Hamed Al-Mansi is a physical education teacher and farmer from Gaza. He is now alone in Gaza and his dearest wish is to reunite with his family. He has allowed us to publish an extract of his diary.

A repost from 21 November 2025

Our life before the war

We were living in a house in the middle of 300 dunam [30 hectares] of trees, surrounded by greenery in every direction. We had three cows, three horses, 15 head of sheep, and five geese. A huge dog guarded my farm. We also owned about 200 beehives, in addition to a chicken farm.

We milked the cows and sheep and made cheese and ghee to sell. We produced honey and sold it every year at harvest season – four big barrels of pure honey, from which we derived an ample livelihood. As for the chicken farm, I was selling its produce to traders and making a good income from that too.

The family home consisted of a building that contained apartments for each of my siblings, and for my mother and father. I had a private house beside the family building in front of my farm. All of that – the home, the farm, the trees, and the bees – was destroyed in the war. We have nothing left.

Beginning of the displacement

At the beginning of the war we moved into my father’s apartment in his family’s building in Tuffah, in central Gaza. After the [Israeli] army’s incursion into the area, we were forced to leave. After a while, that building was destroyed too, and so we became officially homeless, not owning a single house or apartment........

© Pearls and Irritations