19th October 2023, 9:19 am

Every morning I wake up, I look at the ceiling. This is not the ceiling of my house, nor are these my windows, with a bunch of laundry hanging from them. To my right and to my left my family and I are sleeping in a row next to each other. But who are these people around us? How has the world brought us together to sleep in the same place when we’ve not known each other for seconds .. Each day I wake up with the hope that it’s a nightmare and that I will open my eyes in my bedroom and call my daughter Alia, so she heats up the milk and I can make Nescafe and drink it next to my plants, which might have died now, having been left alone at home .. Every morning I think that all the news .. and the loved ones, who passed, that we’ll find them again, waiting for us .. Every morning, oh god, I make sure what day and date it is .. Time has stopped inside me since the morning of October 7th and I don’t want for time to have passed after that moment .. Every morning, oh god, the gate to hell opens inside me .. god, my heart hurts. 

20th October 2023, 9:06 am

Good morning, you wretched planet 

It is the fifteenth day

My back pain has not left me since yesterday …  I sleep on a mattress that I share with my son, without a pillow, and I share a blanket with two others. And this is what all the mothers do here. It feels like a sort of luxury after having slept on the floor at the school we took shelter in .. A very dirty floor, with all the world’s diseases on each of its tiles. People stepping over me and I look up at feet and hear some apologizing and others not giving my body, which is lying on the ground, any importance..

Our day starts at six in the morning, on account of – until yesterday – there having been three babies; the youngest is three weeks and is called Salem; a baby-girl, called Karmel, not older than two months; and Kareem, who is six-months old. This morning, god blessed us all with a new baby, who will be the son of all the mothers in the shelter, and his name is Nidal ... we try to create a private space for the mother and her son and we wait for them to arrive under the barrage fire and the air raids …

25th October 2023, 9:05 am

I miss my house a lot a lot ❤️❤️ 

29th October 2023, 9:19 am

After communications were cut .. Thank god we’re ok, we’re alive .. Yesterday the clocks went back and it was the first day of winter time.

We would have missed the first hour of work and our kids would have gotten confused with the timetable at school, but none of that happened .. We’ve missed a whole lifetime in the last 21 days .. Israel did not set the clock back 60 minutes, it set it back half a century at least. It destroyed our beloved country. It killed our loved ones. It cut us off from the world, under fire and intense bombardment .. Yesterday, at least 500 people were martyred. 

1st November 2023, 10:09 pm

Today Alia says to me: “Mom, Is it possible that our house is still alive?”

Yes, by god, we miss our house. We are a family of five; a mother, a father, a daughter, a son, and a house. 

5th November 2023, 10:56 am

Every time I read of people we know, who passed, or I see pictures of people mourning their loved ones, pictures of the corpses and the children and the destruction .. I feel dizzy, as if I’m falling from the millionth floor to the ground. I start sweating and I literally lose my breath. 

Maybe we don’t have time to be sad and we don’t have time to cry, but our bodies are reacting in a confusing and confused way .. We’re still trying to live and resist any loss in this terrifying situation, but until when will we manage to hold on. I don’t know, I really don’t know .. Oh savior, save us.

5th November 2023, 5:27 pm

It was the usual time I go home from work, I was talking to fono. And as usual, Salem was taking me home.  We got close to where I’m temporarily staying as a displaced person, when the road suddenly stopped being visible and there was the smell of gunpowder ... I started shouting at Salem, don’t continue driving, they might bomb again and the ambulances would come in behind us .. Salem has strong nerves, he drove behind the ambulances, saying to me, the kids are there we have to see them ... I don’t know if it was two minutes or more until I saw the building and I told him “There, the building is still there, it’s ok it’s ok.” He dropped me off and continued driving with the ambulances …

That feeling and those two minutes were like a lifetime. No nerves and no comprehension.. thank god. 

7th November 2023, 11:25 am

I miss the house .. I miss Gaza .. No one is better off than anyone else .. the loved one and the stranger console each other with words of patience.. and sometimes a word can make a difference when you despair .. Keep checking on each other .. All of our circumstances changed .. And hopefully we won’t change .. We’re all living the worst experience of our lives .. We all know it’s a difficult time .. so difficult, oh god .. can you hear us!..

8th November 2023, 12:05 pm

The first time I traveled – I was quite old like most Gazans , who are deprived of this joy – the hotel smelled like peaches .. and since that time, I perfume my house with peaches and every time I do this I say to Salem: “God, just like the smell of travel.” To the extent that he started saying – every time I perfume the house: “do you know what your mother is going to say? the smell of travel” and laughs at me .. At the place of our refuge, on account of how many people there are, we used air freshener, which happened to smell like peaches .. and from that moment, it started reminding me of the toilet of refugees…

The simplest things, connected to our happy memories, are also being destroyed .. maybe this seems trivial to those outside reading it .. But our hearts break from the smallest and simplest details.

11th November 2023, 8:25 pm

I didn’t do anything today. I didn’t work. I went out and bought a few super normal things .. food and some substitutes. The whole thing took us an hour walking and going to five shops to get only some of the things we need .. The shops are very very empty .. I spent my day here in this place that I still don’t know what to call, but I’m certainly not going to call it my “house” or “home” .. My house and home are there in Gaza .. I spent the day holding my mobile phone looking at photos .. Sometimes I laugh and sometimes I feel as though my heart is on fire ... I keep saying, god, if it wasn’t for these photos, I’d have thought everything in my life was a dream. As if it was a previous life without any proof of it having ever existed .. I call my friends and we are silly with each other. We all know this situation is too much for us to handle and we all want to go back .. I keep asking them: “Are we going back?” And we all don’t know and the nicest answer was “our story is long, but we’ll go back” .. My only concern is going back .. I see photos of the army and tanks in places like Aljundi, Albahr, Alrimal, Alsina’a .. I don’t know when this war is going to end and when we will go back! I know that I love my house and I love Gaza.  I’ve been saying this for a long time and people laugh at me. Every time I travel and I come back with tears in my eyes at the border crossing, because I’ve missed it, they tell me, you’re crazy, what do you love about Gaza, immigrate .. But I love it so much to the extent that my heart does not fathom .. I feel as though there is something missing from my soul.

I miss you, my house. I miss you, Gaza 💔 

Nour, her husband, daughter, and son, fled from their home in Gaza City. She still writes from her place of refuge.