In the corner of a small, silent room, the Palestinian citizen Reham Ishtiwi sits in her wheelchair, holding her nine-year-old daughter, Maryam—her only remaining connection to the world she once knew. Her tear-filled eyes speak of a pain too intense for words, and her heart, heavy with sorrow, beats with the agony of loss and helplessness.
The Beginning of Tragedy
Just a year ago, Riham, 30, was an ordinary woman living with her husband, Abdullah, 35, and their two children, Maryam, 9, and Anas, 6, in a modest home in the Asqula neighborhood of Gaza. Abdullah owned a small supermarket below their building, providing a decent life for his family despite the hardships. But on the morning of October 7, 2023, everything changed.
As the sounds of explosions echoed, Reham knew war had begun. She hurried her children out of their school uniforms and turned to the news, soon learning that clashes had erupted along the borders. As the days passed, the war intensified, and relentless Israeli airstrikes forced them to flee—first to shelter in schools, then to relatives’ homes, desperately seeking safety.
Endless Loss
But safety was an illusion. In January 2024, Reham received devastating news—her 24-year-old brother, Mohammed, had been killed by an Israeli airstrike while simply trying to buy flour.
Amid grief and fear, in May 2024, Israeli forces dropped evacuation leaflets over their neighborhood. Reham urged her husband to allow her and the children to join her parents, who had taken refuge at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza City, where her father worked as a guard. She had no idea that an even greater catastrophe awaited her.
At dawn on July 8, 2024, a commotion erupted outside the university doors. Her father, Saeed Hussein Khalil Ishtiwi, 55, assumed it was displaced families seeking entry. As he opened the door, Israeli soldiers stood before him. Without warning, they shot him and threw a grenade at her mother, Ibtisam Rafeeq Hussein Ishtaywi, 52.
In mere moments, Reham’s world collapsed again. Her father was killed instantly, and her mother suffered critical injuries, leaving her permanently blind. Amidst the chaos and terror, Reham and her siblings emerged, waving white flags, desperately trying to save their mother.
An ambulance rushed her mother to the hospital. Two days later, Reham’s 21-year-old brother, Ahmad, returned to the university to bury their father, only to discover another horror—his older brother, Hussein, 35, lay dead as well. He had attempted to bury their father but was mauled by stray dogs before being killed by an Israeli drone airstrike.
The Fatal Strike
Reham tried to cope with her grief and returned home with her husband and children. But the Israeli occupation had not finished with her.
On the night of November 7, 2024, while the family slept, an Israeli airstrike hit their home. A searing pain coursed through Reham’s body, and she barely heard Maryam calling out before everything faded to black.
She woke up in the hospital, between life and death—her body burned, her leg shattered, her back severely injured. Yet, the greatest agony was not her wounds, but the news her mother-in-law had: her husband Abdullah and her son Anas had been killed under the rubble.
Clutching her child’s lifeless body one last time, she wept in anguish, kissing him goodbye before he was torn from her arms forever. In a single moment, her entire world was reduced to ruins. All that remained was her young daughter, who had lost her father and brother and had witnessed the horror of her wounded mother slipping in and out of consciousness.
After nine days of treatment, Reham was discharged from the hospital, her body broken, her heart shattered. She had no home to return to, so she moved with Maryam to her family’s destroyed house, where a small room had been repaired for her.
Now, confined to a wheelchair, she depends on relatives for care, awaiting the chance to receive medical treatment abroad.
Reham is not just another number in the growing toll of war casualties. She is the living testimony of thousands of stories shaped by Israel’s war of extermination against Palestinian mothers. With her tears, her grief, and her resilience, she tells the tale of an entire people—slowly being erased, deprived of life, yet still clinging to hope against all odds.
