It's Ruba from Gaza

Today is the 25th of February and another month has just flown by. Here in Gaza we don’t realize that time is passing us by as things here continue to be the same, and then suddenly we look at the date and get a shock. The clock is still ticking for me and I continue to fight for my right to leave as soon as possible. I’ve done everything I possibly can in order to leave and now I’m leaving it to God, or in the hands of destiny or whatever you want to call it. I’m doing this because I’ve done all the formal procedures and everything within my capacity that I could do. I don’t know what to expect now - there are always delays and we are just waiting. We could be told we can leave at any moment. Meanwhile things are still happening here in Gaza.  The other day I went to visit my sister who now lives in a kindergarten. While I was there I learned that the Israelis had taken her neighbour’s son. I was sitting with my sister and someone outside was calling her in a trembling voice, unab...

Today is the 30th of January and one month of this year has already passed. One out of twelve. Sometimes I wonder if we are going to spend additional years counting down the days of this war. It’s not easy for me to tell the stories in this blog for two reasons: firstly reliving them is double the heartbreak, and secondly I recently made a decision to try and make the most of every moment and to try and be positive whatever the situation is. I did this for a couple of days but then the reality hit me, as if it was giving me a message that I shouldn’t go too far away from it.  I had been praying that it wouldn't rain this winter, because of all the displaced people living in tents. But when I heard that it was going to rain, I decided that I was going to try and enjoy it, and so I went for a walk that morning - something that I had been doing for a long time before the war and I miss it. After a very nice walk in which I finally felt the cold breeze on a rainy day on my face, I deci...

Today is the 13th of January and I know it’s been a while since I last communicated with you. I feel like there is nothing new to say - the same terrible difficult things keep happening over and over again. There are still bombings and explosions around us everywhere. Rafah is becoming extremely crowded. As each day passes more people come here. The ongoing attacks on the middle area of Gaza, on Al Nusairat, Al Maghazi and Al Bureij make it really hard for people to continue living there and they are still fleeing to Rafah. The original population of Rafah was around 280,000 people but now there are about 1.8 million people here . When I first came here it was easy to bump into other people who had come from Gaza City and the middle part of the Gaza Strip, but now since it’s so crowded you hardly ever see anyone you know. Now when I need to go out I keep my head down and just try and quickly finish up whatever I need to do and then head straight back home. This is firstly because of th...

Today is the 21st of December and this blog is going to be a hard one to read. I am warning you now that if you cannot listen to shocking, terrifying and disgusting details then this blog is not for you. Living through this war is like living through a horror movie and you will see why when you read these stories. Of course, nothing  is more dramatic and sad than being forced to flee your home, to move from one place to another and to end up being displaced. For me I came immediately to Rafah because I knew people here but that's not the case for everyone. There are people who left from Gaza City to Deir El Balah to a school, and then to Khan Younis and then to Rafah so they have had to flee 4 or 5 times. This war has made us be away from our homes for over two months now, forcing another family to host us, and there are others living in schools or in the streets or in tents. There’s nothing worse than not knowing where your relatives are or what they’re doing or even losing them -...

We have been having rough days, but before I talk about them I just want to address a comment I received about my blog. Someone in Gaza told me that it’s not a real reflection of how life is here and I want to make sure that I’m fully understood. The experiences I describe here are my own and I’m trying to find ways to preserve these memories for all the reasons I mentioned earlier. In case we have to flee, in case we get accused of abandoning our land and our country, just like what happened with our grandparents. I mean we have lived through this situation that has made me realize how hard it was for them - when they left they actually did something natural. We can’t even say that they ‘fled’ because they thought they were leaving for a couple of days and coming back, just like we thought too.  The diary entries here describe my life nowadays, and it’s changed dramatically since this war started. I am living with a host family and we supposedly have the ‘best’ situation amongst t...

Today we had a very sad ending to a long day because we learnt that the US vetoed the resolution at the UN Security Council calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Let’s go back and see what happened during the day. I woke up to the sound of loud and excited voices in the building and I wasn’t sure what was going on. It turned out that the host family were trying to make bread using a new method. We have what we call an Egyptian oven and it’s usually metallic used with gas. It’s made of two different layers – in the middle of the two layers there’s a fire that that goes below or above the food depending if you use the upper or lower layer – you can see it in the picture. This oven is not usually used for making bread but more for pastries, sweets and cookies,  however, because there are so many people staying in all three storeys of this building they decided to try it out and see if it could make some bread.          Instead of using gas they had to use a lot of ...

Today is the 21st of November and it’s Day 46 of the war. Since it started we have heard different types of weapons and bombs once, twice, thrice, four, five, six, ten, eleven or one hundred times a day. On some days we only hear one or two types of weapons but these have a much stronger impact than the other types which we hear more often.  In spite of this people continue to live their daily lives in Gaza. They wake up hearing the sound of bombs but they also wake up with the same thoughts that any normal person would have on their mind – things like ‘How are we going to get milk for our babies? How are we going to cook for our children? How are we going to make sure they have at least one proper meal today?’ If they manage to secure their basic needs then there is a sense of relief. This is what I want to discuss in my blog today.  Empty shelves in the supermarket in Rafah Even before discussing how we get our basic services I want to explain what I mean by basic services o...