The cool sea air was refreshing. My friends and I always met to walk long distances along the beach, but on that October night, we agreed to sit down in one of the simple cafes scattered along the shore of the Gaza Sea.

It was 1 a.m., a time we often chose for our long walks. This time, however, we decided to linger, sharing our dreams and aspirations. I spoke excitedly about my plans to launch a medical device start-up, a project that had secured my team first place at the 2022 GITEX exhibition in Dubai. This was a competition for graduation projects which included submissions from 12 Arab countries.

In hindsight, we were incredibly naive. We never expected that within a few hours, a fire would ignite, burning not just the world around us, but also our dreams. Despite the late hour, we decided to grab a bite at the Italiano Restaurant, which was about to close. Little did we know, it would be their last service before the bombing of the restaurant. It tragically took the owners’ lives.

I was only thinking about how I could get up early for work.

In those days, I would juggle the schedule my work demanded: I was a sales representative for a medical equipment company in Gaza, lecturer with the Faculty of Engineering at UCAS University College, and private tutor for engineering students, both online and in person.

My rude awakening came not from the five alarms I had set, but from the terrifying sounds of rockets exploding at 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 7. Panic surged through me. My mother, on her way to work, called to say she was hiding in a shop, waiting for my brother to pick her up.

We immediately knew we had to evacuate our home in the Al-Nuseirat camp, as the Israeli warplanes had targeted our house multiple times in previous wars.

Things began to gradually clarify until hell unleashed new massacres, genocide, displacement, and the ceaseless cacophony of bombing. Fear, anxiety, horror, anticipation, and moments of narrowly escaping death became our reality.

As a family that had weathered numerous wars and countless escalations, we believed the place we had relocated to was relatively “safe.” However, this war shattered that illusion, and our repeated survivals from many massacres stood as stark evidence.

First survival

On the evening of Nov. 10, my older brother and I were sitting in our relative’s house, engaged in casual conversation. As the night wore on, we contemplated leaving, but the thunderous sound of bombing from the neighboring house, mere meters away, detained us. We dashed outside, joining others rushing to rescue those affected by the blast, while I raced to find my mother in the street.

“Who was martyred?” I asked a cousin involved in the rescue efforts.

“No one knows,” he replied grimly. “Just bodies without heads and scattered body parts.”

Second survival

A few nights later, my cousin and I were by a window trying to get access to the internet. We couldn’t get a signal, so she asked me to walk her home, just 30 meters away. As we were about to leave, a huge explosion ripped through the air. It was close, way too close. Shards of metal, rocks, and broken glass rained down around us.

Thankfully, when I called my family, everyone answered. I rushed outside to find my brother and cousins who were 20 meters from the blast. I ran through dust, debris, and the awful smell of gunpowder and blood. It was horrible, like running through a nightmare. I stumbled over some rubble, but luckily found everyone else safe.

The bombing was awful. More than 25 people were killed; almost everyone on the street. If we had left a minute earlier, it could have been 27.

I had never seen anything like it before. Bodies were everywhere, torn apart. It’s a horrific image that will stay with me forever. People were carefully gathering the body parts and laying them out until the ambulance came. I remember someone saying, “There’s a hand and a belly here!” I replied, pointing to what I had found, “And here’s a foot and a head!”

We managed to find all the parts of one person.

The building that was bombed used to have a grocery store on the ground floor. That’s where I’d take my two-year-old Jaffa to buy things. Jaffa is named after the city my grandparents were forcibly expelled from in 1948 by well-armed Zionist gangs; this event established the state of Israel.

My Jaffa represents love, everything innocent and precious for us.

Why should children like Jaffa, or any child in Gaza, have to live through this war? It’s a question with no answer.

After that horrific night, I found out one of my cousins had been killed in the bombing. They could only find parts of his body. I went home, drained, and hoping for a little rest. But another blow awaited me. My relative messaged to say my uncle Imad had also been martyred. All I could do was pray for him. My brother and I knew we had to tell our mother, but we waited until morning. It was a difficult conversation, but eventually, we managed to break the news. We spent the rest of the day trying to comfort her and keep her strong.

Third survival

Just days after the bombing, our house was targeted for the third time. The first attack had happened in 2008, just two months after we moved in. Rebuilding it burdened my mother, our sole provider, with a debt of tens of thousands of dollars. It took two years and even more loans, but we managed. Unfortunately, the house was hit again during the 2012 war.

It took us seven years to pay off all those debts. Our home was destroyed yet again last December. Everything was burnt. With no other choice, we started a GoFundMe campaign to rebuild it and help our family survive.

Fourth survival

For two months, we lived in a tent in Rafah. Then we returned to the Al-Nuseirat camp. The first thing I did was visit our neighborhood to see the house. The Israeli army had been stationed in it before bombing it. Our entire area was bombed, burned, and bulldozed. They even destroyed and stole parts of my medical device project. They destroyed and burnt Jaffa’s toys and clothes.

What did a little girl ever do to deserve this war? No one knows.  The only reason seems to be that she is a Palestinian living in Gaza.