Every day, we feature one story of a person or family surviving in Gaza and one about someone killed there recently, based on media reports.
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Aaed Abu Karsh, from running a shawarma place to scrounging for food to feed his own family
The New York Times reports:
“Aaed Abu Karsh, 35, had managed to carve out a sliver of something like normal life when we first spoke to him last November.
“He was managing a shawarma place in Deir al Balah, one of the few places where ordinary life went on amid the agony all around it.”
“In January, during the cease-fire, he moved home to Gaza City. That was the last good thing that happened, he told us recently.”
Karsh lost his wife’s sister to an airstrike in June and his uncle to another strike in September. He has been displaced four times and wounded twice.
“The hardest thing is living with the feeling that all you can do is wait for death,” he said.
He no longer sells shawarma to eager customers. Instead, he spends his days scrounging for food, clean water and cash to pay the astronomical prices at the markets.
Karsh was one of nearly 100 people whom Times reporters interviewed recently after writing about them earlier in the war.
More at The New York Times
Hammam Malaka and his wife, Najia Malaka, reunited after a long separation but fighting to survive
New York Times reporters say they have interviewed more than 700 people in Gaza over the course of the war. Recently they tried to recontact as many of the people they spoke with earlier.
Among the nearly hundred they were able to reach are Hammam Malaka and his wife, Najia Malaka. The first time the Times wrote about them, they were stuck 20 miles apart, one in northern Gaza, one in southern Gaza, with Israeli troops in between. He had two of their small children, she had three.
They were able to find each other during a brief January ceasefire. But one of their children, three-year-old Seela, was killed before they reunited.
Since Israel broke the cease-fire in March, the Times reports, their days have been spent in a perpetual struggle against hunger and danger, which Mr. Malaka said were like “endless waves crashing over us.”
More, including a recent photo of the surviving members of the Malaka family, at The New York Times
Khitam Ayyad, a refugee from Gaza City, reached an Israeli “humanitarian zone” but did not find the promised aid
From the New York Times:
As Israel’s full-scale assault in Gaza City began last month, Khitam Ayyad fled from her home there barefoot and without her possessions, heading to an area in southern Gaza that the Israeli military had designated as a “humanitarian zone.”
The military said that tents, food and medical care would be provided to those fleeing the fighting in the north.
But when Ms. Ayyad reached the southern city of Khan Younis, one of the humanitarian areas, she said she found it overcrowded with desperate people who were being offered little help.
“We are exposed to the sun and the heat,” she said. There was no space for her to build a shelter, she added, and “no proper food or water.”
More at The New York Times
Nahidh Abdelsalam, 56, two of his sons have been killed
US filmmaker Idris Hausler made a short video in which he read the story of Nahidh Abdelsalam, 56, a Palestinian father in Gaza. Abdelsalam says Israeli forces tore apart his family when they killed two of his sons. He’s trying to support his remaining children and dead sons’ children, but there’s no food.
Hausler was on board the Global Sumud Flotilla currently that sailed to Gaza in a civil disobedience effort to break the Israeli siege.
More at Al Jazeera
Siraj, 10, stalked by an Israeli quadcopter
The Australian Broadcasting Company profiled 10-year-old Siraj Mohamed, living in a tent with his parents. They reported:
“[H]is days are filled with fear. At times it’s overwhelming, like the night he was stalked by a quadcopter while going to the bathroom. They look like recreational drones but can reportedly have bombs or guns attached. There are multiple reports of them firing at children.
“‘I stood still, I looked at the ground, I saw the red and blue lights,’ Siraj recalls. ‘Then I held the flashlight, pointed into the ground and ran back to the tent.’
“We asked the IDF about their use of quadcopters but they didn’t respond.
“That night changed Siraj, his mother Halima says. He refused to go back to his own bed. He curled up next to her and held her hair while he slept.”
More at Australian Broadcasting Company
Ruwaida Amer: “I am a person. I am not a number.”
Last April 6, Al Jazeera published a column by a young woman named Ruwaida Amer about the shock of war suddenly entering her life.
It begins: “I’ve been thinking about writing a will.”
And it ends: “Is it possible that all it would say on my shroud would be ‘a young woman in a black/blue blouse’? Could I die as an ‘unknown person’, just a number?”
More at Al Jazeera
Yousef al-Mashharawi, Gaza City photographer and film-maker: “I have nowhere else to go.”
Yousef al-Mashharawi is a 32-year-old photographer and film-maker with two daughters and a son. They are sheltering with family in the Nasser district of Gaza City, but the risks of remaining are rising steeply.
“The fighter jets and helicopters do not stop firing. Last night was terrifying. The bombing has not stopped for the past six days. Every 45 minutes to an hour, there is a strike very close by,” Mashharawi told The Guardian. But he has no plans to leave.
“I haven’t exactly ‘decided’ to stay, but the truth is, I have nowhere else to go,” he said. The family was displaced to southern Gaza earlier in the war and he has no wish to go back.
“The army claimed it was a ‘humanitarian zone’, but that was completely false. It was the opposite. There were always strikes happening there, and they are still happening,” he said.
“Displacement also takes a psychological toll. No one likes to be displaced. I believe there is no truly safe area in the strip, whether in the north or the south, so we prefer to stay in the north. Death only comes once.”
More at The Guardian
Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, “running from death to death”
Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, weighing the danger of staying in Gaza City with her four children against the danger of leaving
Israeli bombs shake the ground under Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil and her four children in Gaza City but fleeing could expose them to worse.
“I don’t own a tent to give us shelter, and they are too expensive to buy. I would not be able to take all of the belongings and supplies I have already bought several times before,” Sahweil said. “Then there is the suffering we would face in searching for water and the lack of empty spaces to stay in. So if I leave, I would simply be going into the unknown.”
She says her family has already been displaced 19 times.
“There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death? What difference would that make?”
More at The Guardian
Sila Husu, 7, head injured by shrapnel, needs complex medical treatment that Gaza hospital can’t provide
Aya Husu, a 39-year-old mother of six from Gaza City, told a field researcher from B’Tselem about the severe injury her seven-year-old daughter, Sila, sustained in the bombing of a shelter on July 27, 2024.
Aya and her children had moved south early in the war under orders of the Israeli military. Her husband stayed behind to take care of elderly parents who could not relocate.
Aya and her children had to move several times, enduring terrible conditions which she describes. But on July 27, things seemed to be looking up.
“I had my daughter Sila registered for classes in a tent near the shelter. She was ecstatic. She took her schoolbag, and went there with her friends. At around 11:00 A.M., the school we were staying in was bombed with several missiles. I began screaming and crying in fear for my children. Moments later, I saw Sila returning from the tent school to the shelter. She was sobbing and asking why they were bombing us. All my children screamed and cried. Around us were dead bodies, body parts, rubble and debris.
“About an hour later, the Israeli military ordered us to evacuate the school. I took my children and fled. On the way out, we saw children’s bodies, body parts, and ambulances carrying the wounded. As we tried to escape, the school was bombed again, and Sila was hit in the head by shrapnel. Her head was covered in blood. I hugged her and screamed for help. My son Muhammad took off his shirt and tried to bandage Sila’s head to stop the bleeding. I shouted for an ambulance, but no one paid attention.
“A young man came, took Sila from me, and ran with her toward the hospital. The children and I ran after him, until he handed her to an ambulance that evacuated her to Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital. When I arrived there, I found Sila in the ER, critically injured. Her skull was open, and she had a fracture in the bone above her right eye and a detached retina in that eye. She stayed like that for a whole day with only an IV, without any doctor examining her, because the hospital was overwhelmed with so many wounded and dead. Later, she had surgery to stop the bleeding and close the skull fracture, and a platinum plate was implanted in her forehead above her right eye.
“Sila is still at Shuhadaa al-Aqsa Hospital. Her wounds are infected, and the hospital doesn’t have the antibiotics she needs. She needs more head surgeries to prevent fluid from leaking through her nose or eye socket. The doctors say her condition is serious and complicated, and that she needs treatment outside Gaza, but there is almost no way to get out of Gaza today.
“I try to stop her from looking at herself in pictures or in a mirror, because it affects her psychologically, especially when she sees old photos of herself. She asks when her hair will grow back, when she’ll be able to open her eye, when she’ll be pretty again.”
The B’Tselem researcher recorded this testimony on August 25.
More at B’Tselem
Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, displaced 19 times, refused to move again
Fatima al-Zahra Sahwell, a 40-year-old mother of four children sheltering in Gaza City, says she won’t obey Israeli orders to move away, despite frequent bombings near her.
The escape route is jammed, she doesn’t have the money to buy a tent, and she doesn’t believe the areas where Israel wants her to move would be safer than where she is. “There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death?”
More at The Guardian
Hiba al-Sheikh Khalil, Gaza mother whose story was read by Greta Thunberg on board the humanitarian aid flotilla
The Sumud Flotilla consists of about 50 boats now crossing the Mediterranean to try to break the Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza. One of those aboard is Greta Thunberg who became famous as a 15-year-old climate activist. She is now 22.
Al Jazeera posted a video of Thunberg reading a statement from Hiba al-Sheikh Khalil, a Gaza mother of five.
“We were displaced five times in the north before we arrived in the camp at Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. There was so much bombing and shooting and fear in northern Gaza, the children were terrified. We had to leave,” she says.
“We arrived in Deir el-Balah with no tent to live in and no belongings, because each move meant we lost more of our things. You leave most of your possessions behind wherever you go because you can't afford to take them.
“Now we're here with nowhere to live. The children are living on the street. I have nothing to meet their needs, no clothes, no tents, no mats to sleep on, no food. We have no income, so even a small meal costs more than we can afford.
“We have no strength left, no energy to run.”
More at Al Jazeera
An anonymous Gaza writer chronicles life in the war zone: “Here, life is simple and tragic.”
“In the face of my eldest son, who is not yet 14, I see a reflection of a war that has stolen his childhood and imposed burdens on him greater than his years.
“He has become an expert at water distribution routes, haggling for bread and carrying heavy gallons of water. I feel boundless pride in his courage, yet simultaneously a painful sense of powerlessness because I can’t protect him from what’s happening around us.”
So writes a Gaza resident in a letter posted August 4 by UN News. The United Nations withheld his name to protect him.
“My wife is trying to create an oasis of hope for our other children. My two eldest daughters continue to learn online when the internet is intermittently working and to read whatever books are available,” he writes.
“My youngest daughter draws on worn pieces of cardboard while my youngest son, who is four, has no memory of anything other than the sound of explosions.
“We stand helpless in the face of his innocent questions. There are no schools, no education, only desperate attempts to keep the brightness of childhood alive in them, in the face of a brutal reality.”
More at UN News
Gaza City ex-school teacher: “I don’t have anywhere to go”
Israel has ordered everyone in Gaza City to evacuate, but many residents say that’s impossible.
“We are all terrified,” said Montaser Bahja, a former schoolteacher sheltering in an apartment in western Gaza City near the coast. “Death would be more merciful than what we’re living through.”
“I don’t have anywhere to go in southern Gaza — no house, no tent, no car in which to travel.
“They’re not fighting Hamas. They’re fighting all of us civilians.”
More at The New York Times
Dr Nada Abu Al Rub, an Australian doctor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, posted a video about conditions at the hospital
Dr. Nada Abu Alrub, an Australian doctor working at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City along with fellow Australian Dr. Saia Aziz, made a short video in which she describes horrific conditions at the hospital.
The hospital, she says, is out of the most basic supplies like scissors, gloves, and soap. The Australians were not allowed to bring baby formula with them when they came.
“I’m asking for help … from any part of the world. Can anyone be able to stop this terror and horror? Please?”
Dr. Al Rub also posted a one-minute video from inside the hospital. “We see what horror movies don’t dare show: abdomens ripped open, limbs gone, brains exposed, eyes destroyed, children burned alive,” she says.
The video shows her trying to help a 16-year-old with a bullet in his brain, shot at a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid distribution site.
Sharaf Odeh: As bombs fall, he studies for his Master’s Degree
There’s famine and bombing in Gaza City, but that hasn’t kept Sharaf Odeh, 26, from studying for his Master’s Degree in Digital Business Administration.
All of Gaza’s universities have been destroyed or heavily damaged by Israeli bombs, but Odeh is enrolled in several online courses. Solar panels power his computer.
The degree, he believes, will give him a better future.
More at Haaretz
Mariam Sabbah, 9, injured in an Israeli strike, needs reconstructive surgery in the US but can’t get it because of the Trump travel ban
Mariam Sabbah had been fast asleep, huddled under a blanket with her siblings, when an Israeli missile tore through her home in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, in the early hours of 1 March.
The missile narrowly missed the sleeping children but as the terrified nine-year-old ran to her parents, a second one hit. “I saw her coming towards me but suddenly there was another explosion and she vanished into the smoke,” says her mother, Fatma Salman.
The parents searched desperately for their children and found Mariam lying unconscious in a pool of blood; her left arm was ripped off, shards of shrapnel had pierced through her small body, and she was bleeding heavily from her abdomen.
Besides blowing off her arm, the blast left Mariam with severe abdominal and pelvic injuries from shrapnel tearing through her bladder, uterus, and bowel.
“Mariam needs specialised paediatric reconstructive surgery,” says Dr Mohammed Tahir, a British surgeon who treated Mariam while volunteering at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza. “Her arm amputation is also very high and requires limb lengthening and specialist prosthesis. Without this, it will be very difficult for her to live a normal life.”
Mariam and her family secured the offer of surgical care from a specialist team in Ohio, and the little girl waited two months to be given permission from Cogat to leave Gaza, by which time her condition had deteriorated. She was finally evacuated to Egypt but was then stuck for months waiting for her US travel documents to be processed.
President Trump has blocked medical evacuation for children on the grounds that their accompanying parents are security risks.
More at The Guardian
Yousef al-Mashharawi, father of three with nowhere to go
Yousef al-Mashharawi is a 32-year-old photographer and film-maker with two daughters and a son sheltering with family in the Nasser district of Gaza City.
He knows the risks of remaining are rising steeply. “The fighter jets and helicopters do not stop firing. Last night was terrifying,” Mashharawi said. “I haven’t exactly ‘decided’ to stay, but the truth is, I have nowhere else to go,” he said. The family was displaced to southern Gaza earlier in the war and he has no wish to go back.
“The army claimed it was a ‘humanitarian zone’, but that was completely false. It was the opposite. There were always strikes happening there, and they are still happening,” he said.
More at The Guardian
Enas, 21, still studying computer engineering, but feels her dreams are slipping away
Enas, a 21-year-old computer systems engineering student from Rafah, had just completed her second year at Al-Azhar University when the war began. Displaced to Al-Mawasi, near Khan Yunis, she’s still studying, but she battles despair.
"Since our last displacement, my academic situation has been very bad. I don't think I'll register for another semester," she admitted. Before the war, she had pictured herself already working in her field. "I used to study because I loved it. I wanted to graduate, work and even work while studying. Now I'm just barely getting by. I don't have the same goals or hope as before."
Her field depends on reliable internet and long hours on a laptop – luxuries she no longer has. "The internet here is so weak, and the electricity is unstable. Sometimes it cuts during an exam, and I manage to reconnect and finish. Other times, I lose the exam completely."
Her grades have slipped, but the hardest loss is personal. Early in the war, she lost her closest friend and study partner – one of the more than 15,000 schoolchildren killed since the war began, according to UNICEF.
"I don't like remembering how I felt when she was killed," Enas said. "Even now, whenever I submit an assignment or finish a project, I miss her and wish she were here."
More at Haaretz
Fatima al-Zahra Sahweil, displaced 19 times, refused to move again
Fatima al-Zahra Sahwell, a 40-year-old mother of four children sheltering in Gaza City, says she won’t obey Israeli orders to leave, despite frequent bombings near her.
The designated escape route is jammed, she doesn’t have the money to buy a tent, and she doesn’t believe the areas where Israel wants her to go are safer than where she is. “There is not a single day without bombings and deaths in the south, even in the so-called humanitarian zones that the army declared. So, would I just be running from death to death?”
Sahwell said she has already moved her family 19 times since the war began.
More at The Guardian
Sarah al-Barsh, 10, two arms amputated above the elbow, father killed
"My father and I were walking home," says 10-year-old Sara al-Barsh. “Suddenly the house we were passing by was bombed. I fainted for about 15 minutes, then I woke up. When I woke up, I couldn't find my hands. I started screaming, 'Dad, Dad' – but he didn't respond."
Sara’s father was killed. She was taken to hospitals where her arms had to be amputated above the elbow. She hasn't had any rehab, so she has been doing it herself as best she can in her new home – a tent in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. She has been painting with her feet.
"Before the injury, I lived a normal life, like any other child with two hands," she says. "I used to eat, drink, play and comb my hair – now I can't do anything on my own."
Her mother, Amani al-Barsh, hopes she can get out of Gaza and be fitted with prosthetic arms. "She used to dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer,” says her mother. “Today, after the amputations, she insists on being a pediatrician to help children.”
More at Haaretz