Family is everything. Living in Gaza we are deprived of so much due to the Israeli occupation. But the one thing they cannot deny us is our family, and the love we share for one another. That is the most valuable thing in the world to us. It is everything!

I am very close to my father, Hazem, who means the world to me. He is a sweet and sentimental man who cares deeply about his family — especially his daughters. I have four sisters and we are his everything.

I got married last year on July 1. These were relatively peaceful times. The day before my wedding day, my father was crying because he didn’t want to lose me. Such was his love for me. We organized a beautiful celebration and it is a memory I cherish to this day.

Separation and loss

When the aggression started last October, I had to flee my house in Jabalya, in eastern Gaza, with my husband Salamah. First we moved into my family home in Al-Nasr street. We stayed there for about two weeks before the Israeli forces told us to leave the area.

Then, we moved into a refugee camp in western Gaza, far away from my father and the rest of my family, who were staying in the north in my aunt’s home.

The distance was extremely difficult and I worried for their safety. I was staying with my husband’s family and would follow the news with great passion, hoping that this terrible war would end and that we could all safely return to normal. However, that is not what happened.

Three weeks into the conflict, my husband received a call one night from my father, who told him that there had been a terrible event and many members of our family had been killed in an airstrike. I was sleeping, so my husband built up the strength to tell me this terrible news when I woke up.

When I did finally wake up, my husband broke the news. I had lost 20 members of my family. I was shocked and broke down in tears. I will never forget hearing his words as he told me that my beloved grandfather, grandmother, aunties, uncles, and all my cousins had all been taken from the world. I couldn’t stop crying for days.

My heart was broken for my poor father, who has now left behind without a mother, father, or several of his brothers. He had lost most of his family. How can somebody survive such a tragedy?

Such is the scale of devastation in Gaza at the moment, that there is never any time to properly mourn and come to terms with our grief. While I was still processing the shocking news, we had to quickly evacuate again to another shelter in Al-Nafaq Street in western Gaza.

It was here that we were bombed and my husband lost four of his sisters. The suffering is relentless. People we love are being killed over and again. Family is everything yet we are losing them week by week.

I called my father and told him what happened. He was crying on the phone and told me that he was afraid for my life and he wanted me to come to him so we could all be together. I promised that I would find him.

Unfortunately, my husband and his family were also terrified and did not want to move far due to the fear of the missiles, tanks, and bullet fire. So we found somewhere to shelter nearby and I wasn’t able to reunite with my father.

Because I didn’t have a phone connection in the new place, I couldn’t tell my father where we were staying and reassure him that we would be safe.

Terror, worry, and more loss

I didn’t talk to my father for about 20 days, but I thought about him all the time. I was terrified for his safety and knew that the area in northern Gaza where he was staying was surrounded by Israeli forces and the bombardment was intensifying. I was beside myself with worry.

Eventually the blockade was lifted and I was able to return to find him. It was now December and I hadn’t seen my father for several weeks. I was so relieved to finally be reunited with him. I burst through the door of my family’s shelter in Al-Jalaa Street and called out to him, “Daddy!”

But there was no response because my father was not there. Instead I found my mother, who told me how he had been so worried about my safety since our last call. She said he had left the shelter several hours ago. I waited for him to return, but he didn’t come back.

The next day, I returned to my parent’s home in north Gaza to find my father and he still wasn’t there. I knew something was wrong. So I went to search for him in the nearest hospital. My husband and I visited the morgue where the unidentified bodies are kept to see if he was there. It was a relief that he wasn’t.

Each day I would return to look for him. On the fourth day, I saw my brother in the street who told me the news I had been dreading. Our father had been killed.

He was killed by a missile after he had gone to find my uncle. This happened the same day that I had come home to finally be reunited with him. I had missed him by a matter of hours. Hearing this news, I was immediately in shock, so much so that I couldn’t even manage to shed a tear.

My brother took me to my father’s grave, where I fell to the ground and kissed the soil. I told my father, “I love you more than anything in the world. I think about you all the time. I will never be okay now you are gone.”

My body went into shock and I lost the sight in my eyes completely. I was treated by a doctor who said the pent-up sadness had caused an inflammation of my optic nerves, which led to temporary blindness. After three weeks of treatment, my eyesight finally returned, but I knew that my father wouldn’t.

Continuing on despite the losses

When family is everything, and a total of 29 members of your family, including your beloved father, are taken, it’s very difficult to find the strength to go on. But we must go on. So that future generations can stand in defiance of this evil occupation.

I now take strength in telling their story so that our loss isn’t in vain. So that amongst the great numbers of casualties that are reported in the media, my family’s story, and my father’s individual story, aren’t lost.

I think back to my wedding day and the beautiful celebration that was arranged. My father was the one who was crying that day because he didn’t want to lose me. And yet I was the one who lost him.