Dunya is holding a photograph. Seven smiling faces look again at her, a snapshot of the lives of buddies who labored and socialised with one another.
She is in the course of the image, beaming. Now, her smile has gone. This picture was taken simply over a yr in the past, at a celebration in direction of the top of September 2023. Simply days earlier than the world modified.
The seven girls all labored on the nursing workers at al Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis, the largest medical complicated in Gaza but additionally a website suspected by Israel of housing a Hamas command centre. When the struggle began, al Shifa was attacked.
Two of the ladies within the picture are lifeless.
Rawan Abu Zbeidah, who’s second from the left, sporting a black headdress, was killed on 11 November, together with members of her household. She was pregnant. Anwaar Yassin, who’s third from the precise, was killed at the beginning of December, alongside along with her husband and kids, in Nuseirat, central Gaza.
All the opposite girls within the {photograph} have been displaced and dispersed.
“That final time we gathered collectively was a candy day,” Dunya says. “It was stunning. Per week earlier than 7 October. We by no means imagined it could be our final. All that is left now are the photographs we’ve got collectively, our reminiscences. Our lives simply disappeared.”
Dunya fled Gaza Metropolis and now works additional south at a hospital in Deir al Balah.
“Presently we’re scattered elsewhere,” she says of her buddies who’re nonetheless alive. “Certainly one of us is within the north, there is no method for me to succeed in her. She will be able to’t come right here, I am unable to go there.
“Just a few of them are displaced within the south. We strive our greatest to communicate. We attempt to see one another if it is doable. We get on video calls, we attempt to keep as shut as doable.”
‘We will not convey ourselves to just accept this actuality of dropping her’
Houssam’s daughter, Dareen (pictured under) was killed in an airstrike
Gaza is a spot of ruined buildings and shattered lives.
In Gaza Metropolis, Houssam is sheltering within the ruined construction of Abdallah Al Dayhan College, the place his younger daughter, Dareen, used to check. The varsity has been battered, nevertheless it’s nonetheless nearly standing, nearly protected.
Dareen fled to the south within the early phases of the struggle, assured the town of Khan Younis could be safer. As a substitute, she was killed, together with 4 of her family members, in an Israeli air strike.
Houssam, who stayed in Gaza Metropolis together with Dareen’s brothers, is haunted, his eyes hole.
“Dareen was like some other teenager,” he says. “She was protected and he or she had ambitions. She dreamed of graduating to turn out to be a health care provider. We will not convey ourselves to just accept this actuality of dropping her. We needed to be there for her.”
Learn extra:Timeline of a yr of warThe 97 hostages who have not returned
Roula continues to show in Gaza, regardless of dropping her house
Not far-off, Dareen’s former trainer, Roula, additionally shelters. She used to dwell throughout the highway, however her house was blown up.
“It is a problem for college students who wish to be taught,” she says. “I misplaced lots. I misplaced my house, my household. A few of my college students who’re very pricey to me.”
She nonetheless teaches native youngsters and tries to protect a way of normality.
However tips on how to be regular when the world outdoors is rubble?
“There isn’t a protected area for college students,” she says. “Faculties have been focused however we’ve got no alternative however to hold on educating, regardless of being in a continuing sense of concern. That is no setting for studying – we’ve got no chairs, no tables, no whiteboard. No classroom.”
A yr on from the Hamas assaults on 7 October and the outbreak of struggle, Gaza is a shellshocked place stuffed with shellshocked folks – a land of ruined buildings and wrecked lives.
