Alma, 12: “"The war is hard and long, but we try to live.”

Alma, 12 years old, loves to write. With school closed, she creates her own homework, writing about life in the family's half-destroyed home in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. "The war is hard and long, but we try to live," she says.

Alma is one of the Gaza residents interviewed by the Israeli liberal Zionist newspaper Haaretz for a report published July 21.

"I've been helping my mother at home – fetching water, lighting a fire,” she told them. “I've also been helping her with my brother Wissam, who's 4. I've been singing him lullabies before he goes to sleep. I've been telling him stories from what I remember from school."

Life in her damaged home is better than in the tents the family lived in when they had to flee to other parts of Gaza. "Life in the tent is hard because of the sand, the mosquitoes, the flies.

"At night it's hard to sleep because you hear people in other tents. Also, all of us were in one tent. In the winter the rain leaks in, so my parents and I took turns holding the tarps so that water wouldn't leak in."

Her life now is a far cry from the one she had before the war. "I miss my friends. I'd like to meet with them like we used to; I want to know that they're all right," Alma says.

She misses her friends, who are scattered through Gaza. She tries to keep up using her mother’s phone. One friend lost her father and mother. Another friend was wounded. 

She’s scared of the Israeli bombs, but tries not to show it. "I've been talking to my sister, who's two years younger than me, about what we wish we could eat. She wants chocolate cake, while I'd like waffles with maple syrup and vanilla ice cream.”

More at Haaretz