GAZA CITY /PNN/ ~Nesma N  Harazeen

 In a territory battered by nearly two years of war and mass displacement since October 7, 2023, stories emerging from Gaza often resemble scenes from a horror film — except they are real, lived experiences etched into the lives of survivors.

Among them is Musab Madoukh, a man in his forties whose life was upended in a matter of moments, leaving him alone with memories he says cannot be erased.

In Gaza, stories are not measured by their number but by their weight. Entire families have vanished, homes reduced to rubble, and names replaced by numbers. Survivors carry these stories not out of choice, but because silence has become unbearable.

Madoukh, once a small business owner selling mobile phones and electrical appliances, lived what he describes as a modest, stable life centered on family and routine. Each morning, his shop would open to the sound of Quranic recitation, welcoming familiar customers. Stability, not wealth, was his goal.

“My story began in November, and it hasn’t ended yet,” he said. “I’m still searching for myself, and I haven’t found me.”

His ordeal began in November 2023 when an airstrike hit the building where his family lived, forcing them to flee to a crowded displacement site in Tel al-Hawa. Conditions there were harsh — tents, overcrowding, and constant fear under the sound of nearby bombardment.

After nearly two months, Madoukh decided to return to his damaged home in Gaza City’s Zaitoun neighborhood, hoping to reclaim some sense of normalcy.

“I told myself it would end soon, even though I knew deep down the war would be long,” he said.

Days later, on January 29, his extended family gathered in the house — a rare moment of togetherness amid the war. It would be their last.

“The entire house was bombed without any warning,” he said quietly. “Everyone inside was killed.”

Madoukh had stepped out shortly before the strike to buy supplies, a decision that ultimately spared his life but left him carrying what he describes as the burden of survival.

“I lost my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers and their families, my sister and her family,” he said. “Nothing was left.”

With little time to grieve, he sought shelter at hospitals overwhelmed with wounded and displaced civilians. In March 2024, while at Al-Shifa Hospital, he found himself once again under fire as Israeli forces surrounded the facility.

“We were besieged inside. Bullets were falling everywhere,” he recalled.

After hours under siege, those inside were ordered to evacuate. Madoukh said the promised safe passage never materialized. Instead, he described scenes of humiliation and fear, with detainees separated, stripped, and held for hours in harsh conditions.

“They gave me a number — 73,” he said, describing his detention. “We were no longer treated as human beings.”

He recounted beatings, deprivation, and witnessing other detainees suffer severe abuse. Some, he said, did not survive.

After his release, Madoukh emerged without a home or family. What remained, he said, was memory.

Holding a partially burned photograph of his children, he said: “Everything stays in front of me.”

He describes how memories return unexpectedly — in quiet moments, during Ramadan prayers, or even in familiar smells and sounds.

“What were once ordinary moments are now treasures,” he said.

Today, Madoukh lives alone, carrying the story of his family and countless others. He says survival has become a responsibility — to bear witness.

In Gaza, his story is not unique. Many share similar experiences of loss, displacement, and trauma. But for survivors like Madoukh, memory itself has become a form of resistance.

He has no home to return to and no family waiting for him, but he carries something he says cannot be destroyed.

“A memory that refuses to disappear,” he said, “and insists on being told.”