The prayer hall was a shell of its former self, its once-vibrant blue tiles now caked in dust and scarred with shrapnel. “Resistance is the teaching of Islam,” the Imam’s voice echoed, amplified by a cheap loudspeaker. His words, a familiar mantra of defiance, hung in the air, but to Rubein, they sounded hollow. Rubein, a father of nine, sat hunched among the pews, his stomach gnawing at him with a hunger that was now a constant companion. The crowd was thin, mostly men like him—the ones who couldn’t afford the exorbitant cost of leaving. The wealthy, he’d heard, were already gone, their cars speeding south, their families safe from the coming storm.
After the Imam’s impassioned sermon, the men dispersed, their footsteps shuffling on the debris-strewn floor. Rubein walked with his neighbour, a man named Khaled. Khaled, a farmer, had lost his entire crop in the early days of the war. “The preacher says we are cowards if we leave,” Rubein said, his voice a bitter whisper. Khaled nodded, his eyes fixed on the bombed-out shell of an apartment building where a family had once lived. “What kind of choice is that?” he asked. “Do we stay and die in a war that is not ours? Or do we leave and be called a coward by those who will not be here to face the consequences?”
That night, Rubein sat with his family, the constant hum of drones a familiar lullaby of dread. He looked at his nine children, their faces pale and thin from hunger. His wife, weary from a day of scrounging for food, was asleep, her face etched with worry. He had to get them out. He had no money, no connections, but he had to find a way. He remembered the words of the Hamas preacher, a man who, Rubein knew, lived in a fortified house and was never seen on the streets. He thought of his neighbor Khaled’s words, a voice of quiet fury. “Why doesn’t he tell Hamas leaders to surrender and release the Israeli hostages so this war can stop?”
The next morning, as the sun rose over the broken city, Rubein and his family began their journey. Their small belongings were packed in sacks, and they carried their children in their arms. The road south was a river of humanity, a silent, desperate exodus. Rubein walked with a heavy heart, leaving behind the only home he had ever known. He was not running from a battlefield; he was running for the lives of his family. He looked back at Gaza City, its skyline a jagged line of destruction. The sound of the preacher’s voice, once a call to arms, now felt like a curse, a chain that he had finally, and with great difficulty, broken free from. He looked at his children, their tired faces a testament to their resilience, and he knew he had made the right choice.
All names of people and organizations appearing in this story are pseudonyms
We escaped certain death’: Israel intensifies Gaza City bombardment, forcing families to flee
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