Many things we once paid no attention to, or scarcely cared about, because they required neither time nor effort from us, have now become our constant preoccupation, our enduring burden, the source of our excessive anxiety and fraying nerves: hours lost in queues for food and water, and often failing to receive even one’s allotted share because of favoritism or sheer depletion of supplies.

Or the long hours spent waiting to charge a phone, because there is no fuel and no way to get a solar panel; not to mention the fees for charging phones and buying internet cards. Then there is the high cost and difficulty of moving between places because of the frightening congestion, where thieves and gangs frequently steal wallets and phones. Added to this are the networks of fraudsters who sell the drowning nothing but straw and illusion.

Because of the extreme rise in fuel prices, we improvise: reducing movement to a minimum, or grouping errands into a single trip whenever possible. Even shoes are made to endure by repeated patching, sometimes with thread, sometimes with wire, sometimes with nails, and at other times by stitching them back together with scraps of leather that cradle them like a compassionate mother.

As for the sick, the situation is beyond description. Some are forced to ration their treatment for chronic illnesses, taking only half doses, or resorting to whatever weaker medications are available, or turning to herbal alternatives, if they exist at all.

And the absence of food supplies (eggs, dairy, cheese, meat, fish, legumes, nuts, oils, fruits, vegetables, sweets, and so on) has been „managed“ by merely looking at pictures of them. And often, strangely, that is enough. One may feel briefly fed and watered by the imagination alone, only to be pulled back into the past, chewing over memories of abundance and indulgence: appetizers and delicacies, food and drink, clothing and medicine, care and treatment, recreation and relief for both body and soul.

As for the loss of one’s home, it is the greatest loss and the most devastating calamity. There is no calamity beyond it. It is the most terrifying nightmare in absolute terms. I heard a mother whose home had been struck and destroyed just weeks earlier say: „Wallahi, it is hard, ya Rabb. It is hard.“

And she is right. It truly is among the most difficult trials that thousands of Palestinian families have endured. You may find that many families can adapt to the loss of several of their children as martyrs, while still clinging to the survival of their home, their entire world. This painful reality, unfortunately, does not receive the attention it deserves. When we speak of seventy thousand martyrs and hundreds of thousands of wounded, we must also never forget the nearly half a million homes that have been destroyed since the beginning of the war.

This testimony was shared to us by Rabie Hussein from Gaza.