Artist: Eba, Flyers for Falestin

This year, Mother’s Day—once a time of warmth—became, for some, a blade of longing that cuts slowly, leaving behind invisible wounds that bleed in silence. Celebrated in Palestine on March 21, the holiday felt like reaching for an embrace that no longer exists.

For Monera Tubasi, a 22-year-old Palestinian from Khan Younis, Mother’s Day does not hold any meaning anymore.

For her family, December 7, 2023, was just another morning in wartime Gaza. Her mother, as always, was cooking for the family over an open flame; gas had long run out, and war had made even the simplest of comforts a luxury.

In an instant, everything changed forever. An Israeli airstrike targeted their neighbors’ house, which was packed with displaced families—about 30 people were inside, with another 50 in a nearby home. The explosion did not discriminate. Shrapnel tore through the walls, through flesh and bone, and Monera’s mother collapsed into her father’s arms.

Monera ran outside, only to find her father holding her mother’s lifeless body, his tears mixing with the dust and chaos. There was no time for goodbyes—only a desperate plea for help that went unheard. “I remember screaming with everything I had: Call an ambulance for Mama!” she said. But her mother never came back.

The pain of loss is not Monera’s alone. Rami Abu Qass, a 19-year-old from Gaza City’s Al- Shuja’iyya neighborhood, went to sleep one night with his family beside him. By morning, he was the only one left alive. His mother, his siblings, and later his father—killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 8, 2024—were all gone. His home was reduced to rubble, his world shattered.

Rami had dreams. He had just finished high school with excellent grades, and his family was proud, excited for him to begin university. But war does not recognize dreams. His home was bombed, his leg was injured, and now he can no longer walk unaided. Meanwhile, Gaza’s borders are closed, hospitals are starved of medicine and equipment, and medical treatment abroad is impossible.

“I woke up one morning to find myself completely alone,” Rami said. “I spent three days in the hospital—no mother to call my name, no siblings to fill the space with laughter, no family to hold me. I am the sole survivor of a massacre that stole everyone I loved. How can I celebrate Mother’s Day when I have no mother, no home, no safe place to belong?”

“Memories have turned into a burden I carry alone in a city that grows emptier by the day,” he said.

Monera lives with the remaining memories of her mother. “The last time I talked with her was when she asked me to tidy up the dishes in the kitchen. She looked at us as she farewelled us,” she recalled.

Now, she continues to mourn her absence every day. “My mum leaves us and I remain looking for her in every corner of the house. I smell her pillow. I call out to her silently, wishing she could hear me.

“She tells me jokes and so do I. We go out at night to walk and talk with each other. I usually take pictures with her to see the similarities between us. I look very similar to my mother.”

Rami, too, carries the weight of memories that war could not erase.

“I still see her in my dreams, hear her voice calling my name. I used to wake up to the sound of her preparing breakfast, to the warmth of her presence. Now, I wake up to silence.

“She was the one who believed in me the most. When I passed my high school exams with high marks, she was the proudest. She had big dreams for me—dreams that vanished in the blink of an eye, just like she did.

“I sit alone, thinking of all the things I never got to tell her, of the hugs I can never have again. There are no words to describe what it feels like to lose everything in a single night. …I have become older. I have taken on many responsibilities, after I used to be a different person and pampered.”

No one tells you that grief is permanent. It becomes part of you, clinging to you like a shadow. You cry when you see an old photo, when you watch a mother holding her child’s hand, when you long to share a secret but find only silence staring back at you.