'I will never forget the day it all changed': This is what life is like as an aid worker in Gaza

I’ve been a humanitarian worker in the Gaza strip for 25 years now. I have three daughters and two sons, and I have dedicated my whole life to providing them with a good education and a safe home. All that has been torn away from us over the past year.

My life before the latest conflict escalated was really beautiful. I work in protection and safeguarding for CARE International, supporting women and girls for whom life has always been difficult in Gaza. It is tough but rewarding.

Doing my work now, after a year of this catastrophic conflict, is hard. People are so exhausted and feel like the world has forgotten about them. No one can bear the injustice that is happening to us, especially women and girls, as the burdens on us have increased.

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Women have begun to take on additional responsibilities, standing for long hours in line for water and bread and searching for food. Every day I meet women and girls desperate for aid and we simply can’t help everyone who needs it. But we carry on – doing as much as we can to alleviate the suffering of as many people as possible.

There used to be many stunning places I could easily go to with my family when I felt like I needed a break. I used to love going to the seafront. It was so calming. But unfortunately, all those beautiful places are now destroyed, like Bianco Resort and Garden Beach and the Lighthouse. My home was also burnt and utterly destroyed, all our belongings along with it.  

Gaza is everything to me. I love it so much and my heart belongs here. I have traveled to many places around the world but I never felt as comfortable, happy and reassured as I did when I was at home in Gaza City.

Despite all that has happened it still holds our beautiful memories. After all, I was born, raised and lived my entire life there. Most of my loved ones and friends lived in Gaza City and our close-knit family never missed a chance to celebrate any occasion no matter how big or small by gathering together, dancing to our favorite music and enjoying one another’s company.  

I will never forget the day it all changed.

Last October, when renewed violence broke out, we spent seven long days under heavy bombardment and unimaginable destruction from every direction. We thought our neighbourhood was safe, but we watched houses and buildings being flattened all around us. We stayed on the ground floor of our home, moving from one room to another looking for safety, shrouded with smoke and the smell of gunpowder. Then we got a call from one of our neighbours saying that we should immediately leave the area as more airstrikes were coming.

I ran to the window to see what was happening and saw all our neighbors running for their lives – the screams of men, women and children filled the air. Those desperate cries for help still haunt me. People were calling on us to leave the house, so we fled with only the clothes on our backs and our identification papers.  

We’ve since been displaced multiple times, staying in relatives’ homes in Rafah and now Deir Al-Balah.

Here, where my family is now staying, the house we are living in has no windows or doors, running water or even bathrooms. It’s not fit for anyone to live in; there are mice and insects everywhere, but we have no choice. Deir Al-Balah is overcrowded with tents and displaced people; there are now 1.5 million people living here and there are no places left to rent. So we make the best of it, living in this house with 30 other people, some of them relatives and others strangers.

A huge issue for us, especially for women, is the lack of privacy. Because we’re sharing the space with strangers we have to keep our headscarves on almost all the time. We’re not able to rest or get proper sleep because the children and babies are often crying, the airstrikes are still relentless and understandably, families are struggling to cope with living in such close proximity to one another. We feel like we’re in a constant state of emergency.

And then there’s the fear about what winter will bring. It gets very cold here – and with so many people living in tents, with no heating and not enough blankets or warm clothes, the next few months could be even more deadly. People simply won’t survive the freezing temperatures.

Despite all of this, I wake up every morning at 6am to get myself ready for work. The CARE office is about 10 minutes away, but due to the overcrowding and being forced to take many detours, the journey usually takes me 45 minutes. Going to work provides some sense of normality, and it helps me to know that I’m doing something proactive and positive. Though leaving my children every morning never gets easier. I experience fear and insecurity every day, because more than a year on we Gazans do not know what safety is any more.

We Palestinians feel like we are crushed, emotionally, physically and mentally, and we have lost hope that things will change. And yet, I don’t stop wishing and praying that this conflict will end so we can start rebuilding Gaza. We need to rebuild its infrastructure, medical services, schools, economy, environment, and socio-political fabric, in order to help our beloved homeland rise again from the ashes and recover from all this death and destruction.  

My message to the world is this: stop this conflict immediately so we can live in peace, safety and freedom. I call on all humanitarian organisations to support the people of Gaza to rebuild their lives, lives that are fit for humanity.

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