From Gaza to Istanbul: Turkish woman recounts war and survival

Muhsine Alnajjar was at the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing with her husband and their two-year-old daughter. They had waited for hours to get out of Gaza and escape Israel’s relentless aerial bombardment. Then, just as they were about to cross the border gate, there was a deafening bang.

“It was October 10. The worst day of my life. The explosion was so ferocious, I cannot even describe it,” Muhsine, a Turkish citizen, tells TRT World.

As the initial shock from terror wore off, they realised Israel had bombed the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing - the only entry or exit point to Gaza that Tel Aviv does not control.

Israeli officials then called the Palestinian border authorities with a warning: evacuate immediately or be prepared to get hit. As word spread, chaos ensued.

“Everyone was screaming. It was a matter of life and death,” Muhsine recalls. Hundreds of people clamoured to get away from the border gate and into Gaza. She grabbed her two-year-old daughter Mona Zehra and pushed ahead on foot, her husband Muhammad right behind them.

“We were running, but I could barely find the strength to move my feet. I saw old people and children lying on the ground. They couldn't run and were being trampled upon. It felt like it was the Day of Judgement.”

Fortunately, they managed to squeeze into a car full of people fleeing the scene.

As they drove towards Khan Younus, the threat of what an Israeli air strike could do was all around them. On both sides of the road, there was rubble of concrete and steel - remnants of residential buildings once home to thousands of Palestinians.

It was supposed to be the day the family of three got out of Gaza, but they were now stuck in the besieged enclave. Muhsine would learn about war-time hardships and the resilience of Palestinians that one can only experience by being on the ground.

‘Nowhere to escape’

Muhammad, 31 , a mechatronics engineer, was born and raised in Gaza. He moved to Türkiye in 2016 where he ran into Muhsine, 30, at university. She was learning Arabic, he wanted to improve his Turkish. They fell in love.

When they got married in 2019, most of Muhammad’s family couldn’t make it to the wedding because of the Israeli blockade, which doesn’t allow Palestinians to leave the besieged enclave. So, they decided to travel to Gaza when the time was right.

After many delays over the years, and the birth of their daughter, the young couple finally decided to visit this year. On September 24, they managed to travel to Muhammad’s family home in Khan Younis, Southern Gaza.

“Our first two weeks there were great. I was so happy, I kept telling my mother-in-law that I wanted to visit every summer,” Muhsine says, adding that she hadn’t imagined Gaza to be so beautiful and full of life.

"The shoreline is amazing. We would take our breakfast and go to the beach. The atmosphere was so nice. I had never seen date palms in Türkiye, the beach in Gaza was lined with them. It was beautiful.”

But her holiday turned into a nightmare on October 7, when Israel launched a massive military assault on Gaza - now in its 56th day - in response to Hamas’ attacks on Israeli military posts and border towns.

On the morning after the conflict broke out, Muhsine woke up to the commotion of her mother-in-law hurrying around the house to open the windows.

The sound of Israeli bombs dropping in the distance reverberated outside.

While Muhisne was still trying to figure out what was happening, her husband jumped out of bed and without saying a word began helping his mother in a matter-of-fact manner.

A confused Muhsine looked on wondering what was happening. She didn’t see any point in opening the windows during a thunderstorm - she hadn’t even realised that the sounds were of explosions and not the ferocious clouds.

“I'd never seen such a conflict,” she says.

In the days to come, the Alnajjar family home’s windows remained open at all times. It was a precaution to give a passage for the shockwave and sound to pass through without shattering the windowpane glass, which can cause serious injuries.

As the Israeli bombing became intense and indiscriminate, the whole family began to huddle together in one room, away from the windows, where they spent the nights.

Sometimes a bomb would drop close by. “I would just sit there trembling. You can't do anything at that moment. ... You just wait for it to stop,” says Muhsine.

Muhammad and his family were familiar with missiles flying overhead long before war broke out on October 7. “They could easily tell when a rocket was launched by Israel or by Hamas, and even when the Iron Dome repelled one. I couldn’t, so I was easily startled,” says Muhsine.

Loud bangs frightened their toddler Mona. She would clench her hands and teeth, and try to read the expressions on her parents’ faces. They had to keep their composure because the slightest hint of them getting worried would send her into panic. When the explosions were too loud, Muhammad would take Mona into his lap and cover her ears.

“You learn to cope with constant bombings,” Muhsine says. The more she learned about how to distinguish which missiles were coming from the Israeli side, the easier it became to contain her fear. But on nights of heavy bombardment, no amount of experience was enough to stop her from shuddering.

“There were many moments when I lost hope. Each day, towards the sunset, I would tremble. The bombardment was very intense. There is nowhere to escape. You are in your home, but you are not safe.”

Her mother-in-law, a cheerful person, would try to lighten her mood by making jokes. But when the attacks got intense, her tone would change and she’d say “This time they got very close. Now it's our turn, they will bomb our house,” Muhsine recalls.

One of the most unforgettable moments for Muhsine was the night of October 24, when the Israeli bombing was especially intense in their neighbourhood, claiming the lives of many residents. Her in-laws, fearing the worst, gathered all the family valuables and buried them in the vicinity of their house.

They then called one of Muhammad’s brothers who lives in another country and told him: "We have buried everything here. You should know, in case something happens to us.”

On that night, they had given up any thought of getting out alive.

‘Are you alive?’

Every day was a struggle for life.

There was no electricity and the little brackish water they got was from a well. There was never enough food for everyone. Muhammad would go to the bazaar (market place), hopping from shop to shop in the hope of finding something to eat, but what little he could find was five times the actual price.

Like the rest of Gaza, the Alnajjars wouldn’t stock food. They only bought and cooked enough to last them a day. Everything was expensive and they had to save cash - you never knew when it was time to leave behind all your belongings and run.

The family of eight was surviving on one meal a day, which was cooked on a wood stove in the front yard. Since they were perpetually surviving on limited meals, they would try to pretend their bellies were full by dipping the flatbread her mother-in-law baked into the gravy and scooping it out from the bottom of the pot.

Whenever the phones worked - in between the Israeli telecom blackouts -, they would call relatives but the conversation would be short: “Are you alive?”

“What touched my heart the most was the sincerity and how the people of Gaza embraced me. They were very protective of us. I never felt like a stranger,” she says.

“And they always asked me to tell the world what I saw.”

What she saw was beyond horrific - it was not a case of casualty count going up in a faraway land. She was there with the people who were losing their lives and their loved ones - and yet they remained resilient in the face of all the destruction.

Muhammad’s cousin Feda and more than ten of her in-laws, including their children, were killed when an Israeli air strike hit their apartment building a few days after the war started. The only survivor was a four-month-old baby.

“I met Feda when we first arrived in Gaza. She was so beautiful. Her mother later told us that the bombing that killed her was so horrific, they couldn't even find pieces of her,” Muhsine says.

“But the people of Gaza are so strong. All Feda’s mother said was: ‘Allah is sufficient for us’ and ‘My daughter was blessed with martyrdom’.”

An attempt to preserve life

Muhsine and Muhammad were due to leave Gaza on October 10. But when it came to arranging the transport to the border, Muhammad’s father refused to let his brother drive them - he couldn’t risk losing both sons in one day.

They would only manage to travel back to Türkiye on November 19, accompanied by the Turkish Red Crescent and National Medical Rescue Team which made it easy for them to pass the checkpoints.

A few days before, when Muhsine found out that Ankara would be evacuating her, Mona and Muhammad back to Türkiye, she didn’t feel joy.

“My only prayer was for the war to end. It felt selfish that I had only been hoping for my own salvation. But I wanted to go back home with peace of mind. Since I returned, all I can think about is the people in Gaza,” she says.

The trauma of the death and destruction Muhsine saw in Gaza had taken hold of her. She now struggles to sleep or eat. Some nights, she wakes up screaming.

Mona is also showing signs of stress. She has become aggressive and is now biting her nails.

But what does Muhsine feel about her in-laws who are still in Gaza?

“It's their home. Isn't that what they want anyway? That all the people of Gaza should leave, and the land should fall into the hands of Israel.”

She recalled that her 65-year-old father-in-law would weep often, worried that there would be a repeat of the Nakba, or catastrophe, remembering what his own father and grandfather went through.

"They will probably send us to Sinai. Then when we return to our home, which I built with my own hands, we will find that an Israeli family is settled there," she recalls her father-in-law as saying.

“They are from Gaza. They never attempted to leave, and have no desire to do so.”