The Electronic Intifada 21 October 2024
Massive devastation stretches throughout Gaza, from this building in Deir al-Balah to the author’s destroyed factory in Gaza City.
APA imagesI am from northern Gaza City, from an area called Sheikh Radwan.
Growing up, my family was very poor. I had to leave school at a young age, around age 15, and enter the labor market to help support my family.
I worked at a sewing factory, and because of my young age, my salary was meager, barely enough for food and drink. Still, I hoped that I could learn some skills I could use later on and possibly make more money to give us a better life.
I worked at this factory until I was 20 years old. It was physically exhausting work, and often boring. My hope was to save enough money to start a factory of my own, but I wasn’t ready yet.
In the meantime, working with the factory owner, I sold goods at local markets. I made more money this way than as a laborer. For two years I did this until I had enough to start a factory of my own.
The factory owner told me that he would help me with anything I needed to be a success. This made me happy, especially since I had put so much effort into this and I was often worried and stressed.
I rented a building in Sheikh Radwan on al-Nasr street to sew women’s clothes and to distribute them locally.
I worked very hard. I purchased all the necessary equipment for my work in sewing and manufacturing Palestinian clothes. I went to the fabric merchants and prepared everything for my factory to be a success.
We finally opened, and all was going well.
My goals grew even bigger when I opened this factory. I wanted to save more money to get married and have children, to buy my parents a home, to buy homes for my siblings.
The first month I was able to cover the workers’ wages, the factory’s rent, the price of the merchants’ goods and my family’s expenses. It is true that my operation was not that big, but it made me happy to be doing this work and to receive so much support.
My factory ran for four years. With great effort, we made sales all over Gaza and increased our capacities.
I saved money to get married and to furnish my apartment in my parents’ home. I got married and by February 2023 my wife had given birth to a beautiful baby girl, Alma.
But Israel’s genocidal war launched in October 2023 had other ideas about what my life should be like.
Four days into the war, Israel bombed my factory, inventory and equipment in Sheikh Radwan. The building was entirely destroyed. One worker was killed.
My family and I were forcibly displaced from our home to southern Gaza, where we remain to this day. I thought that we would be returning home in a short while so I took only a little money with me and left the rest behind.
Our money was depleted in two months. My family shared a tent and we had to ask for others’ help to get us through winter and then summer.
I cannot make sense of the past year. Everyone who works hard in the world, is this our reward?
Who will rebuild my factory? Who will rebuild our home?
The circumstances in Gaza are miserable, and I do not know when joy and laughter will return to our lives. I do not know where we will go next or what will happen. Alma is almost two years old. Our lives are full of injustice and darkness, and the world is asleep.
Amjad Hamdouna lives in Gaza.
