Help Rebuild Our Home and Restore Hope

My name is Mahmoud Sahweil, a trainee lawyer from Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. It has been over a year and five months since the war destroyed everything. I returned to my car and home, which once served as a sanctuary for us, only to find them reduced to rubble. I did not return to a place to live, but to a grave of our memories, our hopes, and our shattered dreams with every stone destroyed. I had left my home with my family, searching for safety, but today I returned to discover that we have lost everything.

My wife, our three children—one of whom suffers from Down syndrome and needs constant care—and I are now living in a cramped tent under the open sky, exposed to freezing cold and heavy rain. We have nothing to protect our children from the harshness of life, and with each passing moment, our suffering grows. My child, who has Down syndrome, does not understand what is happening around him, but every day I see the fear in his eyes of this cruel world. He does not know what safety is, he does not know what stability is; all he knows is pain.

I feel helpless as I watch my wife try to hold our spirits together in this weakness, knowing that we have nothing to offer our children but words that hide the harsh reality. I cannot promise them a better life. I cannot tell them that we will return to our home, because that home no longer exists. There is no place left to protect us, and nothing to live for except the memories that have become a wound that will never heal.

I am not asking for much—only hope. I just want to be able to provide for my child with Down syndrome. I want to give him a safe place to live. I want to tell him one day, “This is your home, this is the place that will embrace you.” But with our current reality, this dream seems so far away.

Today, we live homeless, hopeless, with nothing but fear and sorrow filling our hearts. We live in the hope of a miracle that will restore our lives. All I wish for is to rebuild the home that was destroyed, to bring back even a piece of the safety we lost.

Any donation, no matter how small, will mean so much to us. It will bring a new hope, a chance for my children to live in a safe place, away from the rubble of war, away from the painful memories that haunt us every moment.