A girl tries to collect usable belongings amid the wreckage of vehicles after the explosion at Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images
By Linah Mohammad, National Public Radio (NPR), October 19, 2023
When Fidaa Al-Araj received the pre-recorded message last week telling her to evacuate her home because the area was about to be bombed, she first thought of her children.
To her surprise, they had actually beaten her to the street.
The day before, an Israeli airstrike had hit her cousin's house, killing his wife, mother and children. Those kids were close to Al-Araj's children in age. They were friends.
"My daughter said to me, 'What are you waiting for?'" Al-Araj recalled. "'Yesterday, we were crying for our cousins. Do you want people to cry over our dead bodies today?' So I had to leave."
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