forcing us to light a fire to cook and heat water. Anyone who has tried lighting a fire on a summer afternoon by the sea will understand that it is a grueling task, but we did it daily for the sake of a meal! Every day, the heat burned our fingertips, we choked on the smell of burning wood, and our eyes watered from the smoke. The dishes were coated in black dust, making them difficult to handle or clean. It became normal for sand to blow into our food, and we would chew and swallow it just as we swallowed our daily oppression. 

At night, the tent became a freezing hell, exposing us to cold air that made children sick, and by the morning, we would find ourselves drenched in sweat from the sun beating down on us.

And then what? Each day repeats itself like the last and the next. What’s next? We hear news of a potential deal, a distant dream, and neither fully believe nor entirely dismiss it. For me, there is no truce more important than my truce with the flies before bed, and no deal more crucial than securing fresh water for the tank in the morning.

Under the dim light of a lamp, I gaze at the faces of my sleeping children and wonder why this world still hesitates to end the genocide. What does the world want from the children of Gaza after witnessing their limbs and living flesh torn apart? After seeing how the sick among them were abandoned in hospitals to die of hunger and fear? After observing the premature babies besieged as if they were the strongest men? After knowing that fetuses were killed in their mothers’ wombs without mercy?

What Next?

For a moment, life in the tent nearly defeated me until one day when I went to the market to buy vegetables. The crowds were overwhelming, and everything around me felt gray and dreary until I spotted her: a woman like me, her face sunburned, suggesting that she, too, was displaced in a tent. She cradled a jasmine seedling as if it were a beloved child, carrying it back to her tent to plant at her door. Hope filled my heart, pushing away the loneliness, and I suddenly resolved to confront the harshness of the tent.

I began kneading fresh, clean bread every morning — despite the flies! I washed clothes and hung them out in the sun, taking pride in their cleanliness. I cooked meals with love, despite the bitterness in my heart. I taught my children basic life skills and answered all their questions. I prepared a cup of instant coffee over firewood and drank it by the beach at the door of my tent, just like all the women in the world. I did not care, for I knew that all of this would pass one day, and that Gaza will remain, we will remain, and I will remain.