Overnight, an Israeli strike turned my family's home in Gaza into a graveyard

On 27 September, I woke up at 5.10am in my apartment in Turkey, feeling suffocated and thirsty.

I was uneasy for no clear reason. I reached for my phone to read the latest updates from Gaza. I saw a message in my town's news-sharing group in Gaza that an Israeli air strike had targeted my family's home.

I texted my brother, Abood, but the message did not go through. Moments later, my mother, who now lives near me in Turkey, called. Her voice trembled with fear as she asked whether I had read the news. I walked straight out of my apartment and down the road to her house.

My heart froze, and my chest felt heavy. I refused to believe that my worst nightmare during the Gaza genocide had become real, but the feeling of suffocation would not go away.

On the way, I called a friend in Gaza. Together, we managed to reach my sister, Sarah. That small victory gave me hope that my family had survived.

But soon after, Sarah told me that Abood, his wife, also named Sarah, and their two daughters, Huda and Zainab, had been killed. The air strike had also killed my sister Ghalia, her husband Yousef and their daughters, Mariam and Zainab, as well as my brother-in-law, Dr Khaled.

My sister Mariam and two of her five children were injured.

The missile destroyed not only the walls, doors and floors I grew up with. It felt as though it shattered the memories that lived inside them, too

I have experienced immense loss during the Gaza genocide, but it is different when an air strike hits your own home. Something deeper is taken when the place that helped shape you is destroyed.

The missile destroyed not only the walls, doors and floors I grew up with. It felt as though it shattered the memories that lived inside them, too - ones I shared with my beloved family members in that space.

A wave of grief washed over me, leaving a hollow ache in my chest.

I also felt helpless and guilty. The night before the air strike on our home, my sister had sent me a list of 24 family members she hoped I could help evacuate.

It included my surviving siblings, nephews and nieces. They were excited at the idea of being saved from the genocide, of living without fear or destruction, of putting their children to sleep without wondering whether they would survive the night. All of that hope vanished in a single moment.

Our lives changed forever.

Abood's strength

My brother Abood's death hit me especially hard. Within our family, he was known as Baba Abood, or "Father Abood", because he played such a big role in keeping our family in Gaza together throughout the genocide.

When starvation intensified, he went out in search of food. When water ran out, he found more. He fixed what broke and was street smart, skilled at navigating impossible conditions.

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

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On 26 September, he sent me a medical report showing a problem with his shoulder, hoping it would support his evacuation request.

But an Israeli officer had a different plan for him.

At 4.15am, a missile was fired at our family home, hitting Abood's apartment upstairs and my parents' home downstairs. Nine members of my immediate family were killed.

Abood had been holding his daughter Zainab (Zozo) in his arms when his body was torn apart. His head and foot were severed. Zozo's arm was ripped from her body.

The missile also tore apart the bodies of Huda and Sarah, with rescuers finding parts of Sarah's body dozens of metres away on a nearby rooftop.

My sister Ghalia, her two daughters and her husband were also cut into pieces and burned. A neighbour posted on social media: "Check the roofs of your homes. There might be more remains when daylight comes."

A family destroyed

The body of my brother-in-law, Dr Khaled, a paediatrician studying for a master's programme he had recently entered, leaned against the wall of what used to be my room.

It had become his and his family's room after they lost their home earlier in the genocide. Shrapnel from the missile struck him from behind as he reviewed his medical slides, killing him instantly.

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The day before he was killed, he had stayed late at his job with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa), where he distributed medicine to schools that had been turned into shelters. He was proud to have delivered all the medicine he had. His patients loved him for his professionalism, bedside manner and deep knowledge.

My sister Mariam had been sleeping next to him on the floor. She fainted and was pulled from under the rubble with an eye injury and a fractured arm. She is still recovering. Her twin boys, Rakan and Kenan, suffered minor injuries.

My family remains in shock. We never imagined the Israeli army would target our house without warning. And when the missile hit, my brother Ismail woke up thinking it had struck a neighbour's house. Even when neighbours told him it was ours, it took him several minutes to grasp the truth.

Air strikes are often louder to those who live farther away than to the people inside the targeted home, and many families in Gaza have described the same confusion before realising the strike was on their own home.

Our home was known for being full of siblings and grandchildren. Not anymore.

Since the attack, my surviving family members have been busy repairing whatever they can in our home so they are able to return. "It is better than living in a tent," they say.

But now they must live in a house that has become the graveyard of my siblings, their spouses and their children. I do not even want to imagine what that means for them. In Gaza, people are constantly forced to choose between two bad options.

Another world

Since the start of the genocide, I have lost 16 immediate family members.

Most days, it feels as though those who were killed are the real survivors, while the rest of us who remain carry an unending, overwhelming pain. My guilt for not saving my loved ones increases by the day, and I tell myself that the Palestinians of Gaza, as a community, as so-called "survivors", will never be the same.

I imagine my family living in a place where we celebrate their lives rather than their memories

The tightness in my chest also grows with each passing day. The whole genocide feels unreal. To dull the pain and try to escape from this reality, I imagine that I never lived in Gaza, and that the Gaza that formed me, the Gaza that is gone, never existed.

In that world, I imagine my family living in a place where we celebrate their lives rather than their memories. In that world, my nephews would grow up in peace, and their heads and arms would not have to be collected from metres away.

In that world, Dr Khaled would have completed another master's degree in paediatrics. Abood would have sung for our family and left Gaza, as he always wished. Huda and Zozo would have met my newborn. Mariam and Zainab would have tried on new clothes instead of being burned in them.

In that world, there is no genocide, and no political leader doubts Palestinians' right to life.

Maybe someday we will build that world together.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.