Gaza is ‘hell on earth’ for women and children. Here is one of their stories.
Meet the Abed family from Gaza
Gaza has become “hell on earth” for children, according to Sigrid Kaag, the United Nation’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, who made this freighting remark three weeks ago during a press briefing.
According to Oxfam International, more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than in any other recent conflict in a single year. Thousands more have lost parents, limbs, their homes, and have faced increased psychological trauma from a growing, indiscriminate Israeli assault, which the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide.
8-year-old Shahed Abed from Deir Al Balah, Gaza, is one of those children.
Her family is struggling to meet basic needs, including food, water, and medicine, as Israel’s war on Gaza ravages their home and destroys all livelihood for them. Her siblings, Ahmad, 6, Maria, 4, Sham, 2, and a 4-month-old Ala’a, have lost friends, been deprived of an education, and are constantly in fear, sometimes crying without provocation, their mother Aisha said, who spoke with us via Instagram direct messages.
“We live in Gaza, where a brutal war is raging all around us. I am an artist, but my recent exhibition featuring my own drawings was tragically destroyed, leaving me without a means to earn money. My five children desperately need to meet the basic requirements of life, such as food, drink, and healthcare. These are the crucial necessities we desperately seek to provide for them,” Aisha writes in a GoFundMe post. “We used to have a house with a small poultry farm, which sustained us with food. However, we lost both the house and the farm, and now only a few hens remain”
As the oldest of her family, Shahed helps her mom by getting firewood and fetching water. But her biggest contribution has been being a social media hit through her passion for drawing using rubbles from buildings, and posting it on social media, gaining over 12,000 followers with a goal of using her voice to put an end to the war.
“As a child living in Gaza under continuous bombardment for a whole year, I call on the world for help to stop the fire immediately. My home has been destroyed, as well as my school, the parks, and the neighborhoods—everything has been reduced to sorrow and regret in my eyes. I want to realize my dreams of returning to education and living in peace.
I hope someone will embrace my talent; my dream is to become an artist who conveys my people’s suffering to the world. Right now, I live with my family and younger siblings without a home, healthy food, or clean water. I am alive today, but at any moment, I could become a victim of this senseless war.
Please, stop the war and protect what remains of the children of Gaza,” she told TUT.