Messages from life under bombardment – Straight from the heart of Gaza (4)

Find all of Rola’s stories here.

Good morning if it’s morning where you are. Good evening if it’s night.

For us in Gaza there’s no difference between morning and night.
Death is continuous, 24 hours a day, in all five governorates.
The genocide has been ongoing for 210 days.

Speaking is Rola, journalist and local correspondent for Nisaa FM in Gaza.

I would’ve liked to share this message with both image and sound.
But forgive me, there is no electricity, it’s late now, and there’s no light.

What you hear in the background is not a technical problem. It’s the sound of the Israeli drones that have not left our sky since the beginning of the aggression.

I am a mother of four. I’ve been displaced with them since October 7.
I left my home in northern Gaza. I mean, the home that still existed there before the occupation forces destroyed it and reduced it to a pile of rubble.

I bought my house, which was going to be paid off in installments, just one year ago, after 10 long years of suffering in rentals.

You ask how the war transformed my life as a journalist?
This war changed me, it scattered and sidetracked me, it hurt me, destroyed me, changed my life completely.
I should be on the ground, reporting on events minute by minute, but this war left me no chance to do my job as a journalist.
My day starts at sunrise, with all the daily tasks I have to do: make bread, prepare something to eat, bring water, wash clothes, clean the place where we sleep.
There are no bakeries around. We make the bread ourselves, from scratch.
There are no restaurants either. We have to prepare all our meals with the few cans of food we have.
There’s no electricity to run the washing machines. We wash our clothes by hand.
Can you imagine? I have to do all this, day after day, with four children, the oldest of whom is not even 8 years old.
The youngest, Kinda, who was 1 month and 3 weeks old when the war began, will be 9 months old in two weeks. I don’t know how my daughter grew up, when she grew up.

Carmel turned three during the aggression.
I can no longer fool her and claim that the bombings that scare her are just balloons exploding. This story doesn’t work anymore.
Now she knows that the explosions that terrify her are missiles. Bombs.
And that if they miss us this time, they could very well hit us the next.

And Ibrahim, who turned 5 during this war, is still unsettled by my inability to answer his persistent question: “Mom, when are we going home? To our house?”

Listen to the Arabic audio corresponding to the English translation above:

Editor’s note:
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Cover image : Gaza – Palestine © Musa Alzanoun