In Gaza… Survival Alone Is a Battle
When War Tests You… You Discover Who You Truly Are
I am writing this article separately from everything I usually post, because some experiences should never remain trapped inside memory. There are moments in war that completely change you, moments that make you see people, life, and even yourself differently. I am not sharing this story to blame anyone or justify anyone’s actions, but because what I lived through may one day happen to someone else too, and perhaps my experience could help them survive.
At the beginning of the war, we were displaced to southern Gaza, specifically to Khan Younis. We ended up staying in a school on Salah al-Din Street, just like thousands of other families searching for nothing more than safety from bombing and death.
In the middle of that fear, some of our relatives called us and said they also wanted to come to the south and needed a place to stay. My father immediately replied, “Come. I will find you a good place.”
They arrived and stayed with us, and despite the fear surrounding us, their presence brought some comfort. We tried to support one another emotionally, sharing fear, hunger, and uncertainty while convincing ourselves that maybe tomorrow would somehow be better.
But war never gives anyone enough time to feel safe.
Israeli forces gradually advanced deeper into Khan Younis until we were almost completely surrounded. We wanted to leave, but where could we go? Every road felt dangerous, every destination uncertain, and every decision felt like it could be our last.
We delayed leaving… and perhaps that was our biggest mistake.
The next morning, we woke up to a terrifying reality: the school had been completely surrounded.
Amid the panic and chaos, we discovered that our relatives had already left without informing us, without taking us with them, and without even remembering us, as if we did not exist at all.
I will not lie… I kept asking myself: why? Why didn’t they tell us? Why didn’t they take us with them?
Even today, I still do not know the answer.
Despite everything, I do not blame them.
In moments of war, people think only with their deepest instinct: “How do I save my family?”
It is a painful truth, but it is still the truth. When death feels this close, everything changes, and fear sometimes becomes stronger than relationships.
It may seem selfish, but in war, survival instinct takes control of everything.
Hours later, Israeli forces stormed the school violently. Explosions, heavy gunfire, and quadcopter drones hovered above us in terrifying ways.
Then everything fell apart.
They took my father.
I cannot fully describe that moment because some pain is too heavy for words. But I still remember the feeling of helplessness, as if my entire world had collapsed in a single moment.
As my family and I made our way toward Rafah — or toward the unknown, because I did not even know the city — I made one of the hardest decisions of my life.
I decided to separate ourselves from our relatives and live independently, just as we once had before the war.
That decision may seem strange to some people, but for me, it became the beginning of a completely new journey. I felt as though I had been born again, as if the war had forced me to grow up overnight.
From that moment on, everything changed. I became more dependent on myself, I started seeing life differently, and I began understanding people and reality in ways I never had before.
And today, after everything that happened, I know that decision changed the course of my life.
And I do not regret it.
War does not only reveal destruction and death… war reveals people.
It reveals their fear, weakness, love, selfishness, and humanity too.
Sometimes life forces you into painful decisions where you do not know whether you are right or wrong, but you make them anyway because survival becomes the only thing that matters.
I am not writing this article to attack anyone. I am writing it to say one thing only:
When you live through war, you realize that staying alive alone can become an entire battle.
You are doing an amazing job keeping your family together in such horrible circumstances.
Netanyahu is a war criminal