Opinion: 'Israel killed my family and destroyed my home. The world kept scrolling'

"I fled Gaza with my children. We survived the genocide, but carry its weight every day. I want the world to understand what we lived through, but it refuses to see us," Alaa Radwan, a Palestinian writer, educator, and translator from Gaza, writes in a column for Middle East Eye. 

The last time I saw my home in Gaza was on my 31st birthday, 13 October 2023.

I had just bathed my children, folded their clothes and packed a bag with what little we could carry. It was time to evacuate. We didn't know if we were leaving for a night or forever.

Two months later, it was gone - bombed, like so many others.

At the time, I was displaced in a small, unfurnished apartment in Deir al-Balah. I was cooking over an open fire when my husband arrived. His face was pale, sad and distant. I knew something terrible had just happened.

I asked him what was wrong. He said nothing. But I could sense the truth in his silence. I insisted. Then, he told me. He had just seen the news in the neighbours' WhatsApp group. The building where our home once stood had been bombed. There were three photos. I begged him to show me. He refused. I cried. I screamed. Finally, he gave in.

And there it was. My dream home. Rubble.

I had lived there for less than two years. But those two years held more joy and struggle than a lifetime. We had just cleared its debt. Just started to call it ours. I worked three jobs to build that home. I was online just two days after my first C-section with the twins, trying to pay for a future we could hold on to.

You can read the full piece below.

Opinion: Israel killed my family and destroyed my home. The world just kept scrolling