'What is the meaning of life?' Gaza student struggles to hold on to dreams

TRT World first spoke to Mariam Khateeb about a month into Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza. At the time, the 20-year-old medical student and her family had relocated to southern Gaza after her home in the north was bombed.

Since November, she has been displaced several more times, witnessed the bombing of Gaza into rubble and struggled as the availability of food, water and healthcare have become almost non-existent. Here is more of her story in her own words, as told to Shabina S. Khatri.

I have been in a tent for the last two months. My family and I have gone from north (Gaza), to the south, to the middle.

When we went to Rafah, they said the Israeli forces were coming. Now we are far from Rafah, we are back to the middle area. People in Rafah, ask themselves, 'Where do we go?' There is no answer.

Before (the invasion), there were about 270,000 people in Rafah. Now it's more than 1.4 million. You see all of Gaza in Rafah. There is no space.

Also, there were people killed and there were people injured and Rafah has just one hospital, one hospital to help 1.5 million people. There is no equipment, no medicine, no painkillers in Gaza. No medical operations are taking place.

It's cold, there's nothing to eat. There is nothing to live for. There is no water, no breathing, no place to be safe, nothing.

When it's raining, the water goes on everything. All our bodies get cold. When we are sick, there is no hospital. It's really hard to live in a tent. The cold hits you in the night. It's a hot sun in the morning and cold rain at night.

We feel that in our bodies. There is no water to drink, to take a shower, to wash dishes. Also, there is no food at all. There is no way to find food. There is no gas, there is no electricity. It's really hard.

The hardest thing is the sounds (of bombing) at night. We see the sky, it's just a red sky. At night the sky used to be black. We see fire, rockets - they follow us. There are planes and we see helicopters. It feels unreal. Bombing is a heavy sound, it will kill you if it touches your tent, or your body.

There is no bread. We will make a small fire with some paper and wood, and people eat what animals eat. It's not made from flour - it's food that animals eat because there is nothing else.

When you eat it, it tastes like sand. And you're eating the sand, it's not a whole food. We get the water from the sea, it's not for drinking, or washing your dishes or your body.

We make our tongues not to taste anything. We don't want to taste, we don't want to smell (what we are eating and drinking), because we want to keep living. Starvation is affecting everybody in Gaza. Especially in north Gaza - there is nothing.

We have a queue of more than 1,000 people, just to get water. And maybe you don't have it when you finish the day, and you come back to small children with no water.

I want people to put on glasses to see what's happening in Gaza. It's been more than 130 days. The Israeli soldiers killed us in cold blood. Our blood is now on every street in Gaza. How can a child live, how can she make her life? How can she start her life when all her family was injured and passed away? How can we continue our life?

There is nowhere to go. There is no money - people can't buy a tent. There's no money to buy it. People just stay in the street, they sleep in the street. When it's raining their bodies get full of water.

Also when you are in a tent there are diseases - Hepatitis A, B, C, Hepatitis causes a hot fever, it's making our bodies yellow, and we can't take a breath. These are signs you have hepatitis. You should be in a room alone. But we are more than 60 ppl in the same area, so we can't quarantine.

If you cough, you spread the disease.

When they bomb us, maybe we'll survive. But our souls are injured.

I lost more than five of my friends. We lost our house, and yesterday we lost our neighbours in the bombing. We lost children, kind beautiful children, who had dreams. We lost dreams, we lost everything that makes you happy or beautiful.

If I live, I (already) lost my university, I lost my friends, I lost my house, I lost my wealth, I lost everything. When you are looking for the future, you see there is nothing.

We are living above the rubble of our homes. Each Palestinian-Gazan is special, living above our rubble. The Israelis attacked our home, but we will never leave our homes. We want to stay in our homes. We want to die in our homes.

But we are afraid. What is the meaning of life? We want to hear cars. There are no cars in the street. We want to drink water that's not polluted water.

We want to see the sun. We want to see the inside of our universities. We forget everything. After 130 days, we just try to survive. What is the meaning of life in Gaza - you search for water, food, medicine and sleep.

The Israelis - they target our dreams, our lives, our memories. They target why we want to live. There has been no life in Gaza since October 7. When people are talking, we can't complete a thought because we are so tired.

I want to eat maftoul. I want to eat musakhan. I miss chicken. There's no chicken in Gaza since October 7. There is no cucumber in Gaza, no tomato. If we find it, the price is really high - one cucumber costs more than $10.

There is no sugar, no salt in Gaza. There is nothing. (Aid) trucks are stopped from entering or the food is stolen or something like that. There is no rule of law.

You are speaking with a different person now. You are talking to a dead body. We want to live, we have the right to live, the right to drink water. We have the right to smile to make a memory, the right to stay safe with our families inside our home. We want to make sahlep and have a movie.