The walls of a nylon tent are very thin.

Our neighbors were just a meter away, though it felt like they were even closer. The tents were so tightly packed into the Yarmouk stadium in Gaza City that I heard every sound as if there were no barrier at all.

One evening, it would be a neighbor bathing. I could hear the buckets being filled, the water splashing, even the zippers being zipped.

In the next moment it was an argument or a conversation – most often about food.

“This is my share – don’t pretend you didn’t take extra yesterday!”

“We waited in line for hours, and now there’s nothing left for my children – how is that fair?”

People’s lives were unfolding right beside me with only a thin piece of fabric between us, barely enough to divide space, let alone protect dignity.

From tent to tent, our different noises blended into each other, but each sound was distinct – even silence.

Just as I could hear every detail of their lives, they could hear mine. Neighbors knew when my husband and I whispered to each other, when the baby woke up crying. They knew if we had managed to get food that day, and if we hadn’t.

Even outside the tent, my life was exposed in a way I’d never experienced before, with comments on my clothes or other matters. No emotion could be had in private. Our lives were open books, unwillingly read by everyone around us.

Personal space no longer existed.

Field of humiliation

My husband, 6-year-old daughter, infant son and I lived in a tent at Yarmouk stadium from July to December 2024.

Before the war, the stadium was the site of soccer games. Then Israel used the stadium in late 2023 to detain, interrogate and torture men.

We set up our tent – a few plastic sheets and pieces of nylon stretched over wooden poles – in the heat of summer 2024.

The ground beneath was sand and dirt, which turned to mud when it rained.

There was no insulation from the heat during the day or the cold at night. The plastic made it unbearably hot when the sun was out, and at night it offered no protection from the biting chill.

We had no partitions inside, just a few thin mattresses laid directly on the ground, shared by the whole family. The flap we tried to close with a piece of cloth and rope served as the door to our tent.

We had no bathroom, no running water and no electricity. Only a single shared lightbulb was outside the tent, powered by a generator that rarely had enough gasoline to work for long.

In the tent, there was no such thing as “me.” It was a space for survival and nothing else.

At night my children would ask, “Why are people always yelling?” How could I explain to them that real walls are not just made of bricks, they’re made of privacy – of dignity?

Breastfeeding my child at the time was a suffocating task – physically and psychologically.

I had to cover myself entirely with whatever large swath of fabric I could find, even in the unbearable heat, just to provide some measure of privacy.

I constantly feared being seen. I felt helpless not being able to give my child the comfort he deserved.

The value of a door

Before the war, I lived with my in-laws for five years. Though they were kind, it was a great relief when my husband and I moved into our home in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza in April 2023.

It was, for me, the embodiment of peace: a room with a door I could close when I wished; a kitchen to cook any meal I wanted; a space adorned according to my taste and preferences.

In May 2024, we were forced to evacuate to a relative’s house in the al-Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, where 15 of us were crammed into a room that would comfortably fit four.

There, the psychological war began. I couldn’t change my clothes without asking everyone to look away, as if my body was no longer my own.

I couldn’t cry when I needed to cry – there was simply no space for sadness.

I would escape to the bathroom to sit in silence for a few minutes.

But knocks on the door would come immediately: “Hurry up! It’s my turn!”

Even my silence had no place.

I thought that overcrowded room was the worst it could get.

But in July 2024 at around 4 am, that very house was shelled while we were inside. We rushed to the basement and stayed there until around 7 am.

When the situation calmed down slightly, we were able to leave. It was a terrifying night, and we left with nothing on our backs.

We fled again, and that is when we moved to the tent at Yarmouk stadium.

One night, the suffocation inside the tent was unbearable. I needed a minute alone.

I walked out into the dark, sat behind a piece of rubble and cried.

As I was on my way back to the tent, my neighbor asked gently, “Are you OK? I heard you.”

A brief return home

We returned home in late January 2025 during the ceasefire.

The walls of our home were falling down. The house had been burned and the tiles were cracked. We tried to make it somewhat livable by covering the open areas with plastic sheets.

I was finally able to cook the meals my children had longed for during the war – those dishes they once whispered about in the tent and I would have to ask them to be quiet so others wouldn’t hear the names of those dishes and feel their pain.

But we did not stay long in the north. Israel began their attacks again and invaded.

We are now in the al-Nasr neighborhood of Gaza City living with my husband’s family. My husband, my two children and I live in a storage area – no door, just a curtain at the entrance. Since the storage area itself is divided up into many areas, we use blankets as partitions.

I think about our old home often, where I had a room and my children had rooms.

Having a room might sound an ordinary privilege to most people, but this war has taught us the precious value of basic necessities.

I have no strength left and no patience for the utter lack of privacy.

I am just a woman who wants to close a door behind her and a space to be alone to cry in. I want to be “me” again.

Anonymous is a writer in Gaza.

Tags

• Gaza genocide
• Yarmouk stadium
• Beit Lahiya

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