Aya Atef Abu Al-Ata, Al-Daraj, Gaza, "I appeal to every living conscience, and to every kind heart, to look..."

Aya Atef Abu Al-Ata, mother of four and currently carrying her soon-to-be born sixth child, reached out to me a short time ago from where she is currently displaced with her husband and children in Al-Daraj, Gaza, Palestine. 

Since then I have been corresponding with her across different platforms and accounts she has created, as many have been deleted due to reasons that are unclear. 

Whatever the cause, her dedication to sharing her story with the aim of supporting her family through donations to her GoFundMe is unbreakable. 

And I will say that the photos and videos she has shared with me have contained some of the most heartbreaking images I have seen that bear witness to the genocide being carried out against Palestinians. 

The impact of seeing the loss of life and brutality being waged in Palestine hits hard, regardless of the distance we have from it. 

Even so, to view these injuries and deaths shared by someone I have been talking to personally, as with many other Palestinians I have been communicating with, brings a different effect entirely, especially in the case of a video Aya sent me of her son, who died before reaching his first month, starved to death due to the lack of resources available for all Palestinians. 

To see such an image, to be told the truth of what this tragedy has done to Aya and her family, was to be touched and held in a loss unlike any other. 

We know the violence at work in Palestine is as unrestrained as it is growing. 

We know that ending the genocide and bringing decency and practical support to Palestinians is at a level of need that grows by the day.

And we know that young people, in Palestine, in our local communities, and everywhere else, inherit the world we set an example for, passively or by will, on every front.

To see the son of someone I know now, a baby boy who died because not enough basic nutrition got to him in time to keep living, is to have a personal mark set deeply, permanently on the needs that are being purposely blocked.

Aya shared her story in her own words below, and I encourage everyone to contribute whatever they can to her fundraiser page: https://gofund.me/1637a429a. 

She emphasized her gratitude to everyone who supports her and her family, as her current focus is on building a positive future for her daughters through education. 

“My biggest priority right now is ensuring that my daughters' monthly school fees are covered,” Aya said. “I want to secure their education and keep their lives stable before I reach the later stages of my pregnancy.

“Education is the only bridge to a better future for my girls, and I am working as hard as I can to make sure they don't lose their place in school.

“From the bottom of my heart, I thank everyone who stands by us and supports us during these difficult times.”

A Journey of Death and Birth in Gaza.. The Story of Survival under Genocide and Displacement

My name is Aya. I am a mother of four daughters and a grieving wife, living in Gaza City, specifically in the Shujaiya neighborhood on Al-Mansoura Street. I write these words to share with the world a chapter of the agony my family and I have endured—a relentless story of displacement, loss, starvation, and exile that no human mind could fathom.

At the very beginning of the war, the Israeli army arrested my husband, leaving me suddenly alone with my four young daughters amidst a hellfire of bombardment. Thus began our journey of wandering; we first fled to the "Al-Daraj Elementary School." As the airstrikes and firebelts intensified, I fled with them to "Al-Shifa Hospital." 

There, the hospital turned into an active battlefield, making survival impossible. 

Forced to evacuate under imminent threat, I returned once again to Al-Daraj school to be with my mother. We kept fleeing from one place to another whenever the tanks drew closer, carrying our souls in our hands while terror consumed my little girls’ hearts.

During those horrific days, all news of my husband was completely cut off for three whole months. We tasted the bitterness of loss, believing he had been martyred. 

But he returned from the dead; he was released from the Kerem Shalom crossing in Rafah (southern Gaza Strip), while my daughters and I were trapped in besieged northern Gaza, completely severed from the south. We were unable to meet; the longing tore us apart, and danger surrounded us from every side.

A month later, the "first famine" struck northern Gaza. As hunger tightened its grip on my daughters, I made a near-fatal decision: I would break through the siege and leave Gaza City to reunite with my husband in the Middle Area. 

By a miracle, we succeeded and reached the "Nuseirat Boys' School" shelter in the Al-Mufti area. There, our souls finally reunited, giving us a fleeting, false sense of safety that lasted only a month before we were forced to evacuate yet again toward Rafah city in the far south, settling in the "Saudi Neighborhood."

They did not let us catch our breath. 

Just two months later, the threats against Rafah began. 

We fled to Khan Younis, and only a week later, we were ordered to evacuate Khan Younis as well! 

We headed to Deir al-Balah. The suffering there was beyond description; transportation was non-existent, roads were paved with death, and tents were bombed over the heads of the displaced. God granted us a new lease on life countless times. 

During one of the airstrikes, my husband was close to the bombing and sustained a severe injury that led to the amputation of a finger on his hand, completely stripping him of his ability to work.

After four months in Deir al-Balah, we were forced to evacuate once more and returned to Nuseirat. With every single displacement, we had to leave behind all our belongings and life necessities, starting over from absolute zero with nothing but the clothes on our backs.

In January 2025, a truce was announced, allowing us to return to our homes in Shujaiya. 

We found our house partially damaged, but we thanked God just to be back. However, the joy was short-lived; as soon as the truce ended, the nightmare of evacuation stalked us from Shujaiya again. 

I fled to Al-Daraj school, and shortly after, the Al-Daraj neighborhood was threatened, so we fled to the "Al-Nasr neighborhood" just to keep our children alive.

This coincided with the "second famine," which was the harshest Gaza had ever witnessed. Food vanished entirely, and if anything was found, it was at astronomical prices that a family who had lost everything could never afford. 

Amidst this severe starvation, I was pregnant with the baby boy I had always dreamed of—my only son among four sisters. 

I left my fate to God and gave birth to my son at the absolute peak of the famine.

My baby lived only for days, approximately 25.

During that short time, some kind-hearted people provided us with two cans of baby formula and a few bites of food, which we divided among the whole family just to survive. 

Soon, baby formula became completely unavailable; even if found, the price of a single can reached $100—an amount we didn’t possess, let alone the fact that it was nearly impossible to find. 

One morning, I woke up to find that God had taken his trust back... my infant son had been martyred due to acute starvation. 

During those agonizing days, I used to feed my daughters nothing but "water and salt" to keep their empty stomachs from collapsing into disease.

A month after my son’s martyrdom, the crossing reopened, and food entered Gaza at high prices, but at least it became available. 

Yet, the machinery of war never stopped. 

We received an order to evacuate the school in preparation for its bombing. We woke up terrified in the middle of the night, not knowing where to go or where to turn. 

At that moment, my husband refused to leave Gaza City, and we pledged to each other: "We either die together or live together, but we will never leave Gaza City."

We fled under heavy bombardment to "Al-Thalathini Street." 

Days later, the shelling intensified and tanks drew dangerously close, forcing us to flee once more to "Omar Al-Mukhtar Street" in western Gaza.

Today, even though the massive waves of displacement have quieted and the formal active battlefronts have stopped, we find ourselves trapped in a new tragedy no less bitter than the bombardment. 

Our homes in the Shujaiya neighborhood have been completely destroyed, turned into nothing but rubble. Worse yet, the army still controls the neighborhood, completely preventing us from returning even to check on our ruins.

We have become completely scattered and displaced, living in a wretched tent in the "Al-Nasr neighborhood" that lacks the most basic standards of human life. 

Anyone who claims that the genocide in Gaza has stopped is lying! 

The genocide continues by depriving us of our land and our homes, and every single day there are martyrs, shelling, and targeted attacks that never end.

I appeal to every living conscience, and to every kind heart, to look at the condition of my daughters and my family, who have been crushed by displacement, famine, loss, and permanent exile. Help us secure a safe future and a shelter that protects my daughters after all this torment and devastation.