By Abrar Jnena / Mondoweiss
Since the beginning of the attack, I’ve lost any sense of comfort. I have been scared ever since the first bombing, and every day I’m more anxious and lonely. I feel abandoned and left out by the world.
I’m the only female in a family of nine, including six brothers. My father, who is the dearest person to me, I was his pampered girl, was killed on November 7 after an Israeli airstrike leveled our house in the Al Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City. My brother, Ahmed, was also wounded, and he’s critically injured and is still in the hospital.
My brother was taken to Al-Shifa’ Hospital after he was pulled out of the rubble. He is now at the European hospital in Khan Younis, and he’s been waiting to get referred to Egypt for treatment since then, but he has not been able to. He needs surgery on his spine and left arm.
My father had stayed in our home in Al Shejaiya as my mother, three brothers, and I left for shelter in a nearby school. My two other brothers have been living and working in Kuwait and Turkey to help the family. Those of us in Gaza had debated whether to leave our home. There is no place that is safe. My friend and next-door neighbor Aya, 13, had been killed two days before with her mother after they evacuated to the Al Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle area of the Gaza Strip. Israel said it would be safer if we moved there, but death followed them. That was also my father’s argument, that he shouldn’t leave the house and that no place is safe. When we asked him to evacuate, he told us to look at what happened to Aya’s family.
On the morning of November 8, my brother Anas, who is in Kuwait, called us and passed us the news. My mother threw the phone away right after she heard. She was in shock. She immediately collapsed and cried.
I initially couldn’t respond to the news. I couldn’t cry for four hours after the news. But then I burst out crying heavily. I couldn’t talk to anyone. I felt like I’d lost a part of my soul. I was so scared, and I thought I’d die soon too. My father was the person closest to me. He used to take me out for walks and shopping trips. He was so protective of me. My brothers often spurred and argued in the house, but I was always their red flag because of my father. My dad always encouraged me to read and write.
My injured brother Ahmad rarely gets angry. He and I enjoy a beautiful friendship. He is calm most of the time. He used to pay for my tutoring sessions. It’s unfair he’s going through such immense pain. He has nothing to do with politics, and neither did my father. Why would they face such a fate?
Why do we have to flee our homes? And why did we lose our house? I am wondering where my family and I will live after the attack. Gaza City is now almost empty. Most houses were entirely wiped out. As a result, the prices of rent in the south, where many houses are still standing, skyrocketed, which makes it hard to rent. That’s why many have to live in tents in the south, in Rafah specifically, where Israel claims it’s safer even though it randomly bombed/still bombs the area sometimes.
The school we were sheltering in was bombed while we were there on November 10. We had to flee, leaving everything we had behind while the bombs fell. We saw rockets shattering people in the school, but we couldn’t clearly see the source due to smoke and rubble falling. We knew very well who was dropping the bombs. We were in shock. Leaving behind my injured brother and the one who accompanied him, Ismael, we had to flee on foot. It was three in the morning when we had no choice but to escape. Everyone was repeating Israel’s order to evacuate. It was crowded. Everyone was confused and scared. We saw people falling dead one after another as they were shot by Israeli soldiers. There was no fuel that day, and no ambulances. Some lucky killed people were being taken on carts driven by donkeys to hospitals. Others were left out to decompose.
On foot, with trembling bodies and terrified hearts, we finally managed to reach the middle area of Gaza. When the smoke cleared and the day had dawned, we saw the Israeli soldiers. We saw them clearly, and they saw us too. They had tanks and weapons, and we felt powerless against them as some of us had escaped without even our shoes. We had no weapons at all—nothing but our clothes. We walked for almost twelve hours while being occasionally ordered by Israeli soldiers to stop and not make any sudden moves. Finally, we reached the Al Bureij camp in the middle area. There, we managed to get a car and go to Khan Younis, to my brother’s friend’s house, where we sought out shelter. We stayed there until Israel told the residents of Khan Younis to evacuate.
At that point, we fled again to Rafah, where we had to shelter in some acquaintance’s house. I had never been to the south of Gaza, and I didn’t know anyone there. The situation is the same everywhere in Gaza, and I feel I’m still under threat of being killed. I am still anxious and alert. What will happen next?
After we arrived in Khan Younis, we entirely lost contact with my brothers in Al-Shifa’ hospital. My mother lost the ability to sleep and struggled with insomnia. She was extremely anxious about my brothers because Israeli Occupation soldiers had just invaded Al-Shifa’ hospital. After a week, my brother managed to send a message saying they were okay, then we lost contact again for almost a month.
Finally, we got a call from an ambulance driver informing us our brother was moved to another hospital in the south, the European Hospital. He barely could move, yet he was transferred three times, twice to schools that had been turned into temporary hospitals for injured people, and once to European Hospital from Al-Shifa’ Hospital after Israel ordered the medical staff and the injured to evacuate.
Right after we received the call, we headed directly to the hospital and finally saw our brothers. My mother cried heavy tears of comfort that Ahmad and Ismael were still alive. We contacted our two brothers abroad, Malik in Turkey and Anas in Kuwait, and reassured them. Now, we can visit Ahmad and Ismael whenever we want.
Our struggle now is that we are shattered as a family. My brothers Ismael and Ahmad are in hospital, and later on, my brother, Baraa, joined them to accompany and help them. My other two brothers are abroad. My father was killed. But this isn’t our greatest struggle, which is my brother Ahmad’s long wait to be granted a permit to go to Egypt for surgery and proper treatment. Imagine, he has been waiting for the permit ever since he was injured on November 7. We don’t know how my brother Ahmad will be able to continue with such an injury and what future he might confront, but we hope he will be healthy again.
During the attack, I lost my father, my uncle’s entire family of eight people, and many others who have been injured. All our neighbors lost family members due to Israeli bombardments of our neighborhood. Our neighborhood was wiped out, and I can barely imagine the grief we will feel when the attack ends, and we’re able to grieve the losses, that is, if we’re lucky enough to survive ourselves.
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