Living in a nightmare

In Gaza, night is not peaceful. It’s more like a break from the constant fear and suffering that happens every hour of the day. 

People here don’t have a normal day like others do. They wake up every morning, tired from the previous day’s struggles, and face another day of hard work just to survive. They have to live in tents, small rooms, or expensive apartments, all because they were forced to leave their homes behind.

Parents wake up their kids and go searching for firewood since gas is hard to find. Mothers then make breakfast over an open flame. Instead of getting ready for school, kids wake up to face another tough day. You see them carrying heavy buckets of water from far away to get back to their homes or tents. Some people wake up early, pray, and then go out to try to make a living for their families. 

Many children here in Gaza have lost their parents and are left to fend for themselves, struggling to survive. Instead of being in school, you’ll find kids on the streets. Some push small carts selling things under the hot sun, while others stand between streets calling out to sell homemade treats. People spend their days listening to the radio, fed up with the news. Others go to bid farewell to those who have been killed. During the day, you see people, including women and kids, being targeted for no reason. The suffering continues – massacre after massacre, death after death, in house after house. The truth is that there’s no safe place in Gaza, no matter where you are.

However, when evening comes, the streets empty. The only sounds are loud drones, screaming missiles, and broken things all around. There’s no light except for a red glow when a nearby place is hit.

Instead of sleeping peacefully, you’re haunted by scary thoughts of attacks while you’re asleep.

Don’t be surprised, this is Gaza’s life. Going to sleep in Gaza means not knowing if you’ll wake up in the morning.

For anyone, the usual thoughts of goals and tomorrow’s tasks are replaced with the constant fear of survival. In Gaza, people’s minds are consumed by the struggle to make it through another day.

For me, every night is a living nightmare. On July 18 at 2:00 a.m., I had a terrifying dream that everything around us was being attacked.

I was jolted awake by the sounds of bombs, the red sky, and shattered debris. The building shook violently, and screams filled the air. Dust covered everything to the extent that we couldn’t recognize where the bomb was. All of the doors were open; all of the windows were broken, and pieces of glass were covering the ground.

People were shouting “Where is the bomb? Where is the bomb?” This is what it’s like to be in Gaza under attack. It’s scary to be caught in a bombing and no one knows you’re there. You can be hurt or killed without anyone knowing what’s happening when the rest of the world is quiet and unaware.

And people are not the only victims.

I had a cat named Katty. She was not just a pet, but a true friend. She’d come to me when I was tired, sitting on my legs, easing my pain. When we had to evacuate our home after the events of October 7, I had to leave her behind, unable to take her with me, with no food or water, just leaving her to face the unknown.

As months passed, the hope of seeing my beloved cat Katty again dwindled. After our evacuation to Rafah and back to a relative’s home, I thought all was lost. But one day, upon returning to our camp after the withdrawal, I found her wandering the streets, frail and thin. Her eyes were sunken, filled with tears, as if she’d been crying for me. Her once-luxurious fur was dull and dusty, darkened by the grime of the streets. My heart broke as I wept at the sight of her, unable to imagine how she’d survived so long without food. She was weak, often sleeping or too afraid to move, a victim of fear and hunger.

I devoted myself to nursing Katty back to health, but it was a futile effort. She was never the same cat I once knew. On that fateful July 18 night, as a nearby bombing shook the air at 2:00 a.m., my cat, who was perched on the balcony, was overwhelmed and couldn’t move. The trauma proved too much for her fragile body, and she succumbed to her injuries. Two days later, on the morning of July 20, I discovered her lifeless body. The memory of her passing will haunt me forever, a wound that will never heal or be forgotten.