‘Waiting to see if I will survive’: A Gaza reporter caught in the war she’s covering

This week, the news that an Israeli airstrike had wrecked another shelter, this time a disused Gaza City school, was not merely depressing and shocking. It literally made me tremble.

The video footage of the aftermath filled me with fear. The charred remains of the dead scattered in pieces. Rescuers carting off bodies in blankets and bags because they had neither stretchers nor ambulances. I wanted to scream. Why must we endure such hardship, when all we seek is a life of peace and dignity? The injustice left me feeling paralyzed.

Israel said it had targeted Hamas militants, but more than 100 civilians were killed in the attack, many of them women and children.  “Why doesn’t Israel just kill all of us together and rid the world of Gaza?” one of my neighbors asked aloud in despair.

Everywhere here, people’s faces are filled with sorrow and frustration. “Who cares?” one woman wondered. “Who will act? Who will stop this?”

Everyone has the same unanswered question: “Who will stop this war?” We no longer even bother to ask where humanity has gone.

Gaza children scouring for something to sell

In the Al-Mawasi beach area and in Deir al-Balah, children going barefoot or wearing torn sandals wade through sewage-contaminated water and climb over mounds of garbage. Some of them scour for something to sell; others look for wood to burn or clothes to wear. Nearby, makeshift pits shielded by burlap serve as lavatories. There is nowhere to wash your hands.

In the stifling summer heat, the stench and filth that envelop us are an inevitable reality of war – just as familiar as the pangs of hunger and the distant sounds of bombing.

Evacuee tents, once pristine and colorful, are now worn and faded from months of exposure to the sun. Men occasionally try to repair them using gray blankets distributed by aid groups, scraps of fabric, or additional sheets of nylon. In wood-burning clay ovens, some women attempt to make sweets like halab pastries, sticky with sugar and swarming with flies, sending their children to sell them at the beach or among the tents. Yet I fear that we are only applying a veneer to this life of displacement. Why would we want to beautify such a harsh existence?

Next to my home lies a stretch of agricultural land. Once one family had erected a tent there, others quickly followed, and soon a cluster of tents sprang up, even though Israel has not designated the area as a “safe zone.”

When the Israelis invaded Rafah in May, people sought any available spot here to set up their temporary shelters. But a few days later, nearby artillery fire frightened them and they fled. Now, with nowhere else to go, they’ve begun to put up their tents here once again.

What was shocking is now normal in Gaza

We are surrounded by images and sounds that a few months ago were shocking and are now normal. Men piling into car trunks for a long journey to somewhere “safe.” Amputees hobbling on crutches over puddles of sewage. The other day I saw a one-legged child trying to flag down a donkey cart. One driver finally took him free of charge.

Now, in Gaza, even a child can distinguish the differences of the buzz of the drones that fly all day and night over our heads, the roar of F-16 fighter jets, and the clatter of Apache helicopters. Since the war erupted on Oct. 7, quadcopters have become a familiar sight, sometimes followed by missile strikes on crowded civilian areas.

Gaza’s hospitals are overwhelmed and there are widespread outbreaks of skin and water-borne diseases. Almost every family I know has someone who has contracted hepatitis A. It now seems unavoidable, exacerbated by the lack of water and proper sanitation.

Recently, my sister went through some old family photos. She says that we were once well-fed people, clean and with a bright life. Now if I wanted to draw our portraits, they would all be in shades of gray.

I often see things I want to describe and write about, but the blank page daunts me. I type out my thoughts, and then delete them. I’m not sure to whom I’m writing, or why.

Order from Israeli military: “Evacuate”

As I finished this letter, the Israeli army’s spokesperson issued an order that my family should evacuate our home. The military is shrinking the “safe zone” to a sliver of the Al-Mawasi beach; my neighborhood will be a center of military operations.

Each of us grabbed what bags we had at the ready and scattered: to Al-Mawasi, to Khan Yunis, to the other side of Deir al-Balah. My father insisted that he stay behind. Even as I sit here trying to figure out what to do next, the Israeli military keeps calling me with the same recorded message: “Evacuate. Go to Mawasi.”

But we have no tent to pitch on Al-Mawasi’s sand dunes, and anyway there is no room there for more tents. I feel like a character in a war story: Everyone is waiting to see if I will survive.