People in Gaza living in 'cycle of trauma', says student

RTÉ News​

06-07-2025

Student Ghada Ashour has lived her whole life in Gaza, but she dreams of living and studying somewhere else, somewhere safer.
Her parents are both teachers and they worked in Saudi Arabia for 15 years, where they saved money before returning home to build their home in Khan Younis before Ghada was born.
"I have been displaced for months by now and I don't know if my home is still standing," Ghada said.
The last update she received was that it had been partially destroyed.
The 24-year-old currently lives in a sprawling tented camp where she shares her tent with nine more family members.
"During the night, all you can hear is bombing here and bombing there, bombing here and bombing there," she explained, describing this as "very normal" for Gazans.
"If you can hear the bombing then your are lucky because you are not the one that is being targeted at this moment," she said.
Sitting in a makeshift tent, that seems to be operating almost like an internet cafe, Ghada moved the camera on her phone around to show her surroundings and we could see a few people sitting on chairs around her.
"If you speak to all the people who are here right now, you are going to realise that each and every one of them has lost at least one family member, at least, and of course I am one of them," she said.
Her brother Mohammed was killed in March last year. He was missing for a month before his family recovered his body.
Ghada said they weren't able to recognise him but they "managed to find his ID" and that's how they knew it was him.
"No photo or no video would tell you how painful it is that I already lost my brother, I can't find the words to tell you how painful it is," she said.
She tells me that Mohammed left behind three children, the youngest, a boy called Ali is now aged four, and his two sisters who are eight and ten.
Ghada said that her aunt, three of her cousins as well as a number of their children had also been killed during the 21 months of conflict.
"Living here in Gaza feels like you are trapped in a cycle of trauma. Trauma and loss," she said.
And yet life goes on, though not easily.
Over the last couple of weeks Ghada has been documenting just what that looks like for her.
"So here actually we are trying to build a fire so we can drink tea," she explained in one video.
"Yesterday we tried to collect some wood, and teanswe have tried to collect some plastic bags from the streets, to collect something to be burned, but plastic as you can see is hazardous to breath in, but we have to use it as we have no other option," Ghada explained.
She describes how expensive the very limited amount of available food has become.
"We normally tend to buy the cheapest products in the market" she said "most of the time we eat either lentils of Palestinian za'atar because they are the cheapest".
"One kilogramme of flour costs not less than 30 US dollar" Ghada explained, adding that sugar costs "not less than 100 US dollar for one kilogramme" which is why she says no longer has it in her tea.
And "because food here is really expensive we only have one meal a day," she said.
Ghada is also currently studying remotely, taking online courses offered by the American University in Cairo as well as one-on-one English lessons.
"I literally study in the streets, I take exams in the streets, I take English courses and digital marketing courses in the streets," she said.
To do this, she explained how she needed to regularly go to what she called a "set-up tent" where people can recharge their phones at solar-powered stations.
There, they can also buy little slips of paper printed with a code, which gives limited internet access if the service is working, and there have been rolling blackouts recently.
"Right now I am between tents", she explained as we spoke via Zoom, "a few months ago I was (studying) between damaged houses".
"You have to study and be very well educated", she said, "here the choice for any girl is you either get married or you travel abroad and continue your education".
Her older sister did the latter, travelling to Europe before the war started.
She is currently in Ireland on a scholarship, completing a master's in Artificial Intelligence.
It is clear that Ghada has long dreamed of following in her sister's footsteps.
She had saved and fundraised to try and make it happen, but the war has seen the borders closed to all but the sickest or most terribly injured, and so for now, her education is confined to her online classes.
"I am trying to cling to the smallest hope that things will get better one day," she said.