{"id":37155,"date":"2025-05-30T09:53:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T07:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/?p=37155"},"modified":"2025-08-19T15:41:42","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T13:41:42","slug":"doaa-from-a-dreamworld-to-the-ashes-of-displacement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themarkaz.org\/oldmarkaz\/doaa-from-a-dreamworld-to-the-ashes-of-displacement\/","title":{"rendered":"Doaa: From a Dreamworld to the Ashes of Displacement"},"content":{"rendered":"
The writer developed her creativity at the now destroyed Islamic University and in We Are Not Numbers<\/a> (WANN), a youth-led Palestinian initiative that until today provides training in English to developing storyteller\u2013journalists, allowing them a better chance of reaching the world beyond Gaza\u2019s closed borders.<\/h5>\n


\nTaqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi<\/span><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a quiet corner of our home, my sister Doaa had built a world of her own \u2014 a world full of details I hadn\u2019t really noticed at the time, but which I now recall with painful longing. Doaa was born on October 4, 2002. She is the kind of person who sees beauty where others see the mundane. She studied multimedia at the Islamic University of Gaza and has always been deeply passionate about creativity, order, and all the little things. This is apparent in every space she\u2019s ever called her own.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her room wasn\u2019t just a room; it was a universe tailored by her hands. A wardrobe bursting with outfits, scarves in countless shades, shoes matched perfectly to every dress. Her notebooks were decorated with love on the outside and written with care inside. Her shelves held boxes from Shein, bottles of perfume, and a growing collection of beloved trinkets. But it was her desk that most reflected her essence \u2014 a little sanctuary where she found her inspiration.<\/span><\/p>\n

A black-and-white patterned cloth covered her desk, soft to the touch. To the left sat her laptop, playfully adorned with stickers. Notebooks, elegant mugs, and soft lighting surrounded her, with artificial plant leaves hanging gently against her pink wall. It was a space that seemed to wait quietly for her next idea, her next midnight sentence, her next spark of design.<\/span><\/p>\n

Doaa is not just a survivor. She is a mirror reflecting every young woman in Gaza who once dreamed of a simple life and now fights daily to preserve her sanity. I haven\u2019t seen her since the war resumed in March of this year. She\u2019s stuck in a part of Khan Younis we can\u2019t reach. The internet is weak, and updates are rare.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ten days before the war began, Doaa got married. Her joy was still fresh. Her dress still hung in our minds. She had just moved into a warm, welcoming apartment on the sixth floor of her in-laws\u2019 building in Khan Younis, in the Al-Amal neighborhood, on October 26, 2023.<\/span><\/p>\n

What I loved most was her new office corner \u2014 her books, her things, all arranged with her usual loving attention. I remember how exhausting it had been for her to pack everything up. She had so many belongings that we had to use massive suitcases, most of which she didn\u2019t even get the chance to unpack. The gifts, the accessories, the tokens of joy \u2014 still wrapped, still untouched.<\/span><\/p>\n

Because then the war came.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
Available from Penguin UK<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When the Israeli forces invaded Khan Younis for the first time on December 5, 2023, Doaa had already been displaced to a school shelter along with her husband\u2019s entire family. This was how she began her married life. One day she was decorating her new room, and the next she was sleeping in a computer lab at a school.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first night in the shelter was the hardest, she told me. The walls were cold, and the space smelled like fear. Children cried in corners, and elderly people coughed under thin blankets. Doaa sat silently, hugging her knees, her wedding ring glinting under the flickering light. It no longer felt like a symbol of joy, but a reminder of all that was lost.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, the worst news came: their entire building had been flattened \u2014 six floors, each a family\u2019s entire life, reduced to dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

We were grateful they were alive, but for Doaa, it was as if her soul had been buried beneath that rubble. I remember when she called my mom to break the news. She couldn\u2019t speak \u2014 she only cried. \u201cShe\u2019s crying over her clothes,\u201d her husband told us. \u201cHer books. Her perfumes. Her memories.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

All her possessions had been destroyed \u2014 her clothes, perfumes, makeup, notebooks, decorated mugs, accessories, shoes, books, scented candles, carefully chosen curtains, matching towels and plates, her wedding gifts, her Shein boxes, and even the unopened suitcases packed with dreams of a different kind of future. Every single item she had so carefully chosen, every blouse, every abaya, every scarf in all her favorite shades \u2014 vanished beneath the rubble. Things she never got to use, never got to enjoy, never even got to touch after the wedding\u2026 all ground into dust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her 4,000 dinar dowry \u2014 gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

Her dreams \u2014 crushed into powder.<\/span><\/p>\n