I am the mother and wife "Shaima" from Gaza and this is my family story .

07/10/2023

That date was the beginning of changing our lives and destroying our dreams.

In the beginning, we are a family of 5 members, a father, a mother, three children aged 6 and 3 years, and an infant no more than two months old. We live with my husband’s family in a large family house consisting of 15 members. My husband was a worker in Israel. We lived in Nuseirat camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. A beautiful, happy, peaceful life, full of love, hope and optimism for life.

At the beginning of the war, I was alone with my two children, and I was pregnant with the third child. The days were difficult for us. Bombing and destruction were everywhere around us, and every day the fear increased, especially since my husband was far away from us and we knew nothing about him.

Days after the beginning of the war, a large number of Israeli workers were arrested, including my husband. I did not know any news about him. For a whole month, I contacted the Red Cross and human rights institutions, but to no avail. No one know anything about the workers. The days and nights were heavy on us. My children cried daily for fear of war. And the bombing and missing their father, and I think about myself, my husband, my children, who will have a difficult life and terrifying sounds from everywhere, whether from warplanes or artillery shelling, and the sounds of reconnaissance planes that never leave us, and Quadcopter planes that frighten old and young, hovering everywhere and killing whoever comes in front of them.

I prayed and cried every day that the war would end, that my husband would return safely, and that our child would be born with him by my side.

Praise be to God, one of the prayers was answered. On November 11, the Israel released a number of labor detainees in very difficult conditions. My husband called me from someone in Rafah and reassured us. His voice was different, with signs of extreme fatigue. He asked if we were alive and cried, and I reassured him that we were all fine. He hung up the phone and then He came back and called asking if we were all okay, his family and children. I reassured him again that we were fine and were waiting for him with the utmost enthusiasm.

They threw him in a place near the crossing, stripping him of all his possessions, including a mobile phone, an ID card, and money, and they shot him quickly. They walked a long distance until they reached a place where people lived in Rafah. They helped them by giving them food and money to reach their homes. Many of them had no home or family, as the war had not... Nothing left.

Our meeting was difficult, we were happy with his arrival and sad about his condition, as his features had changed due to the frequent torture. They inflicted on them the most severe types of torture, including beatings with weapons and threatening to kill his entire family, stripping him naked in the extreme cold for a whole day, and being severely beaten by three soldiers in his head, stomach, and feet. He was shackled the entire time without... Food, just a bowl of jam for 20 detainees who were sleeping in an open place without a cover in the extreme cold. He was talking to us and we were all crying about our situation and where we had reached.

But that's okay, thank God that God returned him to us safely.

The days of war were difficult for us, as anxiety increased within me, especially since I finished my ninth month and entered my tenth without any signs of childbirth. My thoughts were: How would I deliver my child in light of the bombing, the hospitals being full, and the difficulty of calling an ambulance?

Praise be to God, on November 29, my birth was on the last day of the truce, during which a prisoner exchange took place, and I gave birth to my third child, with my husband and children next to me, but our joy was incomplete, so the day after the truce was difficult. The brutal bombing returned, more than it was before. Under these harsh conditions, there was bombing, killing, and destruction everywhere. And malnutrition. There was no good food available, most of it was canned food, if available, or necessities that were not useful to me and my child, in addition to the lack of the basics of life and my baby’s needs of clothes, milk, and Pampers. He relied on being breastfed by me, and sometimes we find Pampers, and when they are not available, I am forced to use strips, which led to infections in my child’s excretory area and difficult to treat .

On December 15th

Leaflets were thrown at us to evacuate and leave our home to Rafah, it was difficult for our hearts. Where would we and our children go? We have no place. How would we leave our home and our memories?

We were forced to leave due to the intensification of the violent military and artillery shelling and fear for our children. We were displaced to Rafah in difficult circumstances and a difficult road that extended for more than three hours, with our children screaming.

And here we have been displaced to Rafah, where we will stay for nearly a month until today, January 22nd. We and our children live in difficult conditions in the displacement camps without the basic necessities of life.

All we wish for is to travel and for our children to live a normal life like the children of the world, and to study and continue their lives without killing and destruction.

And the horror and crying of our children every day because they do not have the most basic rights to eat and drink, and they forget everything they lived through in this cruel war.

Our life before Israel attack us and destroyed everything happy in our world ⬇️

Help us to rebuilding our lives and home .