Image source, Huda M
-
- Author, Charlene Anne Rodrigues
- Author's title, Newsday – World BBC service
Huda experienced a great mixture of emotions when, at the end of last year, she discovered that she was pregnant.
First, he felt fatigue, then shock. Soon, the fear and joy for the new life he was creating, as well as the despair for the gaza in which his daughter would be born.
“He was afraid,” he says from his mother's house in the center of Gaza, “not because I would not want the baby, but because he did not know how to protect a new life in a place to survive is already a battle.”
By then, more than a year had elapsed since Israel began its bombing campaign on Gaza, launched in response to the attack led by Hamas against that country on October 7, 2023.
I have been talking to Hududa for almost two years in Newsday, the BBC World Service program, after Israel's offensive began in the strip.
In early 2024, I lost contact with her for seven months, during which I feared the worst. On August 13 of that year I learned about her again, this time from another phone number.
Huda simply wrote: “We were in contact in 2023, but I lost the connection since then.”
During the following months, we stayed in touch. His updates, sometimes regular, some sporadic – depending on the availability of the Internet and electricity in Gaza – allowed me to glimpse everyday life, far from the daily news about death and destruction.
For example, he shared photos of the snacks he prepared for children in a tab, a type of traditional mud oven.
Huda, marketing consultant, and her husband lost their work at the beginning of war. So he started teaching children in tents.
I was impressed by his unwavering faith, his infinite gratitude and his optimism for life despite the repeated non -compliance with non -compliance and the hopelessness that surrounded her.
Image source, Huda M
On July 28, Huda welcomed her baby at the Sahaba Medical Complex of Gaza City, a hospital near her home. “I gave birth to my first baby a week ago, after enduring days of hunger and constant losses; it is a gift and a great responsibility at the same time,” he told me on the phone.
The hospital is directed by female personnel for women patients and, like many other health centers in Gaza, has been partially destroyed by Israeli air attacks.
As a consequence, there is a serious shortage of medical equipment and supplies.
The UN reports that an amazing 94% of Gaza's hospitals are damaged or destroyed and more than half of them are no longer operational.
“A miracle in these times”
In the midst of all this destruction, Huda said it was a “beautiful” moment and that the baby was called Leen.
“It means softness with purpose and means sweet strength. It means the tranquility that refuses to be broken,” Huda told me a week after giving birth.
“She is a miracle in these times. It is a light in a land in the dark here in Gaza. And it is also a burden that I carry with love. I see her little and innocent hands and I wonder how I will protect her in a world that almost destroys me,” he added.
Image source, BASHAR TALEB/AFP via Getty Images
There is no exact figure of maternal deaths in Gaza since the beginning of the conflict in October 2023, but there are indications that the figure could be very high.
The UN has also warned that famine conditions suffering from 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza increase the risk of spontaneous abortions, fetal death and child malnutrition.
Huda knows it well. With Israeli supply blockages, obtaining adequate feeding during pregnancy was a challenge.
In the last nine months, it has had to survive with an increasingly smaller supply of canned food and flour due to the shortage of fresh food, vegetables, fruits and meat.
With the flour that has – which describes as the “White Gold” -, prepares a flat bread known as Manakesh, which is usually covered with cheese.
He sent a photo of a freshly made bread to the BBC. “It's delicious,” he wrote, but added: “He no longer has cheese.”
Huda also suffered other disasters during pregnancy: for example, lack of medical care and displacement.
Image source, Huda M
The Israeli block
Since March 2, Israel has imposed an almost total blockade on Gaza, cutting the supply of food, medicines and other supplies, which has aggravated a situation already difficult.
While Huda recovers after giving birth, he constantly worries about how he will feed his baby.
Even so, with the help of friends and family, Huda has achieved a formula bottle for about US $ 40.
“I depend on breastfeeding so as not to have to buy this formula at this price. I bought formula as help, but also depending on breastfeeding; it is very exhausting,” he added.
Its diet is mainly composed of lentils, chickpeas and eggplants, but even these are difficult to get.
“Some days we have sardines, but not always. Fishing is wonderful, but it is not sure for fishermen due to Israel,” he told me.
Image source, Huda M
Live between the ruins
And then there is chronic uncertainty. Huda has lost the account of the times it has been displaced. When Israeli air attacks reached their home in Deir Al Balah, in Center of Gaza, ten days after the start of the war in October 2023, the windows of the windows destroyed and destroyed walls and furniture.
He then moved to his aunt's house in the Al Nasser neighborhood and, due to Israeli evacuation orders and the need to be close to his family, moved to northern Gaza in January last year.
Subsequently, after the birth of Leen, he moved to the city of Gaza to receive more family support, where he now lives.
His home is an improvised shelter in a bombarded building. Use wooden planks on a set of bricks as a kitchen countertop.
The water supply is unpredictable, and with a newborn baby, the need is even greater.
“Here in Gaza the water arrives every three or four days, so we fill all the tanks or bottles. And at that time we do all the domestic tasks, we wash the clothes, what we want,” said Huda.
Diapers are considered a luxury article and, therefore, are used in moderation. A 64 package costs more than US $ 190.
Huda says he tries to clean those with wet wipes to reuse them if they are not too dirty.
Image source, Huda M
“When I cry it is not for weakness. There is no stable electricity, nor safe refuge, nor enough food. When the bombings begin, my whole body is tense to cover read, to be their shield. Somehow, in the midst of all this, it is supposed to be kind and smile,” he said.
While Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, plans a greater military expansion in Gaza, Hududa's optimism is firm and unwavering.
From time to time, he sends me photos of read, sleeping pacidatedly his nap, without bothering political tensions. And, when I don't know anything about her for days, I wonder if it will be fine.
But, luckily, it always seems to contact me at the end.
“Now survive. For me they read, I must continue surviving; I will rebuild with my own hands if necessary. For her, I will make Gaza more than a place of pain. We will turn it into a place of beginning, if God wants,” said Huda recently.
“I will raise her strongly, if God wants, a force that I did not know before.”
