Malak’s damaged house and neighborhood in Al-Zahra city. Her aunt captured the moment when people returned to witness the devastation of their homes during the temporary ceasefire in January 2025. It looks like the house is still standing, but everything inside is broken, and it feels like the whole building might crumble if you touch anything. Photo: Malak

Some stories are like shattered glass—sharp and impossible to hold without bleeding. 

Malak has always been more than just my cousin, my uncle’s daughter. The age gap between us was negligible. We were always together: at every noisy, large family gathering, Malak and I would be huddled in a corner, giggling about everything and nothing. Our voices would rise above the clatter of plates and teacups. Grandma’s house was always magic. We would gather in the front yard under the stars, wrapping ourselves in blankets and stories. We dreamed loudly of the future—college, travel, love, reinventing ourselves.

But the Malak I saw after October 2023 was someone else.

Her face was pale, her body thinner than I remembered. She looked at me with eyes that had seen things no one should ever see. She didn’t want sympathy. She wanted someone to listen to her story, which she told unfiltered and slowly, struggling to find her voice. So I did. And this is her story.

***

Everything changed after that October—a time that had always been special in Al-Zahra city, when our family got together for the olive harvest. I loved the whole atmosphere of this ritual—time with family, lots of laughter, the smell of my mother’s cooking and mint tea filling the air. We would share our lunch under the shade of a tree. As the sky turned a soft orange, the twins sat quietly and took pleasure in the beauty around them, while my three younger sisters joyfully gathered wildflowers. Before we slept, we looked forward to the next day; our father had promised to take us to the olive press so we could watch the olives turn into olive oil.

When war broke out in October 2023, we thought it would be like previous wars. Didn’t you? A few weeks of bombing, a month at home with schools temporarily closed, and lots of time spent watching the news. But this war was clearly unusual from day one. My family immediately started evacuating, as did other families, and the situation worsened rapidly. From the news we learned that our house was in the Danger Zone. My father told us to pack our clothes and essentials and although his voice was calm, I saw the fear in his eyes.

Of course, I understood we might never return to our home. I felt torn between what to take and what to leave; I was 16 years old and everything seemed precious. The house turned into chaos, and my sister Aseal kept asking questions we didn’t have time to answer. I remembered the sacks of olives under the stairs and insisted we take them with us. They weren’t just olives—they were the last memory of the life we had.

Olives harvested by Malak’s family, in October 2023. Photo: Malak

Initially we evacuated to a UN school, a shelter my family always fled to when war pounded on our doors, and then to seven other locations before I stopped counting. Chaos surrounded us. My mother called out our names, trying to keep us together in each new refuge. I clearly remember the day we were told that our house was destroyed and our entire neighborhood was wiped off the map. I felt shattered, as if a part of me was buried beneath the rubble. I remember how I used to gather the neighborhood children under a tree in our yard and pretend to be their teacher; they would raise their hands politely to speak, even though we were just playing. Our laughter had once filled the narrow streets of our neighborhood.

On one of the quieter afternoons, I was sitting with my mother, my three sisters and my twin brothers in the small space that became our temporary home inside the UN school. I thought we were in a safe place. And then an airstrike hit and an explosion followed. The walls trembled, the ground shook, and within seconds, everything turned to dust and screams. The ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop. I grabbed my baby sister while my two sisters ran ahead of me, their tiny feet injured by shattered glass. 

I left my sisters with a neighbor who was helping gather all of the children in a safer corner of the school and returned to look for my mother and brothers. I saw her body lying in a pool of blood and froze. I heard a crying sound and saw one of my brothers, who was still alive. But his twin was gone and so was our mother. Everything after that became a blur. 

That night, my family gathered in a small, dark room lit with a weak light, each of us burdened by grief. My father sat beside us in silence, his eyes filled with sorrow and regret, and said, “I wish I had been there to protect my family.” 

My father had rented that small house, and we began living there with my uncle’s family. My father tried to keep us engaged, to make sure we didn’t feel alone. I felt we were like one family together. My uncle’s daughters and sons were just like my sisters and brothers, and his wife was like my mother. I told them what I saw on that horrible day when I lost my mother and brother. 

I woke up one morning with my normal routine—cleaning and taking care of my new (expanded) family. My baby sister Qamar was my focus; she had started to call me “Mum.” My dad and my uncle returned from the market with things we needed and we ate lunch. I didn’t think that would be the final lunch with them. My dad and my uncle got ready to go back to the market to work, where they sold goods. Before leaving, my dad told me, “I love you, take care of your sisters,” which was strange, and my uncle started hugging his daughters. I didn’t understand at that time that they were bidding us farewell; if I had, I wouldn’t have let them go.

That night, I heard a bomb not far away, and we waited anxiously for them to return home. And then my aunt got a call; they were in the hospital. Shocked, we all ran to the hospital, but it was too late—they didn’t make it. I collapsed. The hospital was overcrowded—wounded people lying on the ground, some already dead, others taking their final breaths. Mothers sat beside them, some crying, others screaming. I saw a burned child and a young man whose leg had been amputated. Doctors were rushing everywhere, trying to save lives. Journalists stood nearby, holding their cameras, capturing the disaster.

I sat on the floor in a far corner, recalling the smiles of my father and uncle before they left for work, remembering the final lunch we had together. Then, suddenly, a terrifying thought struck me—I had left Qamar, my baby sister, alone! I ran back through the dark, with drones buzzing and ambulance sirens flashing. I couldn’t lose her, too. When I reached the house, it was full of darkness. I called her name and a neighbor answered with a voice that knew our pain. “We took her when we heard her crying.” I hugged Qamar tightly and returned to the others. We spent that night in the house of another one of my relatives, each of us speechless, trying to absorb the horror. 

Months after that awful day, in the suffocating heat of our tent, fear and hunger press against us like walls. Life has become a heavy load we can barely endure. Pain is permanently part of us for now, even for Qamar; it’s carved into our hearts. 

Our tent stands near the beach, and whenever the memories begin to haunt me, I sit on the sand and talk to the sea about my pain. The waves seem like a sorrowful response. I describe to the sea how gorgeous the sunset was on the last day of the last harvest, how much we had looked forward to waking up early the next morning so we could go to the factory to have our olives pressed. I told the sea that I longed to open my eyes to see my mother’s smile and hear my father’s voice.

This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.