The children of Gaza under the rubble

The Gazan writer Raghad Hammouda

In a crowded neighbourhood of Gaza, where houses stand so close they seem to cling to one another for protection from the relentless bombings, lived ten-year-old Laila with her small family. She would wake to the dawn call to prayer, opening her eyes to sunlight filtering through bullet holes in the kitchen wall. In the corner of her tiny room

hung her drawings – of olive trees and a sea she’d only ever seen in

dreams. Her little brother Youssef played with his patched rag doll

giggling as their mother, Umm Youssef, made shadow puppets in the faint candlelight.

“Baba, when will we go back to school?” Laila would ask as they ate dry bread with olive oil.

“Soon, my love, when the war stops…” Abu Youssef would answer hoarsely, his hands trembling as he tuned their old radio, searching for news of a ceasefire.

One bitter winter night, hunger sat heavily at their table. Umm Youssef could no longer hide her tears as she rationed their remaining food:

“Eat slowly – we don’t know when aid will come.”

Suddenly, the electricity cut out. Air raid sirens wailed like starving

wolves. Laila trembled as warplanes roared overhead like endless thunder.

“Hide under the stairs!” Abu Youssef shouted.

But time had run out.

The missile struck the outer wall, reducing their home to rubble.

Laila felt herself drowning in darkness, the air thick with dust and screams. She heard Youssef’s faint whimper: “Laila… I’m scared!”

She crawled toward him, but twisted rebar had impaled her leg.

The smell of blood mixed with gunpowder. Her mother’s screams –

“Save my children!” – were swallowed by the wreckage.

When Laila opened her eyes, the world had turned upside down.

She saw her father’s hand – still wearing that worn wedding ring –

protruding from the debris. She crawled toward it, her knees grinding into broken glass, until she saw his body severed at the ribs, intestines coiled around their last Eid photo frame. His face, turned toward where Umm Youssef had stood with baby Ahmed, was frozen in a

silent scream.

Blood was everywhere. Arterial spray had painted grotesque patterns on the walls.

Youssef’s sunflower overalls were now just red fabric beneath a

concrete slab. Only his tiny sandal remained – his toes still curled from when he’d kicked it off while playing.

Something warm dripped down Laila’s neck. A piece of brain matter clung to her headscarf. Looking up, she saw her mother’s braid – the one she had woven that very morning – swinging perfectly intact from the ceiling fan.

Then – a sound.

Beneath her father’s corpse, eighteen-month-old Ahmed gasped for air.

His skull was visibly dented, one eye swollen shut.

As Laila pulled him free, his tiny fingers smeared their father’s blood across her cheek.

“La… la…” he gurgled – half-remembering their mother’s lullaby.

At Al-Shifa Hospital, where gangrene and disinfectant choked the air, Laila watched a nurse stitch a child’s scalp without anesthesia.

“His brain is exposed!” someone shouted.

“Next!” barked a doctor, his scrubs stiff with dried blood.

Clutching Ahmed to her chest – his breathing growing wetter by the minute – Laila took in the horrors:

A girl cradling her brother’s severed arm.

An old man drinking urine from an IV bag.

A newborn wailing beside its dead mother.

A month later, in a UN tent, Laila opened her notebook with hands

still stiff from her family’s dried blood:

Dear Youssef,

Today I saw a boy with your laugh.

I followed him for blocks until his mother called the police.

Ahmed doesn’t cry anymore. I think he forgot how.

Love,

Your killer (because I didn’t hold you tightly enough).

This isn’t just a story.

As you read these words, dozens of Lailas remain buried under

Gaza’s rubble.

Hundreds of Ahmeds breathe through collapsed lungs.

And thousands of sunflowers will never bloom.

Gaza’s children carve their stories into concrete with bare fingernails –

begging the world to listen before the last whisper fades.

Gaza bleeds every day but refuses to die –

because her children carry something stronger than bombs:

Memory.