Shuttered Dreams and Frozen Hope: The Fight to Keep My Six Children Alive in Gaza

Hello everyone,
Here is Nour story. A big thanks again to her for her trust!

Her story

Before the displacement and the war, I worked in digital marketing, and it was our family’s only source of income. I never had the opportunity to work in my university field of study. I earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic Language, but unfortunately, I was never able to find employment in that field

My name is Nourhan. I was born in 1989, a woman who once had simple dreams, but today, I am a mother fighting an invisible, agonizing war just to keep my six beautiful children alive.

Before this nightmare began, our life was simple but filled with warmth and stability. Our home was a sanctuary where my children felt safe. They attended UNRWA schools—bright, talented souls with big dreams for a peaceful future. My husband holds a university degree in Early Childhood Education, and despite the scarce opportunities in Gaza, he worked as a teacher whenever he could. I, too, graduated from Al-Aqsa University with a degree in Education. But like thousands of youth here, the suffocating siege and unemployment locked those doors. Refusing to surrender, I taught myself digital marketing to support my family and to afford my own medical treatments.

My health broke years ago after a terrifying accident; one of my children fell down the stairs and lost consciousness. The sheer trauma of that moment altered my body forever. I was diagnosed with chronic hypothyroidism and severe adrenal insufficiency (high cortisol), requiring lifelong medication and regular, expensive medical testing just to survive. Yet, despite the illness, we were happy. We had each other.

Then, the sky fell.

The war came and swallowed everything we owned. Our home was reduced to rubble. Our sources of income vanished in a flash. In an instant, we became homeless, stripped of our dignity, shoved into torn, fragile tents.

Today, the crushing weight of our entire world rests solely on my shoulders. My husband’s eyesight, already weak, has deteriorated drastically. He now suffers from severe spinal disc disease and debilitating back inflammation, leaving him completely unable to work or lift anything.

Since the onset of this horrorshow, we have been forcibly displaced more than ten times. Ten times of running through streets paved with fire, clutching my children’s hands, fleeing death only to arrive at another unknown wasteland. We have stared death in the face countless times. Shrapnel and bullets have rained inches from our bodies. The relentless, buzzing roar of drones never leaves our skies. Tanks, shelling, and earth-shattering explosions have become our daily breath. We wake up every single morning wondering if this day will be our last.

Yet, amid this living hell, I refuse to let the darkness steal my children’s future completely. I bleed myself dry to send five of them to a makeshift educational center so they don’t forget how to read and write. It costs $200 every month—an impossible fortune for us. Some months, we can only pay if a kind soul donates to our fundraiser; other months, the fees pile up, and our debts grow like a mountain, threatening to lock them out of learning.

But nothing prepared us for the dark horror of the famine.

When my youngest daughter was just a baby, the starvation was so severe that my breast milk completely dried up. I watched her cry from hunger, and my hands were empty. My six-year-old son developed severe, acute malnutrition; today, he lives with chronic, severe anemia, desperately needing specialized medical care and real nutrition that I cannot provide. My eldest child, now thirteen, has had his growth permanently stunted. Because of prolonged starvation, his frail body looks like that of a seven-year-old child. My ten-year-old son suffers from recurring, painful skin conditions and severe allergic swellings that erupt without warning due to the toxic environment.

The tent we call “home” is a nightmare. It is torn, freezing in the winter, scorching in the summer, and crawling with rats, fleas, and insects. Clean drinking water is a luxury we can only pray for.

Right now, our survival depends entirely on this fundraising campaign. Food prices have skyrocketed to insane, impossible levels. The very little food we can find is miserable. The meat and eggs available are of the lowest, worst possible quality (“Tareef” brand)—spoiled, foul-tasting, and barely fit for human consumption. The fruits and vegetables are mostly rotten, unripe, and highly unhealthy. Yet, we are forced to buy them at astronomical prices just to stay alive.

Instead of sitting in bright classrooms, my children spend their fragile childhoods carrying heavy water containers across long, dangerous distances. They stand in exhausting lines for hours for a piece of bread or wait at charity kitchens. During the height of the famine, they literally risked their lives just for a loaf of bread, returning to the tent bruised, traumatized, and trembling with fear. No child in this world should ever have to trade their childhood for a piece of dry bread.

We don’t dream of luxuries. We dream of sleeping for one single night without the terror of explosions. We dream of a cup of clean water. We dream of a safe, sturdy shelter. We dream of restoring our stolen dignity.

As for me, my body is failing. I struggle daily with chronic hypothyroidism and adrenal insufficiency, confirmed by medical reports. I must take 100 mcg of Thyroxine every single day, alongside monthly medical tests and specialized care that we cannot afford.

I am not asking for the world. I am asking for a lifeline to keep my children alive, healthy, and educated.

If your heart can feel our pain, please consider supporting my campaign or becoming a long-term sponsor for my family. Your compassion is the only bridge between my children and survival. It means medicine instead of agonizing pain, education instead of dark despair, and a flicker of hope instead of paralyzing fear.

Thank you for looking into our eyes and listening to our story. Please, do not let the world forget us.

Question and Answer

Hello Nour, and thank you for agreeing to answer these few questions so we can get to know you better.

This “interview” will be divided into 4 sections: Life in Rafah before, the turning point, the present, and a conclusion.

My name is Nour, a mother of six from Gaza. Today, my family is living through a nightmare of displacement, hunger, illness, and fear. I am writing with a heart full of pain, asking you not to turn away from us. We have lost safety, stability, and the basic things every family needs to survive.

Life in Gaza

How would you describe life in Gaza before you were forced to leave, for people who have never been there?

Before the war, life in Gaza was difficult, but we still had some sense of normal life. My husband worked first as a volunteer, and later as a private tutor through an informal educational institution. He was never able to secure a stable job with UNRWA, and work opportunities in Gaza were already extremely limited because unemployment was so high. Still, despite all the hardship, we had some safety, and prices were manageable. We were surviving. Then the war destroyed everything.

How old were your children when you had to leave? Did they realize what was happening around them?

When the bombing began, my youngest baby was only two months old. Her brothers and sisters were 4, 7, 10, 12, and 14 years old. My older children were old enough to understand the horror around them. They saw fear, destruction, and panic with their own eyes.

The turning point

The turning point :

When did you realize you had to leave? What was the trigger?

When we were ordered to evacuate, we fled to Rafah while danger closed in around us.No one supported us.

Under what conditions did this departure take place?

We spent long nights in the streets with almost nothing, carrying only a few belongings.

Did you receive any help?

We were alone, hungry, terrified, and displaced.

The present

The fear, exhaustion, and lack of food were so severe that my breast milk dried up while my baby was only two months old. I cannot describe the pain of watching my infant cry from hunger while I searched desperately for milk I could no longer provide. Formula became impossibly expensive, and we were forced to borrow money just to keep her alive. Since then, debt has continued to pile up on our shoulders.

Eventually, we found temporary shelter with a relative who had rented a piece of land and asked us to share the rent. We lived in a tiny makeshift space made of torn fabric, without proper water and without a bathroom. The cold was unbearable. Many nights we had to ask neighbors for blankets, and many nights we slept hungry and freezing.

Now we are living in another unsafe place, and even this fragile shelter is not secure. We are repeatedly forced to evacuate because of bombing and fear, and the owner of the land wants us to leave because he plans to sell it. The tent we live in is badly torn, and we urgently need a new one. We are suffering from insects and rodents, and there is no real safety or comfort for my children.

My children are also losing their education. Sometimes they try to get internet from the street, but only with great difficulty. Repeated internet cuts have made online learning almost impossible. Education in Gaza has become expensive and limited. I have five children of school age, and we need at least $200 every month just to cover one subject for each of them. The educational centers available now provide very little real learning — only a few hours a week, often far from where we are staying.

On top of all of this, our medical needs are overwhelming. I suffer from chronic illness and need ongoing treatment and monthly tests. My husband needs glasses, and so does my young son, who has an eye condition affecting his vision. One of my children is suffering from malnutrition and severe anemia and urgently needs proper food, treatment, and care.

I am carrying more than I can bear. I am trying to protect my children from hunger, illness, fear, and the loss of their future, but I cannot do this alone.

I am asking you from the depths of a mother’s heart: please stand with my family. Please help us with food, medicine, shelter, and education. Please help me give my children a chance to survive this nightmare with dignity.

Conclusion

If you could speak to everyone, what would you say to them?

If you cannot donate, please share my story with others. A share, a kind word, or a connection to someone who can help may save my family. Please do not leave us alone.

You are our hope.

Voices from Gaza

A voice from Gaza : Nour