“Dad, why do we sleep with only water-filled stomachs for three nights in a row?”

On November 6, 2024, Ahmed Alastal, 35, was standing still on a sea cliff, with tightly crossed arms and chattering teeth, wearing a few ragged clothes gifted to him by a charity. The wind was bone chilling; however, his daughter’s words left his blood boiling and penetrated deeper than bone. His mind was busy contemplating how to feed his kids for breakfast, but he glanced no hope for salvation.

Ahmed married Lara in 2013. Lena was born two years later, and Ali just a few months before war broke out. Ahmed spent his whole life in North Gaza before evacuating with his wife and kids, following the Israeli orders. Before the war, he had worked since his early twenties as a carpenter. He left behind his house and workshop and tied up hope of returning to them high in the sky.

They fled to the south, living in a tent in Deir Al-Balah. As they were not provided enough time following the Israeli evacuation orders, they left everything behind them in the north of Gaza, hoping they would be able to go back soon. The money Ahmed had saved evaporated within the first two months of displacement to the south, due to the expensive life they faced there. When winter came, they were in thin tents, had no electricity for electric heaters, no gas for gas heaters, no thick blankets, nor winter clothes. The only warmth Ali found was in his sister’s hugs.

When cold and starvation came together

“My sweetie, we will overcome these dark days. The storm shall pass sooner or later. Everyone will get the happy memories revived: a blossoming and thriving life with secure family gatherings and playing joyfully with your friends and warm winter,” said the father, pressing Lena against his chest, patting her affectionately on her head, and sliding his hand over her silky hair.

For many nights, Lara put nothing in her mouth but water and shreds of bread; her children’s well-being was her highest priority. However, in November 2024, starvation in the south was severe. Even the rotten flour that was their only food for a long time was no longer available. Food aid trucks were being highjacked repeatedly and winter was no longer friendly. Kids cried unbearably for something to eat, mothers mourned silently and clung to hope for a different tomorrow, and fathers tried their best to keep their eyes on salvation.

The ground beneath them was hard and the wind was blowing the crisp sheets that served as the walls of their tent. They only had two blankets and a few pieces of winter clothing that had been provided by humanitarian organizations, which had become shabby with the passage of time and the harshness of the weather.

Lara committed herself to comforting her two children, telling them stories before bed to carry them away from the bitter reality outside. Lara once told her children the story of the Little Prince. Ali would always giggle beholding his sister’s smile; Ali could barely understand anything but laughing and love. However, this time, and as the war continued through more than 14 months of continuous bombing, Ali started to lose his innate childhood features, mixing up feelings: fear in place of security and crying instead of laughing, as his imagination depicted scenes of happiness and security that contradicted his family’s reality.

Fighting for a bite of bread

With an insurmountable innocence, Lena looked up to catch her father’s eyes. “But Dad, my friend Heba, who lives in a big white house, told me while playing with us that her father brought her and her little brothers oranges yesterday, and they ate fresh bread. Didn’t you tell me that everyone is sleeping hungry and we are all in the same boat?”

Ahmed was silent; what could he say to his daughter? He thought that moving lips with bitter truths for kids was more like a vice than a virtue. “Who is taking the bread out of our mouths, Dad? Leaving kids to cry out loud before sleep and mothers mourn in silence!” screamed Lena. “I am hungry, my father.”

One morning, Ahmed left the tent in an attempt to find bread as usual. As he was getting nearer the bakery, he glanced at a crowd of people whose hunger made them fight for a bite of bread. When he got closer, one of the bakery’s workers shouted, “The bakery’s supply of flour is not enough for the people’s demand here.” Within ten minutes, the bakery’s doors closed; no bread was being baked.

Ahmed returned empty handed, full of disappointment. It almost killed him that his wife was waiting for him to have something to eat and to satisfy Ali and Lena’s hunger. The market was literally empty of anything to eat but a few kinds of unaffordable fruits and vegetables.

In despair, Ahmed dropped by the sea to vent his devastating sense of a helpless father with hunger eating into his children’s bones. The sight of them gradually turning into skeletons pained him.

When Lena and Ali glanced at him returning with empty hands, they began to cry, and his wife tried to calm her kids with made-up promises of food to come from a charity. Lara absorbed her husband’s upset feelings even while comforting her kids. “Are you shedding tears, my love? Soon we will have the bread. Ali, I promise your father will bring us food before midnight and we will sleep peacefully and breathe freely,” she whispered tenderly while dabbing Ali’s tears with her forefinger.

Hope in the air, despair in his heart

One day, while they were sitting in the dark, the sounds of whispering from the neighboring tent permeated through their tent’s sheets. It was a father talking with his children about news of a potential ceasefire in Lebanon. Lara shook with glee and leaned her head forward to confirm what she heard. While Lara felt a ray of hope, Ahmed kept a straight face, barely concealing his despair.

Lara thought that this could be a sign of salvation. A ceasefire in Lebanon could pave the way for a ceasefire in Gaza. But Ahmed was not optimistic at all; they had heard about too many failed negotiations.

The mother’s sudden euphoric gestures attracted Lena. “Mom, what’s happening? Are our neighbors talking about food? Are they going to give us oranges?” Eagerly Lena set her ears for an answer. Her mother hushed her. “Lower your voice, Lena. They talk about a possible ceasefire.”

“Really! We are going to get back home and play with my dolls and eat strawberries again?” cried Lena. “When will the war end? You have been promising me that since we got here.”

“Soon, Insha’Allah, darling.”

The news of the ceasefire in Lebanon planted contradictory feelings within Gazans: optimism for a better tomorrow and fear that there would be no way out of this spiral of siege, leaving Gaza an ongoing warzone.

The major question among Gazans was: Will the world celebrate the end of the war in Lebanon and forget about Gaza’s war?

Since the ceasefire in Lebanon came into force, Ahmed and Lena didn’t cease praying and hoping for a ceasefire to uplift their kids from the abyss of suffering to the bosom of life where kids play with love and adults work with peace.

As time passed, Ahmed kept high hopes for  an end to the war high — until he learned that his house and workshop back north had been leveled to the ground.  So many times, he would have wished an end to his life, too, if he had no kids to look after.

Every time Lena and Ali heard about the ceasefire negotiations, they joyfully imagined their dolls in their bedside closet, waving, “Welcome home.” But Ahmed kept the news of their destroyed home from his wife and children; he was convinced that his hope of a peaceful return to a normal life was just wishes in the air. A ceasefire would bring no joy anymore for Ahmed’s family and many other families who had lost their houses or dear ones.

This is, unfortunately, a story typical of displaced families, living in tents as winter returns to Gaza. There are not many happy endings these days.