The quiet resilience of mothers in Gaza
A mother, who recently lost her husband, comforts her injured daughter at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in April 2025. Photo credit: Yahya Thaher
In mid-December 2023, an airstrike hit Jabalia camp near the house of my cousin’s wife, Hala. We had moved there in the first days of the war, after the Israeli army ordered a full evacuation of Beit Lahia, where we lived. Hala’s husband, Nael, had just stepped outside to sit on the doorstep with their son, Mohammad, on his lap. They were killed instantly. Mohammad hadn’t yet turned one. He was just learning to sit.
“It was sudden. They just disappeared,” Hala told me. She stood still, her hands by her side. Her voice didn’t crack, her body didn’t move, but her eyes were empty. Later, between the Asr and Maghrib prayers, after we had buried them and people were still offering condolences, she sat quietly in a corner, speaking to herself. “He could breathe. He could smile. He could...” She stopped, adding in a hushed tone, “He never learned to run.”
The next day, she got up early and did her chores, as if her body moved out of habit. She cooked food she wouldn’t eat. She dressed her children and folded clothes for people who wouldn’t wear them again. She swept the same spot for hours and wiped the dust from an empty crib.
According to UN Women, more than 28,000 women and girls have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. Those who survive are expected to provide, protect, and endure. They sleep the least, eat last and always comfort others. They have extremely limited access to menstrual hygiene products, forced to use cloth or paper, which can lead to infection and diseases.
I once saw Hala sitting on the ground, holding a piece of her son’s clothing, folding it and unfolding it over and over. Her lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. People praised her strength, but they didn’t see her fists clenched tightly behind her back, or the way her shoulders tensed every time someone mentioned a child. She never screamed. She never broke down in public. In the street, she looked strong. Inside her tent, she unraveled quietly.
Rahaf, my uncle’s wife, was pregnant with her fifth child. In February 2024 when she went into labor, we rushed her to what we thought was a hospital. Instead, it was a tent with four beds. No privacy. No electricity. One doctor. The sound of shelling radiated outside as the fourth month of the genocide carried on without an end in sight. Israeli forces had already taken control of the western and southern areas of northern Gaza, and airstrikes were hitting daily.
Rahaf laid down in the tent, surrounded by women she didn’t know—some in pain, some waiting quietly for medicine. The walls were made of canvas, the ground covered in blood.
Rahaf gave birth to her daughter Faten, which means ‘charming,’; she wanted her to grow up with beauty in her name, even if the world around her was broken. She didn’t hold her for long. Just enough to whisper something into her ear. Then she went home and laid the baby beside her four daughters. She swept the floor. Folded blankets. Made tea. Business as usual. She had no choice.
Like Rahaf, many women delivered in tents or hallways, without pain relief, clean water or privacy. Caesarean sections were frequently done without anesthesia. Neonatal mortality climbed as healthcare providers either fled the Strip or were killed, while medical supplies dwindled.
The UNFPA estimates that up to 20% of the 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza live in severe food insecurity. Many give birth in tents, under bombardment, without electricity, painkillers, or even clean water. Stillbirths and trauma are on the rise.
Fuel shortages, infrastracture damage and displacement have all but collapsed Gaza’s healthcare system. In late 2023, Miscarriages surged by 300 %, and two mothers were estimated to be killed every hour as of early 2024. By then, only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were functioning, and only partially. Maternal health risks rose sharply. The Associated Press reported healthcare workers documented 40 miscarriages a week. This collapse turned pregnancy into a daily battle for survival, especially for mothers already overcome by hunger, fear, and loss.
My mother, Huda, 38, is the most precious person in my life. Sometimes when she thinks I’m asleep, I see her sitting alone, staring at the wall. I pretend to sleep, but she knows I’m awake. She pulls the blanket up, strokes my head, and whispers, “If we survive tomorrow, I’ll teach you something new.”
She is not a soldier, but she fights. She hides her pain in silence, but I hear it. Sometimes I catch her staring at the ceiling, her eyes unblinking. I once asked her, “Are you okay?” She didn’t answer. Just smiled. A broken smile that scared me more than silence.
One evening, she whispered, “I don’t want him to grow up knowing only fear.” She was talking about my 4-year-old brother, Shaheen.
She teaches him letters on scraps of paper while drones circle above. She draws the letter 'ب' on burnt paper. It’s the first letter of ‘bayt’ — home. But we have no home.
She says, “We’ll bake bread tomorrow,” even when there is no flour. She says, “The windows are broken because we wanted more air,” even though that is not why the windows are broken. She says, “The baby is sleeping,” even though the baby is gone.
Gaza’s mothers are inventing comfort where none exists. Mothers here don’t collapse, they can’t. If they were to, everything else would collapse as well.
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