Abeer and Sherine .. The story of widows in Gaza between loss and steadfastness

In a temporary tent among thousands of displaced people in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, Abeer Rayhan (Umm Sherine) sits to narrate its continuous tragedy since the outbreak of the war. Abeer lost her husband and son -in -law, to find herself and her daughter Sherine in the face of displacement, loss and deprivation, amid a reality that gets more severe day after day.

Umm Sherine says that her husband refused to leave the northern Gaza Strip when the occupation forced thousands of families to displace the south. He preferred to stay to help those who remained stuck under the rubble with his simple capabilities, but he was killed by the occupation bullets, although he was not affiliated with any party or faction. This is how the family lost the first bond and breadwinner.

But the journey of pain did not stop here. A few months later, her daughter’s husband, Sherine Abdel Hadi Rayhan, was killed while looking for food aid to secure his children’s food. Sherine says, telling her story to Al -Jazeera Net: “We were waiting for his return with food, but he did not return. Today I am without a husband and my children without a father, we only have this tent and the charity of those around us.”

This story embodies the fate of hundreds of widows in Gaza, who lost their husbands and their children since the beginning of the war, and they had to face double burdens of supporting their families and caring for their children in circumstances described as the “worst in the world”, according to United Nations reports.

At a time when most of the residents of the sector lives under the sharp hunger line, widows such as Abeer and Sherine turn into models of steadfastness, trying to protect their children amid insecurity, the absence of shelter, and the collapse of basic services. With the continued shelling and the scarcity of supplies, their story remains a witness to the exorbitant prices that Palestinian families pay, as the pain does not stop at the loss of loved ones, but rather extends to a harsh journey and a daily battle for survival.