A Family’s Struggle: From Bombed Home to Bare Survival

### The Story of My Family Displaced from Khan Younis to West Al-Mawasi

My name is not important now… I am simply one of thousands of civilians who suddenly found themselves facing death for no reason. What matters is to share my family’s story, in the hope that it will reach your hearts and awaken compassion.

We are the **Amer family**, a simple family from the city of **Khan Younis**. Our modest home once held our laughter, our dreams, and the smell of my mother’s bread every morning. We lived like any ordinary family, dreaming of a better future for our children. We had nothing to do with politics or war; we were only **unarmed civilians** seeking a dignified life.

But war does not distinguish between a soldier and a child, a fighter and a mother, or between a simple home and a military site. Like hundreds of families, our house was bombed, burying our memories under the rubble. We had no choice but to flee to **West Al-Mawasi**, which became a shelter for the displaced escaping the fire.

And here, the real tragedy began…

* **My father, Mohammed Khader Amer (45)**, once the strong provider for us all, now carries a burden far heavier than his shoulders can bear. His face is worn with worry, but he tries to stand strong so we don’t fall apart.

* **My mother, Rawiya Sobhi Amer (40)**, cries in silence, hiding her tears behind the thin curtain of the tent so we won’t see. Yet she always rises, preparing whatever food she can find, warming us with her words while her heart shatters inside.

* **My brother Bilal (23)** once dreamed of starting a small job and building a life. Today, he waits in long aid lines, forced to stretch out his hand for a loaf of bread.

* **My sister Lama (22)** is a young mother of two little girls: **Hala (5)**, who asks why we cannot go back home, and **Ghala (2)**, who only knows how to cry from hunger and fear. Her husband is a prisoner, and she struggles alone to keep her daughters alive.

* **My brother Hamza (19)** was a hardworking student, but he had to leave his books behind and search for random work in displacement, to help my father carry the weight of survival.

* **My sister Hala**, a widow in her youth, is carrying a child who will never meet his father—her husband was killed in the war. Every night she speaks softly to her unborn baby, as if introducing him to a father he will never see.

* **My brothers Ammar (15)** and **Musab (14)** should be sitting in school classrooms today. Instead, war has stolen their childhood, and their young faces already carry the marks of men far too early.

* **My little sister Ahla (8)** is still too young to understand what war really means, but she knows the sound of warplanes by heart. She asks me every day: *“When will we go back home? Will my dolls be there waiting for me?”* Her question breaks me, and I have no answer.

Today, we live between fear and hunger. We have no home, no real shelter, no future in sight. We hide in a fragile tent that barely shields us from the cold, surviving on what little aid we receive. War has stolen everything from us: safety, home, school, dreams, and even the smallest moments of joy.

We have lost everything, and all that remains is the hope of leaving to a **neighboring country**, where we might rebuild a future for our children, away from bombs and terror. But this path requires **enormous amounts of money**—far beyond our means.

We are not asking for the impossible. We are only asking for our **right to live**—for our children’s right to grow up without fear, to go to school instead of aid lines, to sleep in safe beds instead of the cold ground of displacement.

Our story is not unique. It is just one of countless tragedies faced by civilians here. But we believe that humanity still exists, and that there are hearts in this world that will not abandon us in this darkness.