In Gaza, We Now Ask: Will It Be the Cold, Hunger or Airstrikes That Kill Us?

Part of the Series

Struggle and Solidarity: Writing Toward Palestinian Liberation

On Thursday morning, just two days after the deadly March 18 bombardment that ended the ceasefire, I was once again jolted awake, this time by the sound of people screaming. In the distance, the wind roared and we could also hear tank shells. I heard people urgently saying, “Food is running out, we must buy what’s left before it’s gone completely!”

After hearing this grim news, my mother and I decided to venture out in search of rice, flour and drinkable water. As we walked through my childhood neighborhood, the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza, I couldn’t even recognize the streets anymore — everything was lost in the wreckage.

It felt as if I had stepped into a horror film, the sound of the relentless bombardment echoing violently in the air. People ran in every direction — some seeking shelter, others scrambling for food. Desperate, they whispered, “Where will we go after the tent we’ve set up on the rubble of our home?”

Amid the chaos, I saw children no older than 10 selling the simplest of sweets, their faces marked by exhaustion, just to buy a little flour. I asked them, “Aren’t you scared?” They answered with cold truth: “If we don’t die from the bombing, we’ll die from this cold and hunger.”

I continued walking with my mother, the bombing intensifying, and a bitter chill in the air as the unrelenting storm swept across us. A severe cold spell had already gripped Gaza for weeks. Yet the cold seemed insignificant compared to the terror that gripped our every step, and the silence between us was filled with the haunting question: How long could we survive this nightmare?

As we were repeating these words, suddenly the crowd grew larger, and their screams intensified. I asked them, “What’s happening?” They told me that after returning from Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, they had received an order for complete evacuation and that we must all prepare in the northern area for a possible ground invasion by the Israeli army once again. I couldn’t respond. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what we would face in the hours ahead.

But when I saw a mother fleeing with her young children, running aimlessly in the bitter cold, not knowing where to go, I lost all hope of returning to normal life. The children were wearing summer clothes in freezing weather. A 2-year-old who had no understanding of what was happening was simply struggling to survive. The toddler’s skin was pale from the cold, and I worried whether the hunger and frost would kill him before the missiles did.

My 10-year-old brother, Zaid, called out for my mother, his voice filled with concern for us. The journey under the relentless shelling and violent winds, which were tearing tents apart that day, was unbearable. Zaid was gripped with fear. Without hesitation, we decided to return home as quickly as possible.

As we moved through Al-Jundi Al-Majhool Street in the Rimal neighborhood, we saw countless tents, their owners frantically clinging to them. Some had resorted to stuffing rubble inside to anchor them against the ferocious winds. I was initially shocked by the sight, but then it became painfully clear: The wind had left them with no other option.

The toddler’s skin was pale from the cold, and I worried whether the hunger and frost would kill him before the missiles did.

In this moment — as the haunting specter of displacement looms once again over the people of northern Gaza, forcing us to flee amid fears of famine as a harsh cold front during Ramadan — it is almost impossible to imagine our former lives.

As a university student, I woke up every morning at 8:00 and rushed to the gates of my university, determined not to be late, fearing the strict consequences from my esteemed professor, Refaat Alareer, who never tolerated tardiness. I worked hard every day to achieve my simple dream: to study and graduate. Life felt relatively safe, comfortable. I lived in my new home, went to university with excitement and spent joyful moments with my friends.

But in an instant, everything changed. I lost my home, my university, and the man who had taught me how to write —Refaat Alareer, my mentor and guide — was struck down by an Israeli air raid on December 6, 2023.

Now, I no longer search for books, but for food and water in a world shattered beyond recognition.

Can you imagine your entire life turning upside down in an instant? One moment, you’re safe in the home you built with years of effort, where you eat, drink, learn — and live.

In the next moment, survival becomes your only activity. Finding shelter, even if it’s just a torn tent, is a battle. Clean drinking water is a privilege. You no longer dream of feeding your children meat or comfort foods — just anything to keep their hunger at bay. And any cover becomes a desperate effort, a fleeting hope in a world that seems to have forgotten you.

The thought of returning to war, just two months after a temporary ceasefire, during which we could only try to sleep peacefully for hours without death snatching away our loved ones, feels like a nightmare resurfacing at the worst possible moment of calm. The first day of the truce on January 19 was like the closing of a morgue freezer, an utterly grotesque conclusion after a year and two months of continuous annihilation. That moment was harder than the nightmare itself, because we knew all too well that a nightmare would eventually end. But what about our reality in Gaza? Has life become an inevitable burden, an inescapable fate? Are we condemned to live in this terrifying void, where time stops, and moments pile up like unending suffering?

In just 48 hours after the war resumed, all the hope we had desperately clung to was shattered. At least 970 of my neighbors were slain in those brief hours. What if the war continues for another week? Or a month? What if it stretches into another year, like the hell we’ve endured? Will we continue to resist, or have we reached a point of no return, where there is no more will to fight back, no possibility of escape?

Life in Gaza has become a relentless battle for survival. We continue to face death every moment, as if trapped in a parallel reality between life and death, between hope and despair. The unbearable fear weighs on us as we fight hunger and the overwhelming uncertainty of whether we will survive the next day. We don’t just fear the sound of bombs; we also fear the gnawing emptiness in our stomachs and the brutal reality that survival is not a given.

In these moments, we no longer choose how to live but how to endure, knowing that each breath may be our last, not just from the threat of war, but from the very hunger that claws at our bones.