Oct, 2025
"They completely destroyed my house. They broke all my windows and doors, upturning everything. My entire kitchen was destroyed."
In a quiet corner of Jericho, 57-year-old Khloud Jalayta shares a modest one-bedroom home with her family. Built of concrete blocks with a tin roof, the house measures just 80 square meters for five people. “It’s small and simple,” she says, “but it is our home.”
Khloud is a mother of three: two sons and a daughter. Her eldest son, 33, has been detained in Israeli military facilities for the past four months. Her younger son, 31, was left disabled after a tragic accident but now lives with her, together with his wife. Her daughter, recently divorced, has also returned home with her 9-year-old child, all sharing the same small house.
Life has never been easy for Khloud. Married young, she moved to Jordan at 18, but the relationship quickly turned painful. “My husband was not responsible and did not take care of me or my children,” she recalls. “One day, I just left and came back home to Jericho. We divorced, and he never paid any child support. I was left to raise my three young children on my own.”
Returning to her parents’ home, Khloud’s father gave her the chance to build a humble one-bedroom space on top of the family house. “I would not have been able to make ends meet and pay rent if my dad didn’t help me out in this way,” she says.
For decades, Khloud worked wherever she could; under the scorching Jericho sun on farms, in factories, and cleaning houses. “I had a very hard life,” she admits, “but I had to do what I had to do to take care of the children God gave me. He entrusted me with them.” Today, she and her daughter continue to rely on seasonal work, such as harvesting dates. “My daughter and I work like this now. Today we’re in a date factory; tomorrow, we might be cleaning houses. Who knows?” Khloud says with a shrug.
The family’s hardships deepened in recent months. Israeli military forces repeatedly raided their home, detaining her son during one such night. “They kept coming to my house and breaking everything,” she recounts. “They separated us for hours. I once spent 24 hours in an interrogation room.” The last raid left her home in ruins.
“They completely destroyed my house. They broke all my windows and doors, upturning everything. My entire kitchen was destroyed. They purposely smashed all my glass plates and cups, pots, and pans. We were left with nothing.”
Months later, the damage remains. “We were only able to replace two windows because my brother had them on hand. I still have my kitchen window broken because we don’t have the money to fix everything.”
When Anera’s team delivered a new kitchen kit to her home, Khloud felt a glimmer of relief. “This kitchen kit could not have come at a more perfect time,” she says, smiling for the first time during our extensive conversation. “It replaced all my old kitchen stuff and filled up my humble kitchen again. I could never have afforded this myself.
For Khloud and her family, the support goes beyond utensils and cookware. “My daughter and I work so hard just to put food on the table. We never have extra money to buy things like kitchenware or even a little ornament for the house. I had been living with cheap plastic plates and cups ever since they destroyed my kitchen,” she explains. “Now, thanks to Anera, my kitchen feels whole again.”
