When I fled to Deir Al-Balah, I met Wedad. She had a story worth telling. She was a 12-year-old young warrior from the east of Gaza, the Al-Shuja’iyya neighborhood, which is known for its kind and brave people. Wedad had a warm family, consisting of her parents and three younger siblings. The youngest was only a few months old.
One day, in the blink of an eye, the world Wedad knew was turned upside down. Nearby explosions shook the ground and smoke filled the sky. Because her family lived east of Gaza City, close to where the Israeli soldiers were entering across the border, they had to flee every aggression, but this time was different. Her father urgently told the family they had to leave home, so they packed what little they could carry, and sought shelter at a nearby school.
Their father stayed behind for a moment longer, and when their home was targeted shortly after they left, he was buried under the rubble. And so, in a split second — a blinding flash — a family lost the star that always guided them and the warm home they had. In Gaza, everything changes so fast. The family was left in real danger, but they were only at an early stage of an endless road. “That was the worst day of my life,” Wedad described it.
They couldn’t even mourn; there was no time to be sad. The school they arrived at was overcrowded, filled with families seeking refuge. Wedad’s family slept on the floor, sharing what little food they had. They thought it would be safe. It was a school, after all. “It can’t be targeted,” her mother said.
A second displacement
However the safety of the school was short lived. As night loomed over them, bombs fell closer and closer. They targeted the schoolyard, which was filled with people. The sound was ear-splitting, and Wedad hugged her terrified little siblings. “I didn’t want them to see the massacre, all the dead bodies.” They had no choice but to flee again. They had to leap and jump over the bodies of the martyrs.
They ran to another school. Wedad’s heart was pounding with fear, yet she kept walking, holding tightly to her mother’s hand. It was midnight when they arrived, and they spent the night awake, because it was impossible for a human to sleep under these conditions, the ground convulsing from the bombings and explosions. “The buildings were raining stones and glass. I felt that one of them might fall right on my head at any moment,” Wedad said.
As the sun rose, the family gathered in the schoolyard. “We couldn’t believe we’d survived the night,” she said. Walking through rubble-strewn streets on their way to Al-Shifa Hospital, they were confronted by a destroyed city. They walked past a child screaming, unable to realize that her parents were torn into shreds.
At Al-Shifa Hospital, they thought that they had finally reached the safest possible spot. They survived a couple of months there. They spent really tough days under unimaginable conditions: sleeping on the floor in the corridor, seeing all the injured and the martyrs being rushed past, witnessing relatives crying, wailing, and saying goodbye. It was heartbreaking to watch all this without being able to help.
As the eldest and with the father now dead, Wedad had to be brave and to shoulder many responsibilities. Each day, she waited in long lines for her family, first to fetch water and then another for a meatless soup. They had no food, no electricity, and no clean water.
“At 1 a.m. one night came a relentless series of bombings. Soldiers surrounded the hospital, and tanks were stationed in the yard,” Wedad said. “We went three days without being able to reach food or water. We ran out of cash and supplies. Children were screaming and crying out in hunger.”
The family and some other people who shared the same corridor decided to risk it and leave the hospital, while displaying something white to show they were just civilians who want to survive. “Seeing the soldiers was horrifying, especially for my younger siblings,” she mentioned. “They arrested men and interrogated them, and left women and children.”
The journey south
Her mother decided they must evacuate to the south, where she thought it must be safer. She hoped they would find food and shelter there. After a long journey, they found refuge in a school in Deir Al-Balah. Their new home was just a tiny corner of a classroom.
Schools in Gaza are not really shelters; they weren’t designed to be so. Overcrowded and hard to clean, they are the perfect environment for diseases. Children like Wedad and her siblings suffer the most, unable to live the carefree lives they deserve; instead, they think only about how to find food, water, and wood.
Wedad, a true warrior, now lives a life that is too harsh on a child like her. She tells me that she longs for a life where she can go to school and play with her friends, but she must patiently work for her family’s safety. Children in Gaza learn the true meaning of patience too early. She also hopes for a better future for her younger siblings.
Wedad’s is only one story among so many other stories that are untold or being silenced. While the world is turning a blind eye, children here are losing their childhoods.
