A Childhood Under Siege
by Anera
Posted in: Voices from the field
My Son is Growing Up Without Knowing His Father
By Reem, a civilian in Gaza.
My son Osama was born on October 3, 2023, in Gaza City — fragile, beautiful, and utterly unaware that he was taking his first breaths in what was about to become a war zone. I had left my husband and home in Egypt and returned to Gaza to be with my family for the birth. It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. But after a complicated pregnancy, we had no choice. I needed care, and I thought I could deliver him safely at home with my family around to help.
Four days after I gave birth, the sky over Gaza turned to fire.
We were jolted awake by bombs, sirens, and screams. My body was still torn and healing. I had no idea what was happening. But that day, I understood: war had begun, and it was going to be long and brutal.
Two days later, just before dawn, there was a furious pounding at the door. “Evacuate! Evacuate!” they yelled. All I could think of was my newborn. I screamed for my sisters to grab him and run. I didn’t care about myself, just my baby. Still in pain from my operation, I leaned on my mother and stumbled out of the house. I spent the next two months enduring an infection and wounds that wouldn’t heal.
Each day, I looked at Osama’s face and felt both joy and grief. He was growing, but far from his father, his toys, his room — the love we had prepared for him. I had to be both mother and father to a baby in a war zone.
We stayed in northern Gaza, unable to flee south. Food disappeared. Formula and diapers became nearly impossible to find. There was no water, no medicine, no internet. For seven months, my husband didn’t know if we were alive.
I searched constantly for baby formula, walking across neighborhoods and into overcrowded shelters, begging for a single can. Once, while attempting to collect formula from a school housing displaced people, a car was bombed right in front of me. Shrapnel sprayed around me. I wrapped my arms around my body and screamed in fear.
There was no rest. Only airstrikes, gas, and chaos. When Osama was three months old, an airstrike near us filled the air in and around our house with a choking yellow smoke. The smoke lingered for hours, making him sick — inflaming his tiny lungs. But I had no medicine, only home remedies and hope. I soaked bits of cloth in water and held them under his nose, trying to help him breathe. Even after cleaning the house, we could smell the fumes for weeks.
Winter came, bitter and freezing. My baby had no proper clothes, so I dressed him in whatever I could find — often oversized shirts with sleeves that swallowed his arms. The thirty of us, my extended family and displaced relatives, were crammed into a three-room house. Each of us got one bottle of water per day. For Osama, I would steal extra bottles at night. I drank contaminated water for weeks so I could save the cleaner water for him. I ended up with a serious intestinal infection.
When Ramadan came in 2024, northern Gaza was in the grip of famine. On the first night, I broke my fast with hot water and a bouillon cube. The second night, we had three pieces of fried dough and a cup of coffee. On other nights, I waited until my aunt’s family finished their meal, then quietly scraped the burnt rice from the bottom of their pot. It was humiliating, but I had to survive — for him.
Osama started to speak. The first time he said “Baba” (Dad), it wasn’t for his father. He was copying my sister’s children, and the word was meant for her husband. He had never seen his father, never heard his voice.
When communication finally came back after seven long months, we had a video call with my husband. Osama smiled and called him “Uncle.” My husband laughed and cried at the same time. He told me: “Reem, our child has become a little man, one I don’t know, and one who doesn’t know me.”
Shortly after Osama’s first birthday, we found out he had a hernia and needed urgent surgery. He also had a severe vitamin D and calcium deficiency, causing his legs to bow. He needed specialized shoes and nutrition. We managed to get him the surgery, but the leg deformity remains and is worsening with time.
My husband tried everything to help us from afar. But the difference between currencies, the high transfer fees, and the skyrocketing prices in Gaza made it nearly impossible. He even tried to get us out of Gaza; his mother holds Egyptian nationality, but the costs of travel coordination were far beyond what we could afford.
Still I dreamed of reuniting our family: walking with my husband, Osama toddling between us, baking together, laughing again. But fate had other plans.
Around midnight on the night of December 15, 2024, a missile struck the house next to ours. Yellow smoke and flames filled our home. I screamed Osama’s name, crawling through the dark, desperate to touch him. His heart was beating — fast, but alive. My sister’s pelvis was shattered. Our home was damaged. Everything smelled like fire.
Osama’s face was gray, his eyelashes singed, his body trembling. From that night on, I began sleeping with him between me and my sister.
Now he is nearly two years old. He talks, plays, asks for things I can’t give. Diapers are too expensive, so I used cloth and plastic bags. I toilet-trained him early, not because he’s ready, but because we had no choice.
I go to sleep crying, praying. After two years of war, separation, and hunger, I ask only one thing of God:
Let this child see his father. Let us be a family again.