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In a makeshift structure made of worn-out fabric in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, 25-year-old Samira Abdel Hamid is trying to build a life for her two children, 3-year-old Mohammad and 18-month-old Issa.

Abdel Hamid does not call the place where she lives a tent. As she describes it, it is “a place where the most basic necessities of life are unavailable, and where a person cannot feel that they are living a normal life.” While trying to meet her children’s needs, Abdel Hamid is also carrying the burden of a court case, waiting for a decision that could determine the shape of her and her children’s lives in the coming period.

“I never imagined my life would end up like this,” Abdel Hamid told me, recalling her life before the war. She married Salim Al-Astal on June 1, 2023, and lived with him in their apartment in northern Gaza, while he worked in a metalworking workshop. But after the war began, the family was forced to flee on October 11, 2023. Their home was bombed that same day, as was the metalworking workshop on which her husband depended for his livelihood.

“In one day, we lost our home and our work, and there was nothing left for us to return to,” Abdel Hamid said. The family fled to Deir al-Balah, where the harsh conditions of displacement and the lack of stability began to affect their marriage. With the loss of their income and the mounting pressures of war, Abdel Hamid said her relationship with her husband deteriorated. She said he no longer treated her as he had before and eventually stopped providing financial support for her and their children.

“I tried to endure it for the sake of my children, but I reached a point where I felt I could not continue,” Abdel Hamid said. As married life became an additional source of pressure, she decided to separate from him, hoping to raise her children away from the pressures she had been experiencing in the relationship.

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“I didn’t choose separation because it was easy. On the contrary, I knew my situation was already difficult, but I wanted to have some peace and raise my children without having another person constantly pressuring me,” she said.

But her decision did not end her suffering. Between displacement, the lack of a stable source of income, and the responsibility of caring for two young children, Abdel Hamid also found herself waiting for a legal process with no clear end in sight.

“I just want the case to be over and to know what my future is. Every time the hearing is postponed, I feel like I’m still stuck in the same situation.”

“I just want the case to be over and to........

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