When famine becomes the bread of the narrative

From Entrepreneurship to Displacement Tent: A Mother's Testimony in the Gaza Tent.
Gaza - June 2025
At a time when life is turning into a long list of loss, and where the meaning of dignity is being recast in the tongue of hunger, my story, Salsabeel Gabr Awad, emerges as a living testimony to the ongoing Palestinian tragedy. I am a former businesswoman, mother of two, speaking from the heart of the open, from a tent in Gaza, where the dream of a diaper for a child, or a glass of milk, became the luxury of wishes that are not realized.
Can one recognize his features anew when war redraws them with ashes?
Can a man still have a name when the house and the cradle are stolen from him, and the memory turns into a shell???
In Gaza, where life flies by the day under bombardment, I speak to you - through the continuity of these platforms -
"I used to own a company, and today all I wish for is a loaf of bread and a diaper for my children."
Between seven sisters... The Shroud of White Loss.
I tell you:
I grew up in a warm house, surrounded by love, among seven sisters, where my parents were not told to have a boy, they all died before they could see the light.
I was born in an environment where science is a weapon, and identity is an issue we carry in the heart before documents.
All of us, sisters, have high degrees. I studied English and marketing and, after graduating, founded a successful digital trading and cryptocurrency company.
I was a businesswoman.
Then God gave me a loving and faithful husband, and I gave birth to my first child. That was the most beautiful day of my life.
But... On October 7, everything stopped.
I was planning to celebrate my wedding anniversary on October 10th.
But instead of flowers, we were greeted by rockets. Instead of candy, we swallowed the ashes of houses. Instead of hugging, we embraced our children out of fear.
My baby was only 50 days old... We started the journey from northern Gaza to southern Gaza.
A long, cruel journey, not in search of a new life, but of a mere "safe haven," of a corner not falling over our heads.
About a place where I tell my child: Sleep safely, even for a night.
"What did we do with the war?"
I describe the war as an identity-stripping machine, a silent assassination of dignity.
It destroyed us.
It killed us, displaced our features, and made us live without a pulse.
I could not have imagined that my life would collapse in an instant, that the ceiling would be pulled from above my head, that dignity would be taken from my heart.
I was an active, productive woman who believed in my role in society.
Today... No house, no family, no money, not even a shadow of my former self.
The war took everything away from me.
I lost 31 members of my family at once, in a massacre in Nuseirat camp.
I couldn't even visit my sisters, and they were only a few kilometers away.
Bombardment fills the sky, roads are dominated by bandits, and fear is a guardian of every step.
I heard about kidnapped children. Women were taken east and not returned.
Roads have become slaughterhouses, transportation is an impossible luxury, and the price of a loaf of bread is a fantasy.
"As for motherhood in times of famine..."
In the midst of this destruction, I discovered that I was pregnant.
I shuddered.
How can I have a baby in a world that doesn't even provide me with clean water?
I thought about abortion. Not weakness, but mercy.
My pregnancy is very dangerous, and I need 30 Clexane needles a month.
But no medicine, no food, no safe hospital.
I had to have a C-section without full anesthesia. I saw death eye view.
When I had my baby, I couldn't be happy.
What will I give her?
How do I feed her?
Breastfeeding failed, and famine is unforgiving.
Milk is not available, alternative is scarce.

Mix 1 teaspoon of milk in 2 cups of water to save.

My baby girl with no teeth... Hunger ate their stages.

Diseases ravage them, no medicine.

Not even diapers.

I tear my clothes and my husband's clothes to make a "one diaper" that lasts the longest.

Women's pads don't exist. I use cloth pieces from my old shirts.

When my son asked for a cookie, and I did nothing, I fell silent...

"Every time he says" Nennen, "I can't respond. I have nothing. "

Daily suffering... Repeated Without High

Journals that don't need journalistic imagination

Although the "daily routine" is supposed to be normal, in Gaza it becomes a silent resistance:

"What does my day look like?"

Simple question... His answer may tire the stone.

I wake up at six in the morning.

My children are still asleep, so I take the moment to arrange our tent... Or the rest of it.

The rubble dust was removed from our corner, next to a house that was bombed and no longer had features.

If we get lucky and we get water, I start washing some pots.

In Gaza, water brought a "rite of life..."

My husband or I walk long distances, seven or eight times a day, to get enough for one day.

Breakfast?

It's breadcrumbs. We wet it with hot water and some milk. For children only.

My husband and I are postponing our meal until lunch. If there is.

Lunch - in fact - depends on goodness tequila.

We wait, hoping my husband will come back with a plate.

The price of lentils has doubled, and preparing one meal can cost the equivalent of $80.

Sometimes, we find nothing... We forcibly fast.

Baby formula... Impossible wish

Milk...

This word, which was once self-evident, has turned today into a curse.

I chase after him in hospitals, in institutions, in everything that is said to have something for children.

When I find it, if I find it, I dissolve a very small spoonful of it in two glasses of water.

Two-year-olds without mills and fangs.

My daughter, the youngest, has one tooth.

Diarrhea doesn't leave them, no medication.

Wasted dignity... The Hospital Without Doors

A few days ago, my daughter had an intestinal influenza.

I ran her to what was left of the Rantisi Hospital.

It was like a war zone.

I saw my daughter writhing in pain, and I was helpless.

No medicine, no doctor, no device.

All I could do... A primitive suppository I prepared from the remains of what we have.

A wish that doesn't look like dreams.

Do you know what I want now?

Nothing more than a loaf of bread, a diaper, and a box of milk.

To feed my children, to dry their tears, to tell them the word "safe" and not to be a liar.

My greatest wish is to get out of Gaza, not to luxury, but to a possible life.

I just want my kids to live.

To survive with my mom and dad.

To tell future generations:

"We were a people... It's not completely erased. "

But if this death continues, we are exterminated. Piece by piece, voice by voice, motherhood.

Between staying and leaving... Amateur no decision

When you ask me about fears, I answer:

Everything here is scary, even the air.

If I stay, I'm afraid I'll starve to death, or the roof over my children will collapse.

I fear that the oldest will be killed before me, and the youngest will slowly wither away. Without medicine, without milk, without understanding why this world is so cruel.

And if I leave?

I fear that the road will be bombed, or that I will be lost in a land that does not know me, that does not understand my language and does not recognize my tears.

But I still want to get out. Because I can no longer afford to bury my children alive on my chest.

How do I explain death in the language of milk and dolls?

I hold my children's hand when they hear the shelling...

I say to them, "The sound of a pilot, but we will stay together."

I lie to keep their eyes open, knowing that everything around us could fall within seconds.

Hunger?

I tell my son, "Food is on the way..."

Then hold him until he sleeps.

Loss?

I have not yet explained how my girlfriend disappeared in Khanozes, how my cousin fell martyr...

Because I don't have the loss vocabulary that a child can understand without his heart breaking.

Is there still hope?

Yes, but not as others know.

Hope here is simple...

Tomorrow I will find bread that will not rot, unspoiled water, and morning without funerals.

Hope, that I can see my children sleeping full, not shivering from cold or fear.

To put my baby in a real bed, not a cardboard box.

My message to the world... If there is a conscience left in the world,

We don't ask for miracles.

We just want life, even in its austere version.

My message:

Don't let our screams run through your screens like advertisements.

Salsabeel is not a number, not a "humanitarian case..."

A mother, a daughter, a sister, a woman, created as your children were, dreaming for them what you dream for.

Say you've seen.

Do not be false witnesses to the end of a people being annihilated, for the world has remained silent.

Call not only read... It's being heard.

That's not a story.

It is the testimony of a woman who dies every day and is reborn just to feed her child.

Her name is Salsabeel Jabr Awad.

Location: Gaza.

Time: War without end.

Sound: A cry that finds no ears.

Does anyone hear?

Is anyone saving what's left?

Does anyone give back to women in Gaza anything of their dignity, of their mercies, of their motherhood that bleeds on the doors of tikaya and ashes?

Between displacement and survival, between hunger and anger, between delayed death and debilitating motherhood, Salsabil Jabr Awad of Gaza writes a new line in the history of the Palestinian disaster.

Not only as a survivor, but as a witness to an era in which humanity is being redefined and the consciences of the world are being tested.

In Gaza, motherhood is not an instinct. It's resistance.

And surviving isn't really... It is a battle fought every day from a tent, with a spoon of milk.

Offri un caffè a Salsabeel J.Awad

When famine becomes the bread of the narrative

My family

My Story