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Had I remained one more day on the seventh floor of my apartment building in Gaza City, I would have died.

How am I to endure the feeling of being homeless in Al-Rimal, the neighborhood where I grew up — now reduced to a ghost city after so many apartment towers were destroyed? How can I be displaced in my own city, with no place left for me in the north or the south? I am homeless in my homeland.

On September 14, we received a sudden evacuation order. Soon after, Al-Jundi Tower — the high-rise apartment building beside us — was bombed, along with the building across the street, leaving half of the apartment building that I lived in destroyed. And yet, despite the devastation and the danger, we returned to the seventh floor to collect our mattresses — because in Gaza, you cannot simply buy new ones. There are no supplies, no mattresses, no tents, and if they exist, they are unbearably expensive; a single tent now costs as much as $1,500. We preserve what little we have, no matter the cost.

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That night, at around 11 pm, after the occupation had carried out its threats, we came back to find our home half-destroyed, with only one room left intact. We gathered all our mattresses and went to my grandmother’s house, planning to return in the morning to decide where we could stay. Then came the mockery: The army told our neighbor from the Kollak family — after destroying the tower —........

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