Hello my friends. I am Mohammad Bakroun and this is my wife Salam, our daughter Nour and our son Saeed.

I write this story after a lot of thought and hesitation, but when I found the war was destroying my children and taking them towards darkness, it became my duty as a father to strive in every way and with everything I have to protect them.

Before the war, our life was like that of any ambitious person in Gaza. We both graduated from the Islamic University with distinction and were able to find employment in prestigious places despite the lack of opportunities. I had a job in a well-known local radio station, and my wife, Salam also worked at a reputable company. We lived in the upscale neighbourhood of Al-Rimal in the middle of the Strip and had a luxurious life full of ambition and striving before this war came and turned everything around us to rubble.

This war has not just burned our home, our workplaces, and our streets. This war has burned our hearts and stolen our dreams.

My beautiful child, Nour, is 3 years old. She was calm, beautiful, tidy, very intelligent, and spoke eloquently from a young age. She was blessed with love and tenderness in the warm family atmosphere that this war has taken from her. We have been displaced many times and the family has been separated, which has caused Nour great psychological trauma. She has difficulty speaking and has become quiet and withdrawn. She cries most of the time and screams for no reason. We see her collapsing with the sound of every missile. We often wonder what this child has done to deserve such horror at such a young age.

This is our little boy, Saeed. He was born a few days before the war. We were eagerly waiting for him throughout the nine months and were planning how life would become more joyful with his arrival. We did not know that our baby, only a few days old would grow up amidst the missiles, without his mother’s milk due to malnutrition, without enough diapers or clothes to protect him from the cold. We regularly have to travel under bombardment to provide our children with food, and often leave Saeed in the same dirty diaper for hours on end because there is no alternative. Seeing him scream because of the pain of his sore skin is heartbreaking. The water is so polluted that our children regularly get skin, eye and stomach infections.

During this war, we have been displaced seven times. We understand now that there is no safe place in this city. Every woman, man, child, animal and tree is under threat.

The cost of living has increased to the point that a packet of diapers, can reach $100. Food is scarce and medicine has all but run out. Our day to day has become extremely difficult.

It is easy to lose hope and give up in these circumstances. But the kindness from people like you all over the world gives us the strength to keep on going. We pray that one day soon the crossings will open and we can evacuate our family to safety.

Please donate whatever amount you can and if you can’t donate, please share. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts.