Ahmad... the Son of the Tent and the Ashes"

In a narrow alley in Beit Hanoun, I am Ahmad Tahseen Shabat, running barefoot, holding a worn-out ball in my hands, and laughing. I was ten years old then, too young to understand what bombing meant, too innocent to know that the sky could get angry and rain fire instead of water.

Years passed, and I grew up — and so did the tragedies.

One night, a missile struck my aunt’s house. I wasn’t inside, but in that moment, I lost twenty loved ones, and my mother was critically injured. The smell of death was stronger than anything, and the silence that followed was longer than any prayer.

Then came the hunger.

Under siege, there were no bakeries, no flour. My mother would boil water with stones to fool our empty stomachs. I couldn’t find even a stale piece of bread to break in half. I learned to store hunger the same way I stored grief.

Then came the displacement.

I left the home my father had built stone by stone, carrying nothing but my ID. I walked with hundreds through rubble and tears, until we reached a tent near a UN school. The tent was not a home — it was as afraid as we were. It shivered in the winter cold and choked in the summer heat.

And fear became a daily visitor. It doesn’t knock — it enters without permission. At night…

"I am not just a refugee — I am a witness. I lived through hunger, I heard the bombings, I buried the loved ones, I lived in a tent — and yet… I am still here."

At twenty-five years old, I have no home, no job, no safety. But I have a story made of fire, a memory that won’t fade, and a dignity that will not bow.

Please help me get a little food