In a worn-out tent, a paralyzed Palestinian mother lies on a modest bed, covering herself with a thin blanket. Beside her are a wheelchair and plastic water bottles, while her four children sit around her in tattered clothes and weakened bodies, exhausted by hunger, loss, and hardship in Gaza City.
اضافة اعلان
This tent, erected on the rubble of the Kaheel family’s destroyed home west of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza, stands as testimony to their suffering. The family, once eight members, lost three — the father and two children — killed by the Israeli army.
Now, the family consists of five: four injured children and their mother, Mona Kaheel (35), who faces unbearable conditions. She is paralyzed, pregnant, battling cancer, and orphaned of both parents.
In March 2024, during the Israeli army’s raid on Al-Shifa Hospital, one of her sons was killed by an Israeli sniper.
Bedridden
Later that year, Israeli warplanes targeted the family home, killing her husband and one son. Mona suffered severe spinal injuries that left her unable to walk, confined to a wheelchair, while also enduring cancer.
Her four surviving children live with untreated wounds: Muadh lost an eye, his sister suffers temporary hearing loss, while the other two carry burns, fractures, and injuries left without proper medical care.
A Daily Struggle
Gaza is facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in its history, with deliberate starvation combined with ongoing genocide by Israel for nearly 23 months.
Since March 2, 2024, Israel has closed all border crossings into Gaza, blocking humanitarian aid, pushing the enclave into famine despite hundreds of aid trucks piling up at its borders. Only minimal amounts are let in, insufficient for survival.
With the blockade, the few operating health centers are overwhelmed with patients lying on floors, while exhausted doctors work without enough equipment or lifesaving medicine.
Inside the tent, little Muadh, blind in one eye, swings on a small makeshift swing, trying to distract himself from the pain. The space is crowded with rubble, lacking the bare essentials of life.
The family now has no breadwinner, no source of income, and lives under Israel’s siege, deprived of food and medicine.
Mona, orphaned after her parents were also killed in an Israeli strike, shoulders the burden of raising her injured children alone, despite her paralysis. She instructs them from her bed in a daily battle for survival against hunger, illness, and homelessness.
One Eye of Hope
Muadh, who lost his left eye and suffered burns on his hands and feet, dreams of leaving Gaza for treatment and an end to the war.
He told Anadolu: “I can only see with one eye. Doctors said my chances of regaining vision are just 1%.”
He recalled how his brother was martyred during the Israeli storming of Al-Shifa in March 2024: “We tried to save him, but we couldn’t with no doctors and under the hospital siege. Only after two weeks, when the army withdrew, we buried him.”
Resilience of a Paralyzed Mother
Now, in the same worn-out tent above the rubble of her home near Al-Shifa, Mona lies paralyzed, having lost her husband and two sons, discovering later that she was pregnant.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israel’s war has left 13,901 Palestinian women widowed.
Mona says she struggles greatly to care for her children with no support and her inability to move, while suffering from cancer and multiple injuries.
She recalls scenes of war: displacement, her home collapsing on the family, the killing of her husband and son, denial of treatment, and the absence of a safe home.
She recounts that during the Israeli raid on Al-Shifa in March 2024, soldiers burned homes and killed civilians, including her 15-year-old son. Soon after, airstrikes destroyed her house again, killing her husband and another son, leaving her and her children severely injured.
On March 18, 2024, the Israeli army stormed and besieged Al-Shifa, where over 7,000 displaced Palestinians were sheltering. Soldiers detained and interrogated more than 800 civilians inside the hospital and killed over 170. After their withdrawal, mass graves with burned bodies of victims were discovered.
Mona also lost her parents, sister, and brother in another airstrike just five months later, leaving her with no family support.
She suffers today from impaired hearing and vision, chronic pain, and immobility, but despite her condition, she refused abortion and held on to her pregnancy.
She says she misses her family deeply and fears for her surviving children, as they continue to live with her in rubble and a fragile tent devoid of the simplest means of life.
Since October 7, 2023, Israel, with U.S. backing, has carried out genocide in Gaza — killing, starving, destroying, and displacing — ignoring international appeals and rulings by the International Court of Justice to stop.
The onslaught has left 62,744 martyrs, 158,259 wounded, over 9,000 missing, hundreds of thousands displaced, and famine killing 300 Palestinians, including 117 children.
