'The truth about my life as a young woman living in Gaza.'

I've always felt like a little girl, a child. I entered university, graduated, and started working, yet people still told me I acted like a child. I've heard it so many times. Maybe it's the way I talk — too much energy, too much excitement. Or maybe it's how I rush into things when I'm determined to do something. Or maybe it's because I was not responsible for serious things. 

But after six months of "war", I looked inward. I realised I've grown. This "war" aged me. It stole from me that joy of acting like a child and that too much energy to do something. It taught me about life, people, and pain in ways I never imagined. It made me live beyond my years and I found myself becoming a young woman; I'm no longer a little girl. 

There's a well-known Arabic verse that says: "If youth could return for a day, I'd tell it what old age has done."

In Gaza, that verse has turned into dark humour, into sarcasm, because we do believe that being young has brought us more suffering than growing old ever could. Our youth is not growing here; it's just fading before it lives.

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It seems even youth can't bear this much agony and grief. Even youth decides to leave this dark reality: bearing so much fear, so much grief, losing so many beloved, having to evacuate so many times, cooking over fire, searching for canned food, clean water, and some internet connection. A youth shouldn't bear all of this and shouldn't find herself stuck between her passion and the dream she was trying to accomplish and her responsibility as part of a family who is trying to survive a genocide.

I've become a young, aware woman. I won't deny that a part of me is still holding tight to the girl I used to be—the girl who laughed more, who was full of joy, who carried boundless energy and passion. That spark is still in me. I still feel the energy, still laugh sometimes, still try to bring lightness into the heaviness. But now, the weight of responsibility has grown.

I'm the eldest daughter in a family of nine. All my siblings are younger than me. Most of them are still students, in school or at university. As the eldest daughter and sister, I feel even more responsible. I try to ease the burden where I can, to help however I'm able.

I graduated top of my class in university, studying what I loved most, English literature. Even though I had always excelled in science and math, I chose to study literature. For many, anyone who scores high in these subjects is expected to study medicine or engineering but I chose differently. Despite my high grades in high school, I followed my passion. I studied literature because I knew it would feed my soul.

But it didn't. 

I discovered that what I studied makes me a person who touches this grief more deeply, more sensitively. It makes me a person who is more responsible for writing and telling. This is a specific kind of grief. Writing in Gaza and about your life in Gaza is a specific kind of grief. 

Yet, I still try to capture and pour my heart out writing about my suffering as a civilian living under this genocide. 

I studied, graduated, and spent four years trying to find my path. I took courses, applied to many jobs. Then, I got accepted as a translator and writer, and even got selected to be a part-time lecturer at a college. But still, something inside me didn't quite feel like I had grown up yet. Even when I'd go to review student grades, or visit the college or bank, people would mistake me for a student — not a lecturer. And I'd just laugh.

Two of my birthdays passed during the "war". The first was the heaviest, just one day after my grandfather passed away. I couldn't even bring myself to whisper "happy birthday" to myself. I was overwhelmed, crying silently, and trying to calm my mother. I didn't feel okay, and it didn't feel like I had just grown one year older; it felt like I'd grown ages. 

I used to be focused on my studies, my work, enjoying life, going out with my family, and watching a movie or series. My friends and I would challenge each other to finish studying quickly so we could catch breakfast together. These were my biggest responsibilities.

Then, during the "war", I learned how to wash clothes by hand. I had to memorize the water schedule, when it would come, so we could fill the pails. If we missed it, there would be no way to wash. I learned how to cook over fire. By the way, cooking used to be one of my favorite hobbies. Before the "war", I loved making desserts and preparing dishes, and I was the go-to person for birthday parties. 

But during the "war", cooking became one of the things I hated to do. I knew that no matter how much effort and time I poured into a meal, it would all end in a single plate filled with canned food, lentils, or plain rice.

Still, I learned. I figured out that if you wrap plastic around wood, the fire catches faster — and not all wood burns equally; some types are better than others. Later, when wood became scarce, we started burning plastic instead. The amount of smoke and dust was deadly.

As a young woman living under this "war" in Gaza, I grew up fast. I realised that life isn't just laughter and joy. It's full of difficult moments you have to bear. And I learned how.

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The responsibilities didn't stop there.

My work was on hold for nearly a year due to the total internet blackout in Gaza and the constant displacement we were forced into. Eventually, a few internet spots started selling hourly access which was so expensive yet unstable. My father and I would go to these places just so I could contact my colleagues and send recorded lectures to my students or the translated files I finished. 

We'd walk through corridors of Al-Shifa Hospital, passing hundreds of wounded, martyrs, and displaced families lying on the floor, with no place else to go. Outside, makeshift markets filled the hospital courtyard; people were selling whatever they could just to feed their displaced families. The hospital had turned into a shelter, and even a market.

I'd see all this, my heart breaking, hardly holding my tears because I had to follow up with my work. Once we reached the rooftop of Al-Shifa, it was crowded and chaotic, and finding someone who could give you a working internet card was a tragedy in itself and even then, the connection barely held. 

When I finally got a slightly better internet connection at home, the house I was sheltering in, I tried giving online lectures from there, but each one got interrupted at least three times. The disconnection became part of the lecture. A 50-minute lecture became a series of stops and starts. And I'd find myself apologising more than giving the class itself. Being a teacher in a war zone adds to the responsibility and teaches me how to adapt to chaos, hoping this chaos will end soon.

Despite it all, I kept going. I kept trying. And I'm grateful to the people I worked with who were always understanding. I translated whatever I could, whenever the internet allowed, and I didn't let my dreams stop there.

I began writing because writing is part of my passion. I wrote about my life, my personal experience, my grandfather whom we lost without a farewell, and about the horror of displacement, the way we ran under the shelling and destruction. I published my writing on websites and even participated online in some event abroad.

Right now, I'm part of a zine project (a type of digital magazine or article). And I won the best zine category at the Wellington Zinefest in 2025, NZ. People would get the zine and pay directly through my fundraising campaign to help support me and my family. 

I'm not an exception; many women like me are starting their projects. Most sell their work here in Gaza, since many don't have access to international connections. Women make desserts, cookies, bread, and pastries, and send their kids or husbands to sell them. Even young girls are creating handmade bracelets and selling them. This is our Gaza-style resilience. 

To witness what's happening in Gaza is enough to break a person, so imagine witnessing it as a woman. That's a different kind of weight. Women, by nature, are more emotional, more sensitive, and more affected. And yet, even here, women are trying to carry on, to survive, to keep working and holding on to their dignity.

All my sisters are still pushing through their online studies, despite the endless internet difficulties and despite how hard it is to focus under these conditions. My mother keeps doing her best to stay connected with her students while also managing the house: cooking, making bread, doing laundry, with our help whenever we can. My younger sister Doa'a is the most loving cooking in my family, despite the fire and the dust it makes, she still sits for hours to cook for us.

I think this "war" has pushed me to write more, to tell the world what's happening, to scream through my words. Most of my students are from abroad, and they love hearing my stories, reading what I write.

Even so, we keep dreaming, we keep trying, even when we know that tomorrow, or even today, everything might be lost.

Feature image: Supplied.