CrossFireArabia
By Shaimaa Eid
Al-Mawasi was no refuge, just another stop in a long journey of suffering, where life is not truly lived, but merely endured.”
Once again, we were forced to leave northern Gaza under a relentless storm of shelling, fear, and destruction—beginning yet another displacement heavy with exhaustion and loss, this time toward Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis.
There, in the place the occupation claimed was “safe,” with access to water, medicine, and basic humanitarian needs, we found only land overwhelmed with displaced families, weary faces, and recurring pain. Al-Mawasi was no refuge, only another stop in a long journey of suffering, where life is not truly lived, but merely endured.
Our joy at touching the walls of our home again did not last long. It was the same home that had been struck by Israeli shells during the ceasefire. We returned carrying hope, trying with our tired hands and hearts to clear the rubble, to wipe the dust off memories, to bring back a trace of the home’s old heartbeat.
We believed that love would be enough to stay—that holding on to our home, even with all its wounds, was the least we could do. As a family, we made a promise: we would not leave, we would stay as long as we had breath in our bodies.
But the occupation, with its violence and arrogance, stripped us of even that right. And once again, we were left with nothing but the bitterness of forced departure.
In the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood, we were trapped under fire from quadcopter drones. They shelled and chased every movement, making it impossible to open the door or even glance through a window. We lived through endless nights of terror, listening to the constant buzzing above our heads, counting the seconds until the next missile would strike.
Then the occupation installed a crane-mounted sniper position to the east of the neighborhood, targeting anyone who moved through the streets. It felt as though they had surrounded us with a fence of fire, suffocating our lives, tightening the noose around us, and forcing us once more toward displacement.
The final days before our departure felt like the horrors of Judgment Day. Many of our neighbors received evacuation warnings, followed by devastating shells. The smell of gunpowder and smoke still lingers in my nose to this day, and I continue to struggle with breathing from the intensity of what we endured. We were cut off from water and food; markets were closed; even street stalls became targets for bombs dropped by planes at night. We had no choice but to flee southward to escape certain death.
The journey of displacement was harsh in every detail. My elderly parents, burdened by chronic illness, could not endure the long road. We carried their worries in our hearts before carrying them in our arms. Our trip from the north to the south took nearly six hours under a blazing sun, along the Rashid Road, which the occupation designated as the evacuation route.
On the way, we witnessed a scene that will never be erased from memory: a tent on the beach shelled right before our eyes, with bodies scattered across the sand. We were only meters away, yet that distance was enough to rob us of sleep forever. Even now, whenever I close my eyes, that scene returns to wake me.
After the exhausting journey, we arrived at the Khan Yunis displacement camp. The place was unbearably overcrowded. Services were scarce, far too few for everyone. People were forced to go down to the sea under the scorching sun to collect salty water, which led to the spread of skin diseases among both adults and children. Watching people fill bottles from the sea felt like a scene from an apocalyptic novel. Everything here is difficult: sleeping, eating, getting medicine—even finding a small patch of shade to rest beneath has become a challenge.
Today, we live in a whirlwind of anxiety and fear. Every day, we watch the news of new residential towers collapsing in Gaza. We go to sleep wondering: will our home still be standing, or will it too become rubble? My parents need ongoing medical care and medications that we cannot find.
I feel powerless and frustrated at my inability to secure their medicine, and at our family’s helplessness in the face of this relentless tragedy.
And yet, despite all this, there is an inner voice that refuses to give in. It whispers to me that Gaza will endure, and that one day we will return to the north to rebuild, stone by stone, raising our homes again with our own hands. That voice tells me this land will remain free and proud, no matter how long the destruction lasts, and that all this pain is but a chapter in the story of resilience.
Gaza is bleeding today, but it will not break. The Gaza I bid farewell to—with hope of return—will always remain in my heart a symbol of dignity and pride, until every displaced person comes home, every child returns to school, and every family reunites with its memories.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Shaimaa Eid is a Gaza-based writer. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.
