GAZA, (PIC)
In the heart of the siege, under a sky filled with smoke, Gaza stands tall despite its wounds. It fasts while injured, prays while besieged, and lives despite the bombardment and death surrounding it.
For an uncountable number of days, its residents endure under the fire of Israeli planes that do not distinguish between home and mosque, market and hospital, child and elder. Nevertheless, life continues to seep through the rubble, fueled by hope and determination to survive.
The city under bombing
The airstrikes begin with the first hours of dawn, as the fasting individuals wake up to the sound of explosions before the call to prayer is raised, realizing that another day of patience and resistance has begun.
In moments, neighborhoods turn into clouds of dust, buildings collapse like tattered autumn leaves, and the streets that were once bustling with life become fields of rubble and destruction.
In the markets, where people used to shop in preparation for Iftar, long queues form in front of the few bakeries that have not been destroyed by the airstrikes. Mothers wait for their turn to get a bag of flour or a few loaves of bread, while their children watch the sky, trying to predict the planes’ paths, as the bombings have become part of their Ramadan routine.
Iftar by the light of shells
At Iftar tables, families do not gather whole; there are those missing, taken by missiles, there are the injured lying in hospitals, and there are families displaced to UNRWA schools, seeking shelter from the harshness of the bombardment.
Despite this, hands reach for food, prayers are raised, and hearts are filled with the certainty that this pain will not last forever.
Water is scarce, electricity is cut off, and homes have no windows, but in the corners of the city, there is stubborn hope, embodied in the laughter of children who make their toys from the remnants of destruction, in the courage of mothers raising orphans with hearts of steel, and in the resilience of fathers who rebuild their lives after every bombing as if it were a written fate.
Hospitals … Another battle for life
Inside the exhausted hospitals, doctors struggle to save what can be saved. Beds are full, medicines have run out, and the sounds of moaning blend with the calls of doctors who work tirelessly. Paramedics move between the devastated neighborhoods, lifting rubble with their bare hands in search of survivors, while the injured flood into hospitals in a scene that reflects the magnitude of the tragedy.
Gaza … A path of pain and a path of resilience
Despite all this destruction, Gaza remains steadfast. It is not just a city under bombardment, but a story of resistance, an epic of patience, and a living testament that faith in life is stronger than the machinery of war. Among the rubble, children are born, the call to prayer is raised, prayers are established, and a new story is written in the record of a city that has never known defeat.
