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Rola Abou Hachem
March, 21st
After a two-day interruption due to bad weather in Gaza, I finally got my internet connection back. During this time, I felt completely cut off from the world and its planned celebrations. Here, the calm is always shattered by the sound of drones flying very low. Each explosion shakes the ground and distracts us, reminding us that life is fragile.
At the end of the day, after a busy day of Ramadan, I finally got a message from a friend on WhatsApp. She suggested that I talk about Mother's Day in Gaza! I was surprised at first. Was it already 21 March? A day that should be full of joy, small preparations and gifts to celebrate the love and gratitude of mothers?
Mothers with no children
Mother’s Day should have been a warm day filled with preparations, surprises, gifts, love, hugs, and heartfelt wishes! But in Gaza, where people endure ongoing wars and destruction, this day crept in quietly amid daily suffering, carrying with it a different kind of sorrow and a reminder of endless losses. Here, Mother's Day has shifted from a celebration of love to a day weighed down by pain, loss, and loneliness. Since I became a mother eight years ago, this day has always been special. My husband and children made the day special, with simple, loving gestures. We would also visit my mother to share some happy times together. But this year, as last year, Mother's Day arrived cold and heavy, full of the tears of bereaved mothers whose hearts were full of grief and helplessness.
The Israeli bombardments have caused massive bereavement among the mothers of Gaza. They have lost not just one or two children, but sometimes their entire offspring. These strikes have broken mothers' hearts, wiping out in an instant years of hope and struggle to become mothers.
Over the years of conflict, the mothers of Gaza have made considerable efforts to bring up and care for their children, but these moments of happiness have tragically turned into nightmares as the wars have progressed.
Powerless mothers
Every day we hear from mothers who have been deprived of the word ‘mother’ by the occupying power after their babies have been killed. Some of them lost their child in its very first moments; others were with their child just a few days after birth, while still others saw their foetus die in their womb. These mothers suffer not only from the loss of their children, but also from the lack of their laughter, their need for them, or even their smell.
Here, the mothers' prayer has become: ’O Lord, if you have destined us for martyrdom, let it be with my children, so that none of us has to bear the pain of losing the other!
The statistics released by the Government Information Office in Gaza are harrowing: since the resumption of hostilities, 17,000 mothers have been left bereaved. According to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, 15,613 children have been killed—representing 31% of the conflict’s victims. These numbers are far more than just data; they echo hundreds of cries of anguish and countless lives irreparably broken
Imagine what life is like for a mother who has suddenly lost everything, going from being a ‘mother of a family’ to a ‘mother of martyrs’! What must she go through in the face of this bitter reality?
During the months of aggression, the mothers of Gaza experienced the worst moments, overwhelmed by a feeling of powerlessness in the face of their children's needs. These needs, once so obvious - like a sweet or a little joy at mealtimes - have become unattainable dreams.
How did a simple shawarma sandwich, for example, become a wish for which the child closes his eyes to find the taste, without being able to see or touch it, after having had access to it every time he wanted it before the genocide?
And how do mothers intentionally gather all their children every night in one small space, so they all share the same fate if an Israeli missile strikes unexpectedly?
Here, the mothers' prayer has become: ’O Lord, if you have destined us for martyrdom, let it be with my children, so that none of us has to bear the pain of losing the other!
In Gaza, Mother's Day was spent in sadness, for mothers deprived of their children and children deprived of their mothers.
