ON the night of October 6, I laid out my clothes for university like I always did, neatly folded on the chair next to my bed. I packed my bag with books, charged my phone, and set my alarm for 6.30am. Earlier that day, I had been laughing with my friends on campus. We talked about our classes, shared silly jokes and promised to catch up again the next morning. Nothing felt unusual. It was just another ordinary day.

But I didn’t wake up to the sound of my alarm.

I woke up to the sound of rockets.

By morning, everything had changed, and my life would never be the same again.

From the very first moment, I felt like the life I knew had ended. Suddenly, there was no water, no electricity, and no signal. It was like we had been thrown back hundreds of years, living in complete darkness. The borders were shut, the phone lines were dead, and we had no way to check on our families or friends. Sometimes we’d hear the bombing loud, close, but we couldn’t tell where it had hit. We only knew it was too close.

The air strikes were terrifying in a way we had never experienced before. The ground shook beneath us, and everything felt black and silent. No news, no voices, no safety.

I was sitting at my neighbour’s house, with my friend Dima, when the tanks started shelling the upper floors of the building we lived in. The entire tower shook, and I ran toward our apartment, desperately trying to find my family, terrified something might have happened to them. We all gathered in one room, my aunt, my cousins, and the rest of us, trying to shield ourselves from the explosions, holding our breaths with every blast.

But the shelling didn’t stop. The upper floors were hit again, and we had no choice but to flee into the street. What we saw outside felt like the Day of Judgement. People were running in every direction, screaming, crying, chaos everywhere. Smoke filled the air. Tanks were closing in on the neighbourhood and bullets were flying from every side.

It was one of the most terrifying days of my life. We whispered the shahada dozens of times in a single minute.

We walked for what felt like over a thousand metres, and the sound of shelling still echoed behind us. My father was pushing my grandmother in her wheelchair and I was holding my little brother’s hand tightly as we ran through the street, not knowing where we were going or where we could possibly be safe.

Eventually, we found a house nearby that belonged to relatives. We took shelter there. More than 16 of us crowded into a single room. There was no privacy, no comfort, but we had no choice. This was now our reality.

The shelling grew closer and closer, and the bullets from Israeli quadcopters began hitting the walls of the house we were staying in. That’s when we made the decision to flee again, this time to a tent in Rafah, in what they called the “humanitarian zones.”

I had only ever seen tents in movies or read about them in camping stories. I never imagined one would become my home, even temporarily. But we had no other choice. We gathered whatever belongings we could carry and headed to Rafah.

There, we began setting up tents. The sun was blazing, the air unbearably hot, and there was no water. Still, we tried to finish building the tent before nightfall, just so we could have somewhere to sleep.

That night, 28 of us slept in a single tent.

We were still trying to adapt to life in the tent, telling ourselves it was temporary, holding on to any sense of routine or stability. Then came the devastating news: our home had been bombed.

But when I say “our home was bombed,” I don’t just mean the walls came down. Everything was gone. Not only was our house destroyed, but so was my father’s goldsmith workshop; it was on the ground floor. That news hit us like a punch to the chest. We broke down in tears, unable to believe it, hoping somehow it was a mistake.

How could the house I had lived in for 22 years disappear in the blink of an eye? How could my room, the memories, the laughter, the photos on the walls, and my childhood bed be gone?

Everything was lost: the house, the workshop, and a piece of my heart with them.

Then came the news that shattered my heart completely: Rama had been killed.

Rama wasn’t just anyone, she was my closest friend at university, my favourite person, the one who knew me better than anyone else. We shared everything: lectures, long talks between classes, our fears, and our dreams. Losing her felt like losing a part of myself.

At the time, there was no communication. I had no idea what was happening in the north. My friend Rawaan sent me a message telling me that Rama was gone, but I didn’t receive it until two days later because the network was down and sending messages was nearly impossible.

I couldn’t believe it. I cried and screamed, unable to grasp the loss. I never got the chance to say goodbye. Rama was one of the few who refused to evacuate. She chose to stay in the north, enduring hunger, bombing and humiliation, but she stood her ground.

She stood ... and then she was killed, along with her sister Ruba, who used to share her room, her nights and her laughter. Even in death, they weren’t separated; they were buried together in the same grave.

I never got to see her. I never even got to hear her voice. This war has taken everything from us: our homes, our families, our friends, our memories.

Even the right to say goodbye.

Even the right to visit their graves.

Death had become a part of our daily lives; it passed by us constantly.

After some time in the tent, we rented a small apartment, trying to adapt and return to some form of normal life. Just one month later, while I was having breakfast with my family, my little brother Abdullah rushed in, his face full of fear and tears. He said: “The neighbours are saying the Israeli tanks are at the top of the street!”

We saw people rushing down the stairs in panic. The news had reached us late. I grabbed my abaya to get dressed quickly so we could escape before the tanks arrived. But as I reached for my clothes, I glanced out the window and saw the tank with my own eyes.

I froze. It was the first time in my life I had seen a tank so close. I panicked and ran to catch up with my family. But before I could move, a shell hit the apartment right where I had been standing just moments earlier.

I fell to the ground. Smoke and dust were everywhere. My ears were ringing from the blast. I couldn’t tell if I was alive or dead. I started screaming for my father, hoping he could hear me, but he didn’t answer.

Then I heard his voice from far away, saying, “Don’t come out, the quadcopter is firing!”

They covered me with a blanket and carried me down to the ground floor.

I kept going in and out of consciousness. I couldn’t feel my arm. I was bleeding from my head, my face, my hand, and my back. My mother was bleeding from her face. So was my sister, Yasmine.

And yet, I felt a strange kind of relief when I saw everyone was alive. None of us was missing.

We stayed there, bleeding, for two and a half hours. When we called the ambulance, they told us the tanks were at the top of the street and they couldn’t reach us. So some young men from the neighbourhood carried me through a different path and started covering my wounds right there in the street.

Eventually, we were able to reach an ambulance and were taken to al-Aqsa Hospital.

When we arrived at al-Aqsa Hospital, I couldn’t bear to look around. Bodies were lying on the ground, people bleeding in every corner, and the sky was raining fire. It was a massacre in Nuseirat Camp.

The pain in my hand was unbearable, so my father and I went to the X-ray room. The scan showed that a piece of shrapnel had pierced through the flesh and bone and settled near a nerve. The doctor looked at my father and said, “Eman’s hand needs immediate surgery.”

When I heard the word “surgery,” I was terrified. But there was no choice. I went through with it. The first thing I did when I woke up was look at my hand. It was still there. I thanked God.

It was wrapped in gauze, and I was in both physical and emotional agony. Even the simplest tasks became so difficult. But the heavier pain was inside me, a year’s worth of grief and trauma, stacked on top of each other, without even a moment to process or mourn. Every day brought new pain.

I had to go to the hospital every day to have the wounds cleaned. Every time I saw the blood, I would faint. And through it all, my father held my hand and whispered gently, “It’s just a phase ... it will pass.”

Despite everything I had been through, I tried to lift myself out of the darkness. I began buying books and novels again, slowly reconnecting with what I love, trying to reclaim the part of me I felt slipping away.

I turned back to reading, because I’ve always dreamed of becoming a writer of publishing a novel with my name on the cover.

Later, the Islamic University of Gaza resumed online learning, and I enrolled in the new semester, even while still healing. My mother would write for me during some classes when I couldn’t use my hand, and my professors were understanding and supportive.

Despite all the chaos, I achieved the highest grades. And today, I’m writing for well-known international platforms not because the road was easy, but because I never gave up.

I found my way even through the rubble.

The shrapnel is still inside my body, a constant reminder of everything I’ve been through. The pain never fully left, but it never broke me either.

Every scar, every wound, every moment of heavy silence has become fuel for my dream.

I dream of travelling not to escape, but to carry our voices to the world.

I want to tell our stories the way we lived them, not the way they’re told about us.

I want to write, to speak, to testify, and to remind the world that we are not numbers. We are people who dream, who love, who fall apart, and who rise again.

That dream is what keeps me standing despite everything.