In Gaza, we never know whether we were speaking to someone who would survive… or to someone we were unknowingly saying goodbye to.
In the early days of the war, specifically when we were forced to flee from western Jabalia to the east, the bombing was beyond anything the human mind could comprehend.
There was no clear front line, and nowhere that could truly be called safe.
Homes were being bombed on top of the people living inside them.
We would sit inside houses knowing that, at any moment, the walls around us could collapse and become rubble over our heads. We would hear the explosions, feel the ground shake, and then look at each other in silence.
The question was always:
Would this be the next house?
In the area where we had fled, there were many homes that had been bombed on top of their occupants. Some were reduced to piles of concrete and rubble, while family members remained trapped underneath, and we had no way of knowing whether they were alive or dead.
Then something happened that I will never forget.
There was a house that had just been bombed.
Civil defense teams tried to reach the people inside and remove the rubble, but they couldn’t. They didn’t have the necessary equipment, and the bombing was intense and continuous. Even reaching the site was dangerous.
But beneath that rubble, someone was still alive.
He was a friend of my cousin.
I had never known him before.
I had never even seen him.
But I could hear him.
He was still alive.
He was talking to us from beneath tons of rubble.
He was crying.
And he was asking for water.
Imagine being trapped beneath a house that has collapsed on top of you, unable to move your body or escape, while knowing that the people standing above you cannot save you.
All they can do is hear you.
Hear your fear.
And try to keep you alive.
My cousin and I went looking for an IV tube so we could get water to him.
We didn’t have what was needed to rescue him.
We had no equipment to lift the rubble.
We had no heavy machinery.
We had nothing but our hands, a small tube, and a desperate determination not to leave a human being to die alone.
We would pass the tube through small openings in the rubble, trying to lower it until it reached his mouth.
Then we would give him water.
It wasn’t rescue in the way we understand rescue.
It was simply a tiny attempt to resist death.
We knew we were helpless.
And he knew we were helpless.
Yet we kept coming back to him.
Day after day.
He was trapped beneath the rubble while his entire family had been killed around him.
He could smell them.
He knew they were beside him.
He was living among the dead, trapped in a place he could not escape.
Two days.
Two entire days beneath the rubble.
Two days of fear, thirst, pain, and loneliness.
Two days waiting for someone to come and save him.
Two days hearing our voices, talking to us, and asking for water.
I wished I could have done more.
I wished I could have lifted the rubble with my bare hands.
I wished I could have pulled him out.
I wished I could have told him, “You’re going to be okay. It’s all over.”
But I couldn’t.
We simply didn’t have the ability to do it.
And on the third day, we went back to him.
But this time…
We didn’t hear his voice.
He didn’t answer us.
He was gone.
He had been killed. 💔
I don’t know how to describe what I felt in that moment.
I didn’t know him.
I had never even seen him.
But I cried.
I cried bitterly.
I cried because I knew he had been alive.
I had heard his voice.
I had spoken to him.
I had given him water.
And then he was gone.
What hurts me the most, even today, is the feeling that I couldn’t help him.
All we had was water.
All we could do was pass the tube through openings in the roof until it reached his head, allowing him to drink.
We tried to tell him, in whatever way we could:
“We’re here… you’re not alone.”
But the truth was that we were helpless.
And that moment still lives inside me.
Sometimes I wonder:
How many people experienced the same thing?
How many people remained beneath the rubble calling for help?
How many were still alive, waiting for someone to hear them?
And how many could have been saved if the necessary equipment had been available?
I don’t have the answers.
But I know one thing.
That man did not die from my memory.
Even though I never knew his name and never saw him, his voice stayed with me.
The voice of a man who wanted something so simple:
Water.
And in war, even the simplest things can become a dream.
Water.
Safety.
A way out from beneath the rubble.
To hear someone say to you, “Don’t be afraid.”
But for that man, rescue never came.
Only the water reached him.
Then death came.
What the Rubble Cannot Bury
There are things that cannot be buried beneath rubble.
Voices cannot be buried.
Memories cannot be buried.
And the questions that remain inside the minds of those who lived through these moments cannot be buried either.
I am not telling this story because I have enough words to describe it.
In truth, I don’t believe words can ever fully describe what we saw.
I am writing because there are people who lived and died without the world ever knowing their stories.
And sometimes, the only thing we can do for those we lost is to tell their stories.
To say that they were here.
To say that they were alive.
To say that they asked for water.
And to say that someone heard them.
I could hear him beneath the rubble.
And that is something I will never forget. 💔
This just breaks my heart.
I am crying and that doesn’t come to me easily. Thank you for this memory to describe the horror so we can understand how awful and horrorable people go through in these times of war!!