I am not just a survivor, but a witness. A witness to destruction, resilience, and countless stories of suffering and survival. So many stories will never be told, so many names will never be remembered.
The Occupier asked us to surrender, but I don’t know what surrender means anymore. The war took away my ability to choose, instead I endured. Every tear marks the beginning of another story, every pain marks the birth of hope. I was pregnant when the war began, and for months all I knew were hunger, thirst, heat, and cold. As my due date approached, my heart raced, for I did not count myself among the mighty. I was more fragile than you could imagine. I mourned without ceasing, yet my heart burned with the desire to live. Sometimes, I let my tears fall freely; other times, I wiped them away before they betrayed me. Each tear was a surrender to circumstance, but with every sob, I grew stronger.
My baby came prematurely. The air was thick with smoke, and the sky was filled with war. This was not the beautiful day I had been waiting for. Three weeks earlier, I had registered to leave Gaza, and I started counting down the days one by one: ten, nine, eight . . . . But instead of inhaling the scent of freedom the evening before my evacuation day, I started feeling the pains of labor.
In the middle of the night, a wave of agony swept over me. Outside, plumes of smoke obscured the stars while screams betrayed the terror of my fellow Palestinians. Our refugee camp was no longer safe. I clung to my trembling belly, swallowing my cries amid the chaos. But then I realized my pain was nothing compared to the suffering of the orphaned children. Their tiny bodies torn by shrapnel, burned by flames, left to face torment without a mother or a father to wake them from this terrible dream. How could the pain of childbirth compare to that? I was overwhelmed with shame.
I huddled against the wall of my tent—its flimsy fabric shielding me from death. The black night was punctuated by flashes of fiery explosions. Every now and then, I would lift my eyes to the sky, searching for a glimmer of twilight—the indication that it would be safe to leave for the hospital. My contractions felt more powerful than the roar of cannons. But walking in the dark was more dangerous than giving birth in the camp, which lacked even clean water and electric lights. When dawn came, I finally stepped outside and was met with a sight more shocking than I could have dreamed.
Every home had been turned into a pile of rubble—refrigerators, washing machines, and even a kitchen sink stuck out from beneath the debris. Sofas had turned to dust, while burnt clothes smothered smoldering mattresses. Amid the wreckage, remnants of a life once lived lay scattered: family photos and precious memories, covered with blood stains and broken bones. Whole families had died while I was hiding in my tent.
The air was saturated with sorrow. A mother wept for her three children. A wife cried for her husband and baby. People searched for the remains of loved ones. Their homes had become a burial ground with bodies shrouded in coffins made of nightmares and dust. But their pain was not theirs alone; it was shared by all of us.
Through this hell I walked to a hospital overflowing with the wounded and the dead. The patients carried on without medicine or bandages. The walls trembled with each new airstrike. The floors were soaked with blood. There were no empty beds—only bodies barely breathing, or breathing not at all. I was just a number watching doctors rush from one emergency to another, trying to save those who were not yet dead. I sat in a cold corner, waiting for my turn to die, whispering verses from the Quran: “For indeed, with hardship comes ease.”
The hospital had become a battlefield filled with screams of pain and states of shock; bodies limped for want of limbs, limbs lay still without their bodies.
Many hours later, I gave birth.
My daughter illuminated the world for me—a ray of hope and a light of victory. I named her Talia, a name that carries beauty and salvation. Talia means “dew” in Hebrew, the gentle drops that herald the beginning of a new morning, just as she did. In her, I saw resilience and struggle, a flame in the midst of darkness.
I was never strong. I never claimed to be. I always saw myself as an ordinary woman, trembling in the face of pain, fearing challenges, and avoiding adventure. But life hasn’t granted me the luxury of making choices. It forced me to stand, to endure, to keep moving forward despite the hardships. After the January 2025 ceasefire, I was forced to walk under the scorching sun, the whole length of a day and then some. My steps faltered on the sandy road, carrying my daughter in my arms and my belongings on my back as though I were carrying the world itself. My tired feet were no longer mine; my back screamed in pain, but I walked. I walked because I had no other choice. I had no luxury of surrender, and no time for weakness. Fear made my choices for me. Every step was like combat. It wasn’t just the distance that exhausted me, but the weight of responsibility, the tiny lives that I held in my hands. And when I arrived near my pre-war home, I didn’t know if I had won or if I had just survived for another day. I thought I had reached safety, but soon realized that survival in this place is only temporary. It is a home that has never known peace, only truces to exchange prisoners and collect the dead.
The genocide is not over yet, and now, I realize I am no longer who I once was. That woman who thought she was weak, was never weak. And she would never be weak! The road, the shattered walls, the cold nights, the exhaustion shaped and honed me, until I became a woman who knows nothing but traversing the path of life, no matter the cost.
Today is supposed to be Eid al-Fitr, one of the two major celebrations for Muslims throughout the year. However, in Gaza, it is not a celebration, but another chapter of loss and pain.
Before the war, the atmosphere of Eid in Gaza felt like a piece of heaven. The streets were alive with the laughter of children, amusement parks were full of life in every neighborhood, and the scent of delicious sweets and food filled the air. Children wore their finest clothes and, scented with the most beautiful perfumes, their hearts danced like birds, filled with joy.
But today, the children of Gaza have had the joy ripped from their hearts. They wake up to the sounds of bombing and gunfire, they don’t sing the Eid songs or wear their festive clothes. Instead, their mothers dress them in shrouds as they head to play with their toys, some with sweets in their hands. The beautiful Eid songs are replaced with suffering and sorrow.
This is Gaza . . . our blood is like water, our souls like mirages, and our lives mean nothing to the world. Our wounds are no longer new, but have become a familiar reality.
This essay was first published on the website Dissident Voice, and will be included in a forthcoming book by Eros Salvatore on Palestinians.