For Amjad Shabat and her family, survival was the focus, and home was just an afterthought. A sign on an apartment next to hers read "to be bombed". A frantic search to grab anything essential and a barefooted dash across the street followed as the sound of Israeli drones and jets overhead indicated imminent death. That day, three days after the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas militants on Israeli soil, killing over 1,000 people, Amjad's family's clock was reset.
Amjad, 33, was born and raised in Gaza City, amidst the ever-present spectre of conflict. Once an English teacher with dreams of a better future, her life was upended by the violence that has plagued the region for generations.
"I used to be an English teacher," she told NDTV. "A year before the war, I bought my dream house along with my husband, a small flat on the coast with a view of the Mediterranean Sea." For Amjad and her family, the modest comforts of home provided a respite from the harsh realities of life in Gaza, where basic necessities like electricity and clean water were often in short supply.
"Life there was difficult," she continued, her words echoing the sentiments of countless Palestinians who have long endured the hardships of living under occupation. "There was a shortage in all services. We used to get seven hours of electricity a day and lacked freshwater. The tap water was salty and polluted. There were few opportunities for people of my generation especially in the working sector. No parks, no cinema, no theatre. I am among the few of my generation who refused to migrate out of Gaza and instead decided to raise my 3-year-old daughter in the city, carrying hopes and dreams of a free Palestine in the future."
The daily struggles of life in Gaza were compounded by the pervasive sense of isolation and despair that permeates every aspect of Palestinian life. "Young Palestinians living in Gaza were denied the opportunity to travel abroad," Amjad explained, her voice heavy with resignation. "In order to travel, we needed to obtain numerous permissions from Israeli or Egyptian authorities, a very difficult process to undertake."
On The Run
Amjad's husband, Fadi Alshafei, is a journalist at a local news website. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to reduce Hamas hideouts in Gaza to "rubble", Fadi, Amjad and their daughter Ghady were already apprehensive about their futures.
"I remember three days after the October 7 attacks, on an apartment next to our flat, was written, 'to be bombed'. This prompted an urgent evacuation. However, we were confused as there was no official communication instructing us to leave," said Amjad.
"We glanced out of our window to witness a scene of chaos: people were screaming and fleeing in one direction. Gripped by panic, I clutched my daughter close, while my husband gathered our passports and essential documents. Barefoot, we fled our home, with my husband the only one to remember to put shoes on," she added. "Fortunately, my mother's residence was located at the end of our street. We sought refuge there for three days until October 13, a Friday when the Israelis issued a call for evacuation, urging residents of northern Gaza to relocate to the south."
The 13th-century Al-Basha palace in Gaza City, where French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once camped.
The relentless Israeli airstrikes mark the most intense aerial bombardment of Gaza in recent years, in response to Hamas' deadliest attack on Israel in decades. Months of dropping bombs on the besieged Palestinian territory has destroyed ancient buildings, and monuments, including the 13th-century Al-Basha palace in Gaza City, where French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte once camped.
"We evacuated to the south," Amjad recounted. "Our house was then destroyed in an airstrike sometime on October 17, I think. We did not see it, we were sent photos by some friends who had gone back to check up on their houses. My mother's house is also destroyed."
A Blast Every 20 Seconds
Forced to wander from one makeshift shelter to another, Amjad and her family found themselves living in a tent in Al Mawasi, a coastal city ravaged by war and deprivation. They had initially reached Rafah to stay at Fadi's father's house but had to leave because of overcrowding. Approximately 1.5 million out of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants are believed to have sought refuge in the city.
They eventually ended up in the city of Khan Younis at Fadi's uncle's place but after Israeli tanks rolled into the city they had to evacuate again.
"Situation (in Al Mawasi) was catastrophic," Amjad remembered. "We shared a bathroom with 40 other people. I remember waking up very early in the morning to clean the bathroom so my daughter could use it half an hour later. I was terrified of her catching any disease. Especially considering how diseases were spreading in camps."
Photo Credit: One of the camps where Amjad spent time.
"At night we could hear the sounds of bomb blasts and air strikes. It did not stop for one moment. At one point my husband calculated that an explosion took place every 20 seconds," she added.
"And of course, taking a shower was another challenge. My turn would come every 10-12 days. There was no cooking gas to heat the water. It was in the winter so it was very cold. We had to collect anything we could find, mainly paper, to start a fire and heat water. Washing clothes was another task."
For Gazans living in refugee camps, she said, there is more of a chance of being killed by an Israeli airstrike than catching a disease.
"One day at the camp, two people were killed by stray bullets. Of course, the bombing did not stop and we could not move. My husband was very close to getting killed one day when he went out to get water. He crossed a street and right there at the end of the road were Israeli tanks and they were firing at people. He left all the bottles, and buckets and ran away.," Amjad recalled.
"On another day, there was intense firing around our camp. We had to lie down flat on the ground in order to escape the bullets," she added.
A Way Out
For weeks, the family moved through the brutal landscape of Gaza, while fighting the constant threat of violence and despair. As thousands died every week, the family, short of money, tried desperately to get out of Gaza to provide their daughter a better future.
A glimmer of opportunity emerged. Months ago, Amjad had applied for a scholarship at the University of Texas for a Master's in Middle Eastern Studies. An email regarding its outcome sat unread in her inbox.
"I remember receiving the letter for the scholarship in November, a month after the war started," recalled Amjad. "At that time, I lived in Khan Younis. We did not have good internet, but I somehow managed to get a connection."
A boy stands by rubble before a heavily damaged building in the eastern side of the Maghazi camp for Palestinian refugees in the central Gaza Strip on April 15, 2024
In a race against time, they reached out to contacts abroad, seeking urgent assistance to escape the horrors unfolding around them. "We saw it as a hope, like light at the end of a very dark tunnel," they reflected. "We thought this is our life now - displaced and living in tents and refugee camps. Our daughter would be raised fighting diseases or worse, we could all get killed by an Israeli airstrike."
Amjad's acceptance letter meant the family had provisions to apply for them being on a priority student's list - their ticket out of Gaza through the Rafah border, the only border crossing in Gaza that is not controlled by the Israeli government. So they applied for an US visa through its embassy in Cairo.
"We Palestinians have lost the sense of time. On October 7 our clocks were reset. After four months of trying and finding means and ways to be evacuated from Gaza our name appeared in the student list. We discovered this by chance. Because there was no internet," Amjad recounted.
The Escape
It was the first day of Ramadan. Despite the hardships, the losses and the uncertain future, Amjad and her husband decided to celebrate the first day with family. With roads bombed, cars out of fuel and public transport shut down, they used carts pulled by donkeys, or horses to reach Rafah at Fadi's father's house.
"The next morning my husband managed to get some internet connection and we found out that our names were on the student list and we had to cross the Rafah border on the same day. It was 11 am and the border closes at 3 pm so we ran," Amjad recalled.
With mere hours to spare before the border shut, they embarked on a dash to freedom. "We didn't take anything, not even clothes. We did not even have time to say goodbye to our family and friends," she said.
Displaced Palestinians line up to fill their containers with water in Rafah, on the southern Gaza Strip on April 19, 2024
Photo Credit: AFP
"After reaching the crossing we realised that my name and my husband's name were on the list but our daughter's was not. She did not have any documents. We lost all of her certificates during the bombings. We only had our passports," she said.
"Bringing a child to the border and saying this is your child without any proof will cause you a problem," she lamented. "I cried and pleaded with the border authorities that she is indeed my daughter."
In a stroke of luck, they managed to procure their family record, providing the necessary evidence to confirm their relationship.
And just like that, Amjad and her family left their relatives, their friends and Gaza, where they were born and lived their entire lives.
Life In Cairo And Predicting The Future
Life in Cairo offered a semblance of stability amidst the turmoil. "We are seeking psychological help to better settle in," Amjad revealed, acknowledging the lingering trauma of escaping death.
"What will happen to the city where I grew up, lived my entire life, the dream house we bought?" she pondered. "It might take generations for Gaza to be rebuilt, and I am not sure if we are going back again."
Amjad hopes to move to the US by September to begin her course at the University of Texas. To make ends meet in the meantime, she teaches social studies online to children from Gaza who have evacuated to Egypt.
Amjad's journey, in her own words, though deeply personal also resonates with the broader narrative of Palestinian displacement. "The Israelis occupied the land in 1948 when the first Nakba happened and 800,000 Palestinians were uprooted from their historical villages. My husband and I are among the third-generation descendants of the refugees. So I am not sure we are ever going back. This feeling of safety in your homeland is lost forever."
"To maintain peace in the region, Israel has to be held accountable for what it has done to Palestinians," she asserted.
Israel has issued threats of a potential invasion of Rafah over the past two months as part of its campaign to dismantle Hamas. The G7, comprising advanced economies, expressed opposition on Friday to a large-scale military intervention, fearing dire consequences for civilians in Rafah.
