Samah ‘Ashour, a Lawyer at PCHR’s Women’s Unit, mother of one daughter, and a resident of Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza City.

My suffering began on the first day of the Israeli war on Gaza on 07 October 2023, when the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) bombed a building opposite my home in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in Gaza. I was at home with my daughter, while my husband was at work. I heard the sound of glass shattering, windows flying out of their frames, and doors being blown away and broken due to the intensity of the bombing. I held my daughter close, and we stayed still until the sounds of breaking glass and doors stopped. Thankfully, we survived; otherwise, we would have been counted among the dead. We left home quickly, having nothing but our clothes on. Out of fear for my daughter, I sat with all the other residents in the stair spandrel. There were children who sustained various wounds caused by the flying windows and doors. It was terrifying, with children screaming. We were afraid that IOF would bomb the building again if we attempted to leave immediately. We waited for 15 minutes, and when people started to gather around the incident scene, we decided to leave, only to find out that the bombing killed and injured many passersby. I could not take anything from my home because of my overwhelming fear for my daughter and myself. I rushed to my family’s home in western Gaza City and stayed there for a week. The explosions were deafening, and after the water supply was cut off and it became difficult to obtain water, as those who sell drinking water were afraid to move around during the war for fear of being bombed, my husband and I moved to our new home near my family’s house because there was water available there, as my family had managed to obtain some water from a nearby well, though there were also difficulties due to the occasional lack of diesel to run the generator.

I went to our home, which we had it furnished and were supposed to move in on 15 October 2023, but due to the outbreak of war, we could not transfer our household belongings. We stayed there for a few days until a neighbor called to inform us that we needed to leave because the IOF had contacted him to warn the residents of the Doha building, about 100 meters from our house, and the surrounding area to evacuate immediately intending to bomb it. We left the house at 22:00, engulfed with fear, with no electricity and only the sounds of drones and warplanes amid people screams and children cries in terror. We all went to my uncle’s house at night, and the entire building was bombed at 01:00. The next day, the bombing in the area intensified, filling the sky with black smoke, and many homes were bombed without prior warning, killing and injuring many people. The streets were completely empty, with an overwhelming sense of fear, especially in the evening when time passed agonizingly slowly. All we could hear were drones and warplanes, and the fear was compounded by the flares the Israeli army would launch turning night into daylight.

On the afternoon of Wednesday, 18 October 2023, a day I will never forget, I was sitting at home with my daughter and husband in one room. Suddenly, without warning or hearing the sound of a missile, glass started falling on us, doors flew open, and black smoke filled the place. We could not even breathe, and my husband was injured in his shoulder, while my daughter and I were hit by shrapnel in our legs. We called out to each other and checked on our daughter because she had not uttered a word out of shock; we wanted to make sure she was still alive. We were treated in a neighboring house after neighbors came to pull us out from under the remains of our destroyed home. At that moment, I could not think straight; I had no idea what had happened outside. It turned out that the IOF had launched an F-16 missile at an agricultural land and an annex to a residential house near mine without prior warning. As a result, my home and my husband’s car were destroyed, but thank God we survived. My car was also destroyed later when the IOF bombed Al-Fayrouz building. After seeing the destruction of our new home, I cried my heart out of anguish for the years of hard work my husband and I had put in to provide a decent life and secure a future for our daughter. Every time I look at my daughter, I thank God we are okay, and that we are all alive, safe and sound as none of us had sustained a severe injury like having a limb amputated or whatsoever.

After leaving our home, we returned to my family’s house. By evening, the Israeli army had called my neighbor and told them to evacuate the area immediately intending to bomb a building next to my family’s home. At that moment, we all felt utterly helpless, unable to do anything. My father is an elderly man who cannot walk long distances, and he refused to leave the house. We all wondered where we would go at night. My husband, daughter, and I were unable to move due to our injuries. My husband, with difficulty, managed to carry our daughter and hold her close. At that moment, we heard nearby explosions, and we left the house without knowing where to go, and there was no safe place nearby to seek refuge. Fear, panic, and sorrow were consuming us, and we prayed God not to endure more losses. We split into groups, with each group heading to a place relatively far from the targeted area. However, the IOF did not bomb the threatened building but instead launched a fire belt (many heavy airstrikes) in the area where we had sought refuge from the bombing. The fire belt was very close to the place we sheltered, and they bombed an agricultural nursery and Abu ‘Ateiwi, Al-Khodari, and Saqallah buildings. We recited Al-Shahada, believing that death was so close and inevitable. I hugged my daughter tight and cried, not knowing what to cry about: my father, who cannot walk long distances and had to hold onto my siblings’ hands to move? The children’s cries? My injured husband? Or the people’s pleas for help, while we were helpless to help them because of the nonstop bombing? Or the house we were in that got destroyed as a result of the intense bombing?

The bombing stopped for a few minutes, my brother and a group of young men managed to pull an injured girl from the targeted place and bring her to the house where we were staying. We heard the girl’s cries for help, and we cried for her and prayed for her. But as soon as they returned to the scene to rescue the remaining survivors, the IOF targeted them with another missile, and my brother was seriously injured. No one could inform my father or mother about my brother’s injury at that moment. We all left the building when the bombing somehow stopped, reciting Al-Shahada again as the bombing resumed while we were leaving the house we had sought refuge in. At 22:00, men, women, and children, we all headed to our family Mukhtar’s building. All the young men and elderly, totaling 50, slept in the building’s hallways and stairs without blankets or mattresses, lying on the ground from sheer exhaustion. while the women and children, about 70, stayed in an apartment in that building. As we moved from one place to another, the only thought we had was how to make it out alive. It was a night I could never forget, filled with fear for my daughter, husband, and entire family. I was afraid I would die or lose any of them, and I prayed to God in that moment that if our end had come, we would all die together so we would not have to mourn each other. When we called the ambulance to come, they told us they could not move without the IOF’s permission because the area was dangerous and could be bombed again. That night was horrifying in every sense of the word, and by early morning, we learned that there were people killed in the area. May God rest their souls in peace.

Afterwards, we went to a relative’s house and stayed there for about a week. It was difficult to obtain food and water, and our situation was dire due to the constant fear and lack of security as the bombing continued nonstop. My daughter could not sleep at all, and when she would finally fall asleep, she would wake up terrified and crying from fear, and I felt so helpless in the face of this situation. There was nothing I could do, in addition to my fear for all my family members, especially my elderly parents, for whom we could not secure medications for their blood pressure, diabetes, and rheumatism, putting them in extreme danger as they could not keep moving from one place to another due to their age. After that, we returned to my father’s residential building. As the bombing intensified everywhere, we did not know where the bombing was happening; all we could see was black smoke filling the area, and we could not breathe due to the strong smell of gunpowder. We did not know where exactly the bombing was All of us, along with the other residents of the building, left, while my husband, daughter, and I headed directly to southern Gaza Valley, wearing our summer clothes, taking nothing with us. Throughout the whole time in Gaza, I suffered greatly from unsafety and insecurity, so we decided to flee to the areas the IOF designated as “safe”. But in fact, they were not safe at all. On 29 October 2023, we were displaced to Deir al-Balah, pained by the separation from my family, home, and beloved Gaza city, thinking I would be safe. But the real suffering began when we were trying to secure a shelter with some strangers, which was the only available option due to the overcrowding of displaced people. Then, I started the journey of looking for a mattress and blankets for my daughter, which was difficult because these items were scarce, as our displacement was too late, and winter was upcoming. My only concern at that moment was to secure clothes for my daughter, as we had fled with only our light clothes. In addition to the constant fear and anxiety about my family members, we could not keep in touch because of the communications blackouts. I suffered from insomnia, constant anxiety, and fear due to this war and its consequences on my life and my family’s lives, as well as my fear of the vague future. Later, I learned that IOF had destroyed the entire area, bulldozed my father and uncles’ land, burned my uncle’s house, and destroyed Al-Fayrouz building and my brothers’ home. I also saw pictures of my house, destroyed by the bombing, with the army leveling it to the ground when they announced the start of their ground military operation. They reached it, bulldozed the outer fence on all four sides, demolished all the walls, and destroyed some of the house’s columns. There are still many untold chapters in my story of displacement because I am still displaced.