=Destruction, broken hearts, and overwhelming hunger in Gaza Amid rubble and pain, Gazans live to the rhythm of tragedy

Amid the scattered rubble of what was once known as the Sheikh Radwan police station in Gaza City, a man sat alone, staring into the void, as if his eyes were searching for something that no longer existed. There was nothing in the scene that suggested life except his slow movement as he brushed dust off a broken stone with his hand, as though this rubble carried remnants of a memory he did not want to be erased.

The place was not merely a building destroyed by an air strike; it had been a daily passage for the neighborhood’s residents and a familiar part of a city’s routine worn down by war. Today, everything has turned into heavy silence, broken only by the distant sounds of ambulances and the smell of smoke still lingering in the air, bearing witness to a strike that suddenly hit the place and changed its features in moments.

The man sat among the shattered stones as if he were consoling the entire city, not just himself. On his face appeared the features of a shock that needs no words, for loss in Gaza is not measured only by the number of victims, but by what is torn away from the simple details of life: a road once used, a familiar building, and a sense of safety that was fragile to begin with.

On that day, the victims were not fleeting numbers in an official statement, but families who lost their children, and people who took shelter in a tent in the south, believing it to be the bare minimum for survival—only for their end to come under the bombardment. Among this rubble, Gaza’s tragedy appeared greater than the ability to comprehend, and harsher than to be reduced to a breaking news item.

This man alone, sitting amid the destruction, summed up the entire scene. He did not shout, nor did he wave his hands; he merely fixed a long gaze on what remained, as if it were a silent message to the world: here, in Gaza, life is still trying to stand atop the ruins, even as the sky remains wide open to fear.