The pasta meal that created Rifka’s most beautiful memory during the war. Photo: Rifqa Hijazi

After leaving our home in Tel Al-Hawa in Gaza City for Khan Younis, and then fleeing Khan Younis before it too was invaded, we arrived in Rafah. These were the hardest days I’ve ever endured. Food had become scarce everywhere after the invasion of Khan Younis, and our meals consisted of small portions of plain white rice without any seasoning. Even bread was rationed to one loaf, about the size of your palm, per person every one or two days. I felt constant hunger. In the markets, prices were rising unbelievably and there were shortages of flour and bread.

In December 2023, when my 19th birthday came, it was bitter cold. I had not had anything but rice or bread for months. I had loved pasta before, and missed it dearly. For my birthday, my mother found a small bag of it at the market — the last one — and gave it to me as a gift. I was overjoyed!

The precious bag of pasta that fed a whole family on Rifka’s birthday. Photo: Rifqa Hijazi

She made a sauce of bell peppers, onions, canned tomatoes, and spices, which was a feast for those times. I thought it was the most delicious pasta I had ever eaten! The portion was small, but everyone in my family shared a taste and loved it. The girl whose house we were staying in even brought me a plate of pickles, which were also almost impossible to find. We even sang a little that day. It is a beautiful memory.

When we moved from Rafah to Deir al-Balah, I cried. Our new home was an unfinished concrete building with no signs of life —  dust, sand, and stones everywhere — that sent chills through my body. It looked cold and it felt freezing. I was disheartened. There were no outlets to charge a phone and no internet. There was no bathroom and not even tiles on the floor, just rough concrete that was hard to walk on. There were no doors to close to keep the cold out, and the windows had no glass, so we covered them with plastic bags.

The view from the apartment was grim —  most of the surrounding homes had been bombed. Sometimes, we could hear repeated strikes. Other times, an eerie silence. Days passed slowly in this barren space. The only comfort was that we hadn’t been displaced to someone else’s home this time; we were in a house on our own and we weren’t burdening anyone else. Devoid of other means of comfort, we tried to adapt.

Our day would start early in the morning, around 7 a.m. The first thing we did was light the fire to heat water for tea, which we had to drink throughout the day to keep warm. Before the war, I loved to drink Nescafé, but tea, which I hate, was now the only warm drink available.

Water boiling over fire: the basic ingredients to every mealtime preparation. Photo: Rifqa Hijazi

The fire was hard work. None of us had made one before the war, but now, we needed it for everything. We had to take turns watching and making sure it didn’t go out. It was tiresome and required constant attention and effort. The thick smoke would make breathing difficult and was enough to make you hate the idea of eating altogether.

After the first tea of the day, my mom and older sister would start making the dough for that day’s bread. Then, the other preparations for our one daily meal would begin. These were the meals: rice, tuna, canned meat, or pasta, but that wasn’t always available in the market. Usually, it was just white rice with a little bit of vegetables. The canned meat, when we had it, tasted awful, so we would cover it with spices and fry it to try to give it flavor.

We cooked everything over the fire and washed our clothes by hand with the little water we had, if any was available at all. We divided the tasks among us. One person would cut wood and light the fire, another would help, and someone else would prepare the food, whatever it was.

Once the food was ready, it was distributed in portions that were never enough to satisfy an adult. But that was all we had. Working over the fire all day, our meal would be ready at about 4 in the afternoon, when we would eat.

We had no kitchen table, so we ate over a large, flat piece of wood on the floor. Plates and spoons were limited, which meant sometimes you would have to wait for someone else to finish eating so you could use their utensils.

Afterward, we would drink tea, then go to bed very early, around 6 or 7 in the evening, and wake up early the next day. There were no lights in the building and no internet, so there was nothing for me to do in the evening. Darkness fell quickly, and going out at night was considered dangerous due to the invasion’s targeting that happened at night.

Despite our small meals, the hunger was excruciating. The lack of food would make you dizzy. My sister’s children, ages 2 and 5, would ask for eggs, milk, chocolate, and sweets, just like any child would. But all we had to give them was just bread or plain rice.

Rifqa once came across an amazing rarity in Rafah: cotton candy. “I was so happy and got some for myself and my nephew because we love it so much.” Photo: Rifqa Hijazi

To this day, I resent that we were forced to flee over and over and then to pay rent for a place that wasn’t even fit for an animal to live in. But my family did what we could to make it livable —  we installed a bathroom, cleaned it up, covered the windows, and set up battery-powered lights. We made a routine out of fighting the hunger by making meals around the fire, drinking tea, and doing what we could to accept it and make a sense of home together.