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.

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 in all of Gaza.

We all went our separate ways after that, fleeing from fear and from death. I went with my wife and daughters to the suburb of Sabra, where my wife Haneen’s family lives. We stayed there for almost a month, but we had a brush with danger when the mosque adjacent to my wife’s family home was bombed. ِAfter that, we decided to flee [south] via the Netzarim Corridor, known as the ‘death corridor’.

On the corridor, we passed in front of the army, which was arresting some of the young men and executing them in front of people. Haneen and the girls were terrified that the soldiers would take me or kill me, as they were selecting young men at random, shooting them, and then dumping them in big pits in front of everyone. My daughters were clinging to my hands and trembling from the terror, their eyes full of tears. Thanks to God, we passed the Netzarim Corridor safely.

To Khan Yunis and then Rafah

We arrived at Hamad City, in Khan Yunis, where my wife’s maternal uncle lived. We stayed in an apartment there for about two months. It was the most beautiful two months of the war, as the army hadn’t arrived there yet. But the calm didn’t last. The jets began bombing some of the apartments in the city, and the apartment beside ours was hit. We saw shredded children and burnt women. We lived an indescribable fear, until the army invaded the city and we fled to Rafah. It was the final point of safety in Gaza, only a few kilometres from the Egyptian border.

The Pakistani angel

In Rafah, while I was making some video clips about daily life, a woman named Sadeeqa [name changed] contacted me. She was a Pakistani woman living in America. She asked me:

“How much money do you need to get your family out of the war?”

At first, I didn’t think she was serious, but she was the angel that God had sent to us. Sadeeqa traveled to Egypt alone to take the measures necessary for our exit from Gaza, and she used her own funds to pay the “coordinator” who would facilitate our travel.

But the decision turned out to be difficult. The coordinator said that it was only possible for my wife and daughters to leave, without their [husband and] father. And so, I had to choose between us staying together in danger, or separating for the sake of their safety. I took the most difficult decision of my life: to send Haneen and the girls to Egypt, while I remained in Gaza.

The final goodbye

On the day of their departure, I took Haneen and the girls to the crossing. The tanks hadn’t arrived there yet. I farewelled my wife and daughters. It was the final embrace. The final touch. The final look. We cried as if our souls were leaving our bodies. The farewell wasn’t easy, but it was the only way to save them from the annihilation that was harvesting the souls of people in Gaza. My family left for safety, and I stayed in Gaza. Subsequently, the Israeli army occupied the Rafah crossing, so I wasn’t able reunite with them.

My Mother’s passing

In the midst of all of this, my mother – my love and the apple of my eye – was struck with cancer. Due to the siege, we couldn’t treat her inside the Strip. After much effort, and coordination with the World Health Organization, my mother travelled with my father to Egypt for treatment. But fate preceded us; the cancer had spread throughout her intestines. Her weak body couldn’t endure it. She passed away in Egypt, far away from me.

God’s mercy

But God didn’t leave my family alone in Egypt. He sent good people to look after them. Among them was a young Australian man. He came to Egypt to study Arabic, and saw my story on Instagram. He contacted me and offered to help the family and teach my girls English, which I encouraged him to do. I gave him my wife’s contact details and from that day on he became a friend and teacher to them, and a part of our family. After his studies ended, he returned to his country, but he left in our hearts an impression that won’t be forgotten.

Today

Today, I am alone here in Gaza, moving from place to place, fleeing from death, and living with fear and hunger and displacement. I know that there is no escape from death, and that permanence is for nobody. But it is human nature to not want to die.

Here I am, after two years of killing, and fear, and hunger, and homelessness, still breathing.

There is one hope that never leaves me: to meet my wife and daughters again, and to get back a part of the life that we were living before the war.

Translated from Arabic by Jaron Sutton

The views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Pearls and Irritations.