{"id":9969,"date":"2025-08-14T17:21:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T17:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/?p=9969"},"modified":"2025-08-21T15:54:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-21T15:54:55","slug":"women-of-gaza-lead-the-battle-for-survival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/2025\/08\/14\/women-of-gaza-lead-the-battle-for-survival\/","title":{"rendered":"Women of Gaza Lead the Battle for Survival"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gaza – Nesma Hassan<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a small tent near the eastern border of Rafah, 38-year-old Um Khaled sits on a worn-out piece of foam, holding her young child\u2019s hand to calm him. In her other hand, she clutches a piece of cardboard covered with handwritten letters of the alphabet. She speaks in a quiet but steady voice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a teacher, but I have to teach my kids and others. The war took their school, but it didn\u2019t take away their right to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Without waiting for an international organization or a local initiative, Um Khaled sectioned off part of her worn-out tent to set up a \u201cmini classroom.\u201d Every day, more than a dozen children come to learn reading, writing, and basic math. Lessons are taught with cardboard and a charcoal stick; the blackboard is a scrap of wood salvaged from the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a sad smile, she adds: \u201cA child doesn\u2019t just need food \u2014 he needs to feel there\u2019s still something called life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Wood-Fired Oven\u2026 From Ashes to Bread<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a newly-established camp north of Khan Younis, we meet 41-year-old Um Hossam, who brought an old electric oven back to life after finding it buried beneath the ruins of her home in Beit Hanoun. Having lost her kitchen, her gas, and all her utensils, she refused to give up:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI pulled it from under the rubble, washed it with dirt and water, placed it on a stone base\u2026 and started using it with firewood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lighting the fire and finding wood was no easy task, but she used dead tree branches and damp cardboard soaked in a homemade sanitizer made from alcohol, salt, and dried lemon \u2014 a fuel that helped her ignite the flames, \u201cWe baked bread in it, cooked lentils and bulgur, and even started feeding the neighbors\u2026 The whole neighborhood waits for the days I light the oven.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Lentil-Pasta Meal\u2026 and a Flour Alternative<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Deir al-Balah, 29-year-old Salwa, a mother of three, sits on a stone near her tent, grinding dry pasta using a traditional hand mill her husband retrieved from his grandfather\u2019s demolished home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe flour ran out in the first month\u2026 We only had some dry pasta left, so we ground it and made bread from it. It turned out hard, but it\u2019s filling.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She also came up with a substitute for dukkah<\/em> \u2014 a staple poor man\u2019s meal in Gaza \u2014 using crushed lentils, pepper, a bit of salt, and bulgur stored before the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe kids started to like the taste\u2026 We have no oil, no sumac, but we try to give them a sense they\u2019re not deprived of everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lighting Fires with Ingenuity<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

22-year-old Maysoun, a university student whose graduation was cut short by the war, created a simple mixture from materials available in the camp to use as both sanitizer and fire starter:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI mixed alcohol with orange peels and other things we could find. I started distributing it to neighbors because charcoal and gas are gone, and lighting a fire has become a problem.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her invention has been widely adopted, with some women now using it for cooking and heating as well. She isn\u2019t looking for payment \u2014 only for the feeling that she can still be useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Women Under Fire\u2026 Hands That Keep Life Going<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These stories aren\u2019t fiction \u2014 they are born from tents and rubble. Women who have lost almost everything, yet have not lost their resourcefulness, their hope, or their ability to \u201cinvent\u201d from nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Um Khaled says, looking at the children gathered around her:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just enduring\u2026 we\u2019re creating ways to live. The war wants to kill everything in us, but we resist it in every way \u2014 even with cardboard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Gaza, where ashes turn into opportunities and pain becomes fuel, women prove each day that they are the backbone of survival and the strongest imprint in a battle with no end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gaza – Nesma Hassan In a small tent near the eastern border of Rafah, 38-year-old Um Khaled sits on a worn-out piece of foam, holding her young child\u2019s hand to calm him. In her other hand, she clutches a piece of cardboard covered with handwritten letters of the alphabet. She speaks in a quiet but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57,1092,44,56,1093,46,1094,891],"class_list":{"0":"post-9969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-facts-in-english","8":"tag-gaza","9":"tag-gaza-women","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-kashif","12":"tag-leaders","13":"tag-palestine","14":"tag-survival","15":"tag-women"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9970,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9969\/revisions\/9970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashif.ps\/en\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}