Um Sohel, 80 years old, was displaced from Al-Majdal as a child. During the last war, despite constant bombing and tanks surrounding her area, she refused to leave her home in Gaza. She stayed with her daughter and grandchild in her zinc-sheet house near Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, always saying, “This is my home, and this is my land. I won’t leave it.”
Um Sohel has lived in her home for 60 years, where she started her life with her husband and raised her children. “In this home, I raised them. My daughter is a lecturer, and my son is a teacher. No place is like our home.”
Her memories are deeply tied to her eldest son, Sohel, who was killed by Israel in the 2014 war. “Sohel was everything to me. He helped me raise his siblings and supported me.” During the last war, her pain deepened when tanks destroyed the graves of her loved ones, including Sohel’s. She rebuilt Sohel’s grave and visits it daily to talk to him.
Despite everything, Um Sohel keeps living simply, watering graves, feeding cats, and getting ready to welcome her family back, bringing life and warmth to her home
