Shattered dreams and unending war

I am Micheal Nassrawy. I am 30 years old. I got married on the 28th of April 2023 to my lovely wife Dareen, 25 years old. When we got married everyone told us that the first year of marriage would be the best year of our lives, and that we should enjoy every moment of it. And we did. For the first five months and eight days, we lived a perfect life together. We both had jobs, we had places to go when we were happy, and other places to go when we were feeling a little bit down. Our favourite place was our house. It was our little cozy place. We loved every bit of it, we built it together with lots of love, patience, tears and big dreams. We had big dreams of living a long happy life in it, of having children and raising them in a cozy home with their loving parents.

Unfortunately, the universe had its own plans for our lives. On the 7th of October 2023, the day the war began, we lost our dreams, hope, lives and souls. We had to flee from our lovely, beautiful home on the seventh day of the war. We took shelter in the Holy Family Church, along with 500 others. We were put in a school classroom with fourteen other people. As the days passed and the war became endless, Gaza became completely unliveable. Food is hard to find and if findable, it is all canned and very expensive.

Along with food, every human necessity went up in price. And to make the situation worse, both me and Dareen lost our jobs due to the unending war. Buying food is now almost impossible for us. It is heartbreaking to look into her eyes knowing how many things she needs and not being able to afford them.

On the 25th of November 2023, I got the chance to visit our home. It was partially destroyed, destroyed along with our dreams, hope and lives. How many things we had planned to do there. How can I see the sparkle in her eyes again, when she would talk about decorating the house for fall, Christmas and Easter.

During these six months of our stay in the Holy Family Church, me and a group of young men volunteered to cook, make bread, go out under the bombs and risk our lives to buy food, water, medicine for all the people sheltering in the church, who consist of elderly people, children, sick and disabled. The extent of damage in Gaza is huge. We cannot meet our basic human needs, hence how can we as a young couple think of having children? And we are currently sleeping on the ground and we do not have what is necessary to keep a baby’s dignity or their basic needs, which makes our hearts cry day and night. This war destroyed many things and dreams — a delayed honeymoon may be cancelled forever, a child may never be born and tears may never stop running. It will be hard for a new young couple trying to rebuild their dreams, home and family here in Gaza.