Inside a tattered tent west of Gaza City, Umm Ali al-Saba’i tries to give her three children what little sense of security they have left after her husband was killed in the early weeks of the genocidal war waged by Israeli occupation forces on the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023.
The young mother sits on a thin mattress, watching her children share a meager meal they obtained after hours of waiting in front of the charity kitchen. Meanwhile, she tries to alleviate the pain of kidney stones she developed due to dehydration, as she is afraid to go to the bathroom at night, which is far from her tent.
Al-Saba’i says, “Sometimes I stand for hours to get a gallon of water or a plate of food, and my son sells some of the pastries I make so we can buy basic necessities that aren’t enough for anything.” Al-Saba’i’s situation is reminiscent of the first refugee crises our people experienced in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of citizens were forced to leave their homes and villages under the weight of massacres and displacement. However, the citizens of Gaza today are not only commemorating the Nakba as a historical memory, but are living it as a daily reality that is repeated before their eyes, amidst bombing, displacement, hunger, and tents.
