In the heart of Gaza Stories, the name Shorouk Al-Babidi echoes like a cry for remembrance. Her journey through war, famine, and forced separation captures the living testimony of Gaza’s endurance. Before October 7, she lived a simple life — teaching her daughters, caring for her home, and celebrating small joys that felt eternal. But as the bombs fell and the skies turned crimson, everything she knew dissolved into chaos. Her story stands as a mirror reflecting thousands of untold lives. It is not only a memory but also a moral record of survival — a continuation of what Gaza’s Missing: Thousands Lost in the Shadow of War has already begun documenting across this scarred land.
Before the Storm: Life in Gaza City
Before October 7, 2023, Shorouk’s life moved with the rhythm of normalcy. Her days began with morning prayers, children’s laughter, and the aroma of fresh bread rising from Gaza’s narrow streets. She lived in Gaza City with her sister, Shaima, while her parents and brothers stayed abroad. “We were a simple family,” she said. “We sought comfort and safety.” Those words now carry the weight of prophecy.
When the new school year began, Shorouk prepared her daughters’ uniforms, thinking about homework and books, not bomb shelters. Yet within hours, the calm shattered. Sirens replaced school bells. Phones rang with warnings. Teachers called parents, saying war had started again. Shorouk picked up her daughters, thinking it would end soon, maybe in a week or two. She had lived through other wars, and hope felt like habit. But that hope collapsed fast, replaced by hunger, smoke, and endless displacement.
Her decision to stay in Gaza was both an act of courage and desperation. She believed returning home was safer than wandering in crowded tents. Even when the army ordered people to flee south, Shorouk hesitated. “Home gives you dignity,” she said. “Even if death comes, it will come while I am home.” This faith marked the beginning of her long passage through darkness — one that every chapter of Gaza Stories remembers in silence and sorrow.
The Weight of Displacement
Displacement came not as a single event but as a recurring nightmare. Two weeks into the war, Shorouk and her family moved south, only to return home days later. The shelters were overcrowded, the air suffocating, and privacy vanished under shared roofs. “We were one hundred people in a single house,” she recalled. “No space, no sleep, no peace.”
For her, displacement was worse than hunger. It stole her motherhood, her routine, and her sense of belonging. Yet even in this misery, she saw others who had lost more — families buried under tents, mothers walking barefoot across ruins, fathers begging for water. “God help those still living in tents,” she often repeated. “No one can imagine this feeling unless they lived it.”
During this time, Gaza transformed into a geography of movement and mourning. Every road carried both the living and the dead. Every dawn began with fear of new names added to the list of martyrs. It was then that tragedy struck Shorouk’s family, turning her story into one of unbearable loss.
Shaima’s Last Night
The airstrike that killed Shorouk’s sister, Shaima Al-Babidi, destroyed more than a home — it erased generations of memories. On November 15, 2023, Israeli bombs flattened the residential block in Beit Lahia where Shaima, her children, and ten members of her husband’s family sought refuge.
Communication was cut for days, and Shorouk learned the news a week later. “I felt something was wrong that night,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep. My heart was heavy.” Her husband already knew but kept it from her, fearing the shock would break her. When she finally heard, her world collapsed. “They told me Lina survived first, but then she died too,” she whispered. “God chose them all.”
When Shorouk returned seven months later, she found the neighborhood erased. “It looked like an earthquake,” she said. “No houses, only dust and silence.” The destruction was total, the absence unending. She walked the rubble barefoot, whispering her sister’s name. That day became another scar in Gaza’s memory, another name added to the growing archive of Gaza Stories — one that echoes through pieces like Lost Over 90 Family Members: Story of Dr. Rinad Al-Majdalawi, where personal loss turns into collective grief.
The Second Strike
Barely days after Shaima’s death, Shorouk faced another assault. The family home in Gaza City was struck. Her father-in-law was killed instantly. Her husband and daughter were injured, and the street turned into a burning grave. “It was like the horrors of Judgment Day,” she said.
She carried her wounded husband back inside, blood soaking her clothes. Her son, only two years old, saw his grandfather die. Even now in Egypt, the boy wakes up crying, replaying the images he cannot forget. Her husband spent two months unable to walk, and Shorouk became nurse, mother, and provider all at once. “Every task fell on me,” she said. “I fetched water, cooked, and took care of everyone.”
She sought medical help at Al-Ahli Hospital, where supplies were nearly gone. They cleaned her husband’s head wound with unsterilized water and old gauze. Eventually, a private nurse agreed to come secretly at night. It was the kind of survival that made people heroes without ever asking to be one.
Famine and Fire
Then came famine. For two months in northern Gaza, there was no flour, no canned food, no milk. Prices rose until a single sack of flour cost a thousand dollars. Mothers boiled weeds and fed their children birdseed mixed with corn flour. “I fed my children what animals eat,” Shorouk admitted. “It smelled terrible, but there was nothing else.” She shared whatever she found with other displaced families. Together they searched the streets for edible leaves and mallow plants. Firewood became gold, and lighting a small flame became an act of rebellion. “It wasn’t just hunger,” she said. “It was humiliation.”
Her children fell ill. Their stomachs couldn’t digest the bitter food. Hospitals had no medicine, no electricity, no staff. Hepatitis and jaundice spread through shared bathrooms and crowded shelters. “We slept beside strangers,” she said. “We used the same plates, the same blankets, the same air.” Through this chapter of Gaza’s suffering, her story aligns with others told in Gaza Stories: A Mother’s Last Words, A Family’s Goodbye, where famine and grief blend into the same cry for dignity.
The Siege and the Tanks
In Ramadan, the siege reached her doorstep. Israeli tanks surrounded her home near Al-Shifa Hospital. For fifteen days, she and her family hid without food, light, or sound. “The tank was at my door,” she said. “The drone entered my house.” At night, soldiers burned homes and shot randomly into buildings. From her window, she saw children burned alive in neighboring apartments. “Their screams still haunt me,” she said. “No one could help them.” She and her children hid in the kitchen, away from the windows, whispering prayers. She risked her life to send messages to her family every few days. “I told them, ‘I’m still alive,’” she said. “That was enough.” Her iPhone signals attracted drones, so she used an old phone instead. Every sound could mean discovery; every breath could bring death.
Even in this terror, she protected her children. She turned survival into a game, timing their movements to the soldiers’ shifts. For one hour each dawn, they played with toys, laughed quietly, and forgot the siege. “That hour saved our sanity,” she said.
The Crossing to Egypt
When the Rafah crossing briefly opened, hope flickered. Her eldest daughter had hepatitis, and doctors warned it was critical. But leaving meant abandoning her husband, who refused to flee. “He said, I will not cross the checkpoint and leave my home,” she recalled. Eventually, her family gathered enough money to send her and the children. The journey to the south took four hours of walking through rubble and dunes under drone surveillance. “We couldn’t rest,” she said. “If you stopped, they bombed.” At the checkpoint, soldiers separated families and humiliated civilians. One mother was detained while her children were sent away. “They tear families apart,” Shorouk said. “You don’t know if you’ll ever meet again.”
She crossed Rafah one day before it closed permanently. The next morning, tanks stormed the gate. Many who waited behind were trapped forever. “God saved me,” she said softly. “He wanted my testimony to survive.”
After the Fire
In Egypt now, Shorouk lives with her parents but her heart remains in Gaza. Her husband is still there, recovering, and her brother faces famine again. She spends her days sharing her story, documenting what happened, and caring for her children. “Faith in God gives me strength,” she said. “But nothing makes me forget.” Her testimony is not just personal grief — it is legal, historical, and moral evidence. She speaks for those who cannot. “People are not numbers,” she insists. “My sister was a mother, my children are witnesses.” When asked what she would say before an international court, she answered without hesitation: “I would ask — why were civilians, children, and mothers burned alive? Why did the world watch and stay silent?” Her question remains unanswered, yet her courage answers everything else.
Through her eyes, the Gaza Stories archive grows deeper, proving that even amid genocide, humanity persists — fragile, luminous, unbroken.
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