The Electronic Intifada 4 April 2024
People mourn as they receive the dead bodies of victims of an Israeli strike in Rafah, Gaza, 1 April 2024. (Ahmed Ibrahim / APA Images)
My name is Asmaa Habib, and I am a pharmacist from Gaza.
I am a mother of three children. We’ve been forcibly displaced six times since October 2023. Everywhere we go we are notified that we must evacuate.
Being displaced from one place to the next means death. The Israeli army shoots at us, and we see dead bodies along the roads.
Our home in Gaza City was severely damaged by an Israeli attack. Right now we are in Rafah with my brother’s family, living in a tent.
We are disconnected and isolated from the outside world. We suffer every minute and struggle to access the most basic needs. Communications are so limited that I could barely send off this story.
My children and nephews suffer from gastroenteritis and other illnesses from the contaminated water that we are forced to drink and the toxic gases left in the air from Israeli bombs.
There is no food in the markets. We miss our normal life. My daughter Tolay goes out every morning to look for food in the markets and water from people who have wells.
I have to feed my children, but it is becoming harder and harder. We cannot bear or accept this situation.
We are tired of the continuous bombardment, of not being able to sleep, of water contamination, of diseases, of lack of hygiene and, above all, of worry about the future.
We don’t know what is happening in Gaza City where our houses were severely damaged. We don’t know what is happening with the ground invasion. We don’t know if we will be able to return one day.
The other morning I woke up to the dinging of my mobile phone telling me there was a food voucher to be picked up at an UNRWA school.
I wore the same clothes I’ve been wearing for the past five months. They are soiled and worn-out.
I stood in a line of hundreds of women at the school for my voucher, hoping that the UN agency for Palestine refugees would be able to provide some relief for my family’s hunger.
After five hours I received the voucher. It was for two eggs. I cried and asked the aid worker what I was supposed to do with two eggs. We hadn’t seen eggs in five months, but two eggs would not be enough to feed my daughters.
I was heartbroken, and I returned to our tent in despair. Along the way I met my aunt, who is 70 years old. She was in a miserable state. Israel had killed her husband and two of her children.
I gave her one of my eggs.
At the tent, we divided the egg into portions for us to share. But this egg was for tasting only, not for eating.
We went to sleep hoping that tomorrow we could get enough food to satisfy our hunger.
We are being forced out of Gaza. We want so badly to find a safe place to be, and we want to cross the border to Egypt.
We hear that each permit to cross the border is $5,000 per person. For our small family this would be $35,000.
I really have no hope for the future. Every day we lose our relatives, our friends and neighbors in Israeli attacks.
I only want to get my family out of this genocide, to give them a chance to escape death.
Asmaa Habib lives in Gaza.
