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Title: The War Life
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By Reem ShamiaPhoto by Ömer Yıldız on UnsplashNote from editor: Check out this gofundme page if you’d like to help Reem and her family.For the whole of my life, I have dreamed about my graduation from college. I studied hard, worked while I studied, and depended on myself. I have good company at work and enjoy working while studying. At the weekend I usually spend the time with my friends, or reading books and do anything make me happy!I graduated from the university and that was the best time of my life! I finally got less pressure and could do whatever I wanted after work since I had no more study at night!On 6 October was my best friend’s birthday. We celebrated together, and had an amazing lunch and a tasty cake. While I was feeling so grateful, so happy and so satisfied I fell asleep that night. I woke up on the bombing and a lot of loud sounds that I already knew it!Then it is the war! No work, no friends, just waiting your turn! Your turn to the bread queue, your turn to the water, your turn to charge your phone, and your turn to dead. I can’t tell you how I feel when I saw a lot of our neighbors are injured or dead, the way that everyone trying to help and waiting for the ambulance to take them to the hospital!I tried to distract myself and not think about what would happen next, but I couldn’t. My heart was breaking when I saw the fear in my family’s eyes, especially my mother’s, she was horrified by what was happening. My brothers decided to sleep next to her as they were doing in every war to die together (if anything happened). My little brother saw about 5 wars and he is still 16!At the end of November, a human truce happened and we thought this was the end of the war, and it turned into the hardest one.One night in December, I can remember everything that happened that night. It was the worst night I had ever lived, my whole family woke up at 11pm because they bombed near to us. At the same time my mom got a call from her brother, he told her that their mother, their sister, their other brother, his wife, and their child died in that night because they bombed their neighbor’s house! We started crying!Then at the same moment, our tears and sadness turned into fear and our life turned into Hell. They bombed everything around us, we heard the fire shooting and a lot of Quadcopter in the weather and it made everything move. I started screaming, my mom was trying to calm me down and the situation got worst when they targeting our street and a lot of soil filled our house. I slept that night with my tears and felt relaxed when I saw the morning.Two weeks after that night, exactly at my birthday they asked me and my region to leave our homes. Can anyone imagine leaving your home — how could be? You should take what you can hold, just a bag! Can you collect your home in a bag, especially when you know you may not see that home again, someone can target it with your loved things, your warm bed, and your memories! And I can tell you this is another inside the main war.I left my home with a broken heart, we went to Rafah, lived with 31 people in my mom’s aunt’s small house, and thank god we stayed at her home even though we barely found a place to sleep! This was the hardest time ever. My little brother got a Hepatitis A infection during our displacement because of the lack of clean water and good food, and my brother Ahmed had to stay up early and stand in a queue to get water for the whole family! That water could be for washing dishes, taking showers, cleaning the floor, cleaning the bathroom, washing clothes and cooking. It is a huge amount, and they had to carry it, btw. It is too heavy!In more than 6 months, our life changed into a different life. No one can imagine or feel what we had to go through this time, and the problem is we don’t know when this will end!Everyone in Gaza has their own story, and even when we tell it, it is incomplete. Everyone cares about their loved ones, so it is like a network, and everyone feels each other so you don’t feel sad just because of your story. You feel sad because of the story of everyone you loved, our hearts can’t endure more!No words can describe the situation!The War Life was originally published in I am Palestine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
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Author: Marc Cohen
PublishedDate: 2024-04-02
Category: Blogs
NewsPaper: Marc Cohen - Medium
Tags: israel, gaza, palestine