Gaza: testimony of Najah, 31-year-old mother
Testimony of Najah, 31-year-old mother from November 14, 2024
I am not going to talk about my house which was bombed in Jabalia at the start of the war. I will not talk about the death of my father and my brother, my cousins and many of my neighbors when they bombed 40 houses in the middle of Jabalia camp. I will not talk about moving from Jabaila, to Gaza, to Khan Younis, to Rafah, to Die Elbalah, to Zawaida with my 4 year old son, my 8 year old daughter, my 11 year old son and my injured husband who cannot unable to walk without support after losing half of his leg last November.
I won’t complain about losing all my beautiful clothes, makeup, perfume and accessories. I will not complain about having lost my kitchen which I had chosen room by room, nor my furniture, nor the plant which I had put in my bedroom window and which I watered every morning. I know it has become history and it will never come back. I can no longer think about normal daily activities like cooking for my family, washing and dressing my children, having a cup of coffee with my neighbor, going out to visit family or friends, or spending private time in the room bath to wash and comb my hair. I know this has all become history and may never come back. I don’t want to remember the times when I smiled or laughed, because I know it’s behind me and it may never come back, I don’t want to remember the weddings and happy parties because it is painful to remember.
I try to focus on how to survive, finding food and water for my husband, who lost his leg, and for my three children.
I’m going to tell you how I live, I’m going to tell you the story of a day, a normal day in Gaza these days. In a tent made of plastic sheets, pieces of fabric and a few pieces of wood that hold together.
I wake up at dawn, walk 300 meters to the nearest school and take my place in a long line of women waiting to use the toilet (you don’t need to know how toilets used by hundreds of people every day smell and look terrible). I go back to wake my husband and help him use the hole we dug behind the tent with a broken plastic chair so he can use it as a toilet. I stay next to him while he does his work, holding my arm so it doesn’t fall. When he’s finished, I clean him with a dirty piece of cloth because there’s no toilet paper. I help him back into the tent or take his mattress out of the tent so he can set it up outside.
I wake up my children, I change their clothes, which are wet because they urinated while sleeping, I accompany them again to school to use the toilet, but this time we take the jerrycan with us and empty water bottles. The eldest carries the jerry can and the smaller ones carry the bottles. I wait until they have finished going to the toilet, walk them to the water fill point, make sure they are in the queue and leave them there to go to the bakery or someone who makes bread in the market. I can’t stay with the kids because it can take 2, 3, even 4 hours to get water. At the same time, I have to queue to get bread.
Back at the tent, sometimes my children arrived before me and sometimes I arrived before them. I take out the mattresses to put them outside in the sun, I clean the inside of the tent and I light a fire using what my children collected the day before, pieces of wood, paper, plastic, fabric, anything flammable. I open two cans of beans by heating them on the stove and put the beans in a bowl. We eat. This is our breakfast and our lunch.
Not far from the tent, my husband sits on his broken chair. In front of him is a box containing stacks of cans of beans that he is trying to sell to get some money. He receives 100 cans of beans from a merchant every day, we keep 6 to 8 for ourselves and he tries to sell the rest. At the end of the day, the merchant comes to collect his money, leaving 15% of the profit to my husband. We earn about 20 shekels ($4.50) a day and that should be enough for everything we need, there is no other resource.
Behind the tent, I take my children’s wet clothes, using a little water to wash them, without soap of course. I put them to dry under the tent. (Don’t ask me what I’ll do when it rains, because I don’t know what I’ll do then).
The hardest days are when I have my period, there are no sanitary napkins, or they are so expensive that we can’t afford them. Do you remember the piece of cloth I use to clean my husband after using the toilet? I then use a similar piece, which I wash and reuse. I’m happy that my daughters are still young and not going through this with me.
During the day, I check that my children are around me (how many children have gotten lost in the crowd?).
In the afternoon I gather my children inside the tent or outside, we sit together, we talk, we play and we study, yes, we study. I have a few school books that I use to help my children follow their education. I wanted to connect to the educational application of the Ministry of Education, but I don’t have a smart cell phone and I don’t have access to the internet.
We must collect wood, paper and cardboard for tomorrow’s fire.
There is also a charity kitchen that distributes hot meals from time to time, so whether I go there or send my son to get food, sometimes we get it, often we don’t. Thousands of people trying to get hot food, it’s like a battle, with no order, everyone trying to get close to the distribution point. I can’t get into such battles, pushing, beating, screaming.
What more can I tell you? That I cry on my mattress every night, cry and cry until I fall asleep?
I’ve stopped asking why this is happening to us, because it seems like no one has an answer. How many times have I thought about ending my life! How many times have I unwittingly walked near areas announced as dangerous by the Israeli army, perhaps in the hope of being killed? But I have young children, I can’t leave them, even death is not a choice for me, unless it comes by an unexpected or expected bomb.
French Jewish Union for Peace
