Almost half a year, and the war on Gaza rages. I am still in northern Gaza, in the al-Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City. I don’t know how I’ve survived this long and kept even the slightest semblance of sanity, especially after witnessing unforgivable massacres committed by Israel. There is simply no regard for us as human beings.
Every morning, I wake to the grumble of hunger in my stomach. It’s the daily reminder that I am alive and that a new day of struggle has begun. Nothing has been the same since 7 October. Israel reduced much of al-Rimal to rubble in the early months of its war on Gaza, but my family stayed in our home. Daily necessities – electricity, meals, water – are now luxuries. There is not a night where I go to bed and don’t hear the warplanes hovering above. Each day I drag a 500-liter barrel one kilometer to get water and then back home again. The water is unfiltered and contaminated. But we have to drink something……more
