Tag Archives: Dreams

Dreams amid the rubble: Gaza’s women speak of homes, loss and hungry children

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In Gaza City, families living in tents reveal a shared, grim reality.

Many have been forced to flee the fighting dozens of times. Most find themselves homeless and hungry while facing an uncertain future.

Khadija Manoun and her daughter in the space she uses as a kitchen inside a destroyed building.

Khadija Manoun: Kitchen of life’s leftovers

Khadija Manoun said she and her family have moved more than 20 times, from Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip to a destroyed building in western Gaza, in search of shelter. She had owned a new fully furnished house, which she had built with a bank loan.

“I furnished my house well, with tiles and electrical appliances,” she said. “It had only been three years since I had the house. Then the war came and everything was lost.”

Today, everything has changed, Ms. Manoun said. Her spacious, fully equipped kitchen is now just a corner in the rubble, where a solitary soap dish borrowed from a neighbour sits. Metal utensils have been replaced with plastic tea containers to serve 10 people.

The bathroom was reduced to a corner covered with pieces of cloth that had been blankets. Her dressing room is now home to tattered suitcases.

“This is now my closet where I put everything,” she said. “I had a bedroom that had cost me 10,000 shekels.”

Her family sleeps on simple mattresses. Clean drinking water is a luxury that Khadija chases after, running between trucks, often returning with empty containers.

Amid all this, she sometimes reminisces, scrolling through photos on her mobile phone of her old home and the meals they used to eat.

Badriya Barrawi, a displaced person in Gaza, is living among the ruins of destroyed buildings.

Badriya Barawi: Exhausted by hunger

In her modest tent on the beach west of Gaza City, Badriya Barawi, from Beit Lahia, sits, arranging what remains of her life. Tears stream from her eyes.

“Have mercy on us,” she said. “We are fed up and exhausted, mentally and physically. We can’t bear it any longer. How long will this life go on?”

She says her children are crying from the heat and hunger.

“We haven’t had bread for three days. This morning, I fed the children hummus, but is that enough for their stomachs?” said Ms. Barawi, who suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.

She said she collapses daily from a lack of food.

Hiyam Zayed is displaced from Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip.

Hiyam Zayed: Trampled garden of dreams

In a nearby tent, Hiyam Zayed and her eight daughters eat lentil soup without bread. Describing her former home, she said there were six rooms and a garden.

“I was happy in my home,” she said. “My daughters and I used to have fun there. They played on the roof or inside the rooms. We had a beautiful garden in front of the house, and we grew plants and ate its produce and raised chickens. My daughters were very happy. We fed them the best food and dressed them in the best clothes.”

She also said she used to have a washing machine, a fully equipped kitchen and a refrigerator “full of goodies”.

Now, everything is gone.

“No food, no washing machine, no feelings: we’ve become depressed,” she added.

“My daughters wear the worst clothes. I can’t find a way to bathe them. I used to turn on the water tap at home and water would run for drinking or bathing. Now, we live in a tent in the sand. I light a fire to cook after I used to have gas. I borrow cooking utensils.”

“How are we to blame for what happened, and who bears responsibility?” Ms. Zayed asked. “What is my fault and my children’s fault when we are displaced from one place to another and they die of hunger?”

Hiyam’s daughters eating a lunch of lentil soup, without bread, where they live, inside a destroyed building.

Mass displacement

According to UN reports, more than two million Palestinians –the population of Gaza – live in about 15 per cent of the Strip’s area after the war caused widespread destruction of infrastructure and homes.

International organizations have warned that the continuation of the conflict threatens to have “catastrophic consequences” in the near term.

That includes a serious impact on children’s mental and physical health, the spread of disease and the disintegration of social structures.

This amid the absence of any clear path towards a political or humanitarian solution.

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Field of Dreams: Football Breathes Life into Yemen’s Camps

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The tournament is more than a sporting event. It’s a lifeline. In Ma’rib Governorate, where over 2.3 million internally displaced people have settled, families live in makeshift shelters, often after being forced to flee multiple times. Water is scarce, the heat is unforgiving, and access to education and health care is limited at best. In these conditions, there is little space for childhood, let alone for play.

Yet when the whistle blows, something shifts. On the field, children and young adults are no longer defined by conflict. For a moment, they become teammates, competitors and determined athletes, focused on the game and nothing else.

This year’s tournament, which is organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) brought together youth from more than a dozen displacement sites, including Salwa, Al-Ramsa and Al-Sowayda. In areas where daily life can feel heavy and isolated, the matches created a sense of connection and community.

Among the players is Basheer, a 26-year-old displaced from his home and now living in the heart of Salwa displacement site. Basheer shoulders far more than just his own future. He is the sixth of seven brothers and the only one with a steady income. Every day, he works on a minibus, shuttling people back and forth across town from early morning to late afternoon. On a good day, he brings home 20,000 Yemeni rials – barely enough to cover food.

The rest of the family depends on him. His brothers are out of work. The eldest managed to reach the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and sends money when he can, but the support is irregular. Most days, they survive on whatever Basheer is able to bring home.

Football, for Basheer, is more than a distraction. It’s a refuge. A rare moment of focus and joy in a life shaped by duty and survival. “Football takes me to another world,” says Basheer. “When I’m playing, I forget everything else.”

Player in football tournament for displaced people in Ma’rib, Yemen

‘Some came barefoot and played all day under the burning sun’

Despite its popularity, this year’s tournament faced a serious challenge: a lack of funding. In previous years, IOM had managed to fully equip the teams. Players received football boots, socks, kits and even proper goalposts. This year, IOM’s Camp Coordination and Camp Management team could only provide basic jerseys.

Jamal Alshami, an IOM field assistant and one of the long-time organisers, feared the turnout would suffer and that players might lose interest or feel discouraged. But the opposite happened.

“Even more players joined than last year,” he recounts. “Some came barefoot and played all day under the burning sun. They were happy just to be there.”

Displacement takes a toll on mental health. Life in the camps is stressful and isolating. But sport, and football in particular, gives young people a way to reconnect with themselves and with each other. “When people are displaced, they leave behind everything. That includes the things they used to enjoy,” says Mr. Alshami. “That’s why these activities matter. They help people relax and reconnect with something they once loved.”

That sense of joy was felt far beyond the players themselves. Spectators gathered along the sidelines, cheering with every goal. Commentators brought the matches to life with their lively calls. Even camp managers paused their work to watch. For a few hours each day, the camps felt different. They felt louder, lighter and full of life.

With Ma’rib continuing to receive new waves of displacement, IOM is working to bring mental health and psychosocial support closer to the ground. This includes sports, youth clubs and cultural events. Football, in this context, is more than a game. It is a reminder of identity. A way to heal. A moment of normal life in a place where very little feels normal.

Players in football tournament for displaced people in Ma’rib, Yemen