“I used to be a free girl who did whatever I wanted, now I feel stuck and unable to move forward,” says Dema Alnajjar — describing life as a displaced person in the Rafah camps.
“You feel like you are nothing and have no value,” says Dema Alnajjar, a Palestinian girl who is currently one of the 1.5 million Palestinians huddled in makeshift camps in Rafah, along the Egyptian border, after Israel laid a deadly siege to the occupied Gaza Strip for what it says is to root out Hamas fighters from the tiny 41-square-mile enclave after the fateful Oct 7 attack.
The relentless military strikes have, however, so far killed more than 31,000 people, most of whom are women and children and displaced nearly the entire population of Gaza.
“You must leave every day and throw away all your memories and valuables behind you and move towards death and fatigue,” Dema says in a conversation with Dawn.com, in which she spoke at length about what life — or the lack thereof — is like for a 19-year-old girl who never knows which day would be her last.
When the interview was conducted, Israel had expanded its deadly strikes to Rafah. Dema’s conversations provide a snapshot into what life is like as a displaced person in a camp under siege. “There is bombing everywhere and random [indiscriminate] shooting,” she says.
Rafah is a small city in the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip and around 1.5 million Palestinians have been displaced there. Comparing the size of Rafah to Islamabad will perhaps help paint a picture of how cramped the area is currently. Rafah is about 37,000 acres while Islamabad is roughly 224,000 acres with a population of just over a million. Let this put into perspective how cramped Rafah is currently and how dire the situation is when 1.5m people have been forced into a tiny space.
’The worst thing a person can experience
Dema, originally from the village of Khuza’a in Khan Younis, described her journey from her hometown to Rafah as the “worst thing a person can experience”.
Imagine being forced to move away and give up the life you have known, forced to face the dangers that lie ahead; devastating would not be a strong enough descriptor for the various emotions you would feel. This is the reality that Alnajjar and millions like her continue to face.
Dema revealed that she had been displaced four times since October 7. Once from Khuza’a, a village on the outskirts of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the besieged enclave to the city of Abasan-al-Kabira. From Abasan-al-Kabira she then evacuated to a school in Khan Younis, then again to Abasan-al-Kabira and is now camped in Rafah.
The fight for survival is an everyday struggle, with limited food and water available, many have been stripped of their childhood and robbed of pivotal experiences that shape their youth.
“After all this, I don’t feel like a little girl. I have become like a big woman who cares about her family and those around her. A responsible woman who has enough worries and yet she still smiles.”
Shattered dreams
Speaking about her life before the war revealed the hope that should have continued to frame her youth, the ambitions and dreams which have now been “completely shattered”.
“I used to be a free girl who did whatever she wanted, now I feel stuck and unable to move forward.”
A brief look at her Instagram page will show a pinned post of a glimpse of what life was like for her before October 7. The pinned post showed that she had obtained high marks as her final high school result — the joy shown in celebrations of foam spray and dances; her father showed how proud he was by prostrating on the floor in gratitude for his daughter’s amazing result.
Marked-up prices and restricted aid access have made it difficult for many Palestinians to get a hold of even the very necessities. As Israel has blocked aid passages to Gaza, many countries have resorted to airdropping aid — a method that has proved inefficient. Despite her harsh reality, Dema quickly got to work to help her people. She started a GoFundMe account; the donations go to providing food or even toys to children.
The situation can be described as dystopian; the magnitude of cruelty and deprivation in the enclave has never been seen in any other tragedy in recent history.
“Our life was beautiful in Gaza with many beautiful areas.”
Before her life in the camps, she disclosed how she would volunteer with youth groups in the evenings. “I was a very ambitious girl with her project,” she says, referring to herself in the third person.
She further stated: “She loved volunteering in her town and helping people.”
When she is not doing volunteer work, Alnajjar focuses on various duties to help her family. She tends to wake up early to wash clothes and neaten the tent and then goes to collect water from the tankers that arrive — sometimes unsuccessful in her venture to receive it, as there is not enough for the population of displaced people in the camp. She also spends time with her ailing grandfather.
She sent a photograph of him which showed him lying on the floor inside the tent, covered with a blanket barely thick enough to combat the cold and a urine bag by his side.
“It is very difficult, my old grandfather suffers to obtain water and food and even go to the bathroom, [there is] extreme cold. My grandfather is disabled with special needs.”
‘I would rather die in my homeland than leave’
Amid the looming threat of further Israeli aggression on Rafah even in the holy month of Ramazan, I asked Dema if she would leave Gaza if Egypt opened its borders.
“If Egypt opens the borders for people to migrate to the Sinai region, it will be impossible for me to leave. I swear I would rather die in my homeland and not migrate to Sinai,” she says.
Even though reports of the construction of a refugee camp on the Egyptian side of the border have been denied by Egyptian authorities, videos taken by the United Kingdom-based Sinai Foundation for Human Rights show trucks and bulldozers clearing out debris.
Israeli forces have expressed the intent of a ground invasion in Rafah and claim that this is the only way they can have “complete victory over Hamas.”
The Israeli forces have also given Ramazan as a deadline to release all hostages or they will enter Rafah. With the threat of a ground invasion looming on the southernmost city of the besieged enclave, the fear of forced evacuation or death hangs over 1.5 million displaced Palestinians.
“I have forgotten the so-called human right to live in freedom and dignity.”
“Please stop the war. We are tired. We cannot bear it anymore. What is our fault in being displaced? What is the fault of children having their childhood stolen? What is the fault of the elderly? Please stop the war,” is the message Dema wanted to share with the world as the continuous din of drones and bombs hovered over her and millions of other Palestinians.
Calls for a ceasefire reverberate across the world but the powerful seem unfazed as over 31,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombardment since October 7, 2023.
Despite the non-stop death and destruction, Dema vows she will help her people. “I won’t give up even if I am on the verge of collapse.”
