On the edge of Al-Mawasi, in the south of the Gaza Strip, she sits in a wheelchair, its wheels half-sunken in the sand. She doesn’t move, just as the memories never leave her.

Among the displaced from Khan Younis, she arrived, dragging behind her a life worn with time. She wears a light scarf woven from the sun’s fabric on her head—as if to cover what remains of a dream, or to shield herself from the glare of reality.

Her face is not just features; it’s a map of years lived between olive trees, soil, and water… years when a house was truly a home, when bread was enough, and mornings began with the aroma of coffee, not the sound of shelling.

Now, everything has changed. Hunger is no longer a passing feeling; it has become a constant companion, gnawing at her patience like fire devouring the trunks of trees.

Thirst has dried the words in her throat, and illness creeps silently into her limbs—as if knowing she has no luxury of escape.

An Old Promise

She stares at the sky, as if asking it about an old promise, about a peace lost in the chaos of displacement, about the home she left behind without a goodbye, about a wall she used to lean her back against—now only ruins in her memory.

Do not cry, dear lady, for your tears dried long ago—since the first tent, the first farewell, the first child who slept hungry in your lap and never woke again.

In her heart, something like hope still lingers. She doesn’t describe it, doesn’t name it—she simply keeps it. Just as she keeps the names of her children, the colors of doors, and the scent of the evening in Khan Younis before the place was estranged.

On that wheelchair, she does not move—but every moment, she travels back to a time when everything was simple, warm, and whole.