Soma Baroud, a medical doctor and a mother from Gaza recently discovered that her home in the Khan Yunis area, in the southern Gaza Strip, was destroyed by the Israeli army. 

For over ten months, Dr. Baroud had clung to the hope that one day the family would be reunited in that house, which she built and sustained, along with her husband, a university professor, for over 30 years. 

With her husband still missing, presumed martyred in the early months of the war, Dr. Baroud did everything she could to protect the house and her family. 

In August, however, the Israeli army destroyed the family home. 

Reflecting on their loss, she and her son Yazan penned these words below. 

‘My Heart is Broken’ 

By Dr. Soma Baroud

After losing my home, I felt broken. Humiliated. I have never experienced this feeling before. 

For months we waited for the Israelis to leave Khan Yunis, so that we could sprint back home. But now, there is no home to run back to. Our mornings, which used to be filled with the potential of good news, are now empty. Our loss is complete. 

My son never wanted to leave the house in the first place. He felt rooted there. His bond with the place was different from the rest. He cared for the trees daily, counting the days to olive harvest and the date season. He planted mint and basil. He protected everything he planted from the elements. 

When the war started, he did everything he could so that we didn’t feel compelled to leave the house, and abandon the goats, the chickens and the trees. He even managed to generate some electricity using solar panels and fetched fresh water from a nearby mosque. 

But when the Israeli army took over Khan Yunis, we had no other option but to leave. We returned to the house every time we had a chance, only to see it deteriorate, day after day: Shells exploded in the backyard; olive branches shattered; dead chickens and goats; broken windows and doors. 

Every time we returned home, I would fall into a deep depression. But then the children would remind me that all could be restored, as long as the house itself remained standing. 

The last time we returned, it was in its worst shape yet. The doors were gone, the windows fully shattered or broken, and even the balconies had collapsed under the weight of the bombs. Our kitchen was destroyed, even our clothes were removed from the closets and torn to pieces. I couldn’t sleep, but the kids kept reminding me to remain grateful, that our loss was not as bad as others, that there was still hope.

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But now .. What can I say? Oh, my heart aches. Everything is gone. Three decades of life, of memories, of achievement, all turned into rubble. 

This is not a story about stones and concrete. It is much bigger. It is a story that cannot be fully told, however long I wrote or spoke. Seven souls had lived here. We ate, drank, laughed, quarreled, and despite all the challenges of living in Gaza, we managed to carve out a happy life for our family. 

Here we celebrated birthdays and holidays, broke our fasts in Ramadan, and entertained friends. This was the same place from which our kids completed their studies, excelled in universities, and from which some of them left after celebrating their weddings. Some of them have succeeded in their lives, and others are still trying, but it all started from here, from this heap of rubble and broken dreams. 

I know that life does not always go the way we plan, or hope. But after all of this, this horrific war, all I had hoped for was to simply go home, and sleep. I mean truly sleep as I haven’t slept for nearly a year.  

I had kept everything that reminded me of the kids as they grew up. Scraps of old papers with their handwriting as children, old drawings, and even gift wrapping from past birthdays. It was all kept there, classified, categorized, cherished. 

The very details of the life of my husband, who was martyred or remains missing, only God knows, were all there. I wanted to keep everything exactly where he left it before the war. 

I told the children that no matter what happens, don’t remove anything that reminds me of your father. Keep them exactly the way he placed them before he was gone. 

Now, everything else is gone as well. 

I want to stop. I don’t know how. 

Oh, how my heart is broken …

‘Houses Have Souls’ 

By Yazan Baroud

I lost my father on January 26, 2024. I know nothing about his fate. 

After we returned to the house, following the first Israeli army invasion of our neighborhood (the town of Qarara, east of Khan Yunis) we found it in ruins, though the walls were still standing. 

We were gone for nearly a month and a half, so we were grateful to be home, despite the damage. “Alhamdulilah,” thanks to God, we kept saying as our fate was still better than those who had lost everything. 

But the army returned a few weeks later, so we had to escape once more. And we returned again, a few weeks later, before being forced to leave once more when the army returned. 

This scene kept on repeating, month after month. Yet, the house remained standing. We truly felt that there was something special about our house, as it was the only one whose walls were largely intact, though most of the neighborhood, in fact, the town was destroyed from the air, or bulldozed from the ground.

A few weeks ago, as we enjoyed a rare moment of peace at our home, Israeli warplanes returned. They bombed a nearby home filled with people. We rushed to help, struggling to find anyone alive, as most of the residents, the majority of whom were women and children, were martyred. 

An ambulance finally arrived. The driver told us that he would not be transporting martyrs, only wounded. He also said that there are new military orders for the town of Qarara to evacuate. It was the seventh time since the start of the war that such an order was issued. 

So, we fled again. Two weeks after the last escape, a friend told me that the Israeli military had left Qarara, so I rushed home, knowing that the house would still be standing.

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I wanted to be sure, so I walked all the way from central Gaza to the south. No cars were able to drive on the roads because the army destroyed all the streets. 

Once I reached our old neighborhood, I got lost. I couldn’t recognize anything. The landscape had been altered. I walked in various directions until I settled on the place where our house should have been standing. 

‘Where is the house,” I kept repeating aloud. Once I oriented myself with the changes resulting from the Israeli destruction of the area, I found the heap of rubble that is, or was, our home. 

I recognized it because of a small area in the backyard where my father had planted Christmas trees. Though everything was destroyed, a small tree was still standing. 

I thought of my father. I remember the day he planted the trees. I remember how excited he was as he followed their growth over time. I thought of my mother, of my siblings, of the happy life we once had, and the uncertain future ahead. 

What saved me from my own thoughts was a verse from the Quran, blessing those

“Who say, when struck by a disaster, ‘Surely to Allah, we belong and to Him we will (all) return.’ They are the ones who will receive Allah’s blessings and mercy. And it is they who are (rightly) guided.”

As I began filming the destruction that has befallen our home, these poetic verses came to mind; so, without realizing it, I began reciting them out aloud: 

Don’t Ask the house, who had dwelled here? 

The door, alone, should tell you that the owners had departed.

Oh, you who are standing at the door, be gentle as you knock

For those who had once lived here are no more. 

Be kind to your knocking hand, 

For there shall be no answer. The beloved are gone. 

Be tender for there are no loved ones in this house

Don’t injure your palm, for the injury of those who have already left is deep enough.

Oh, you who are knocking, if you only knew of our story

You would wonder: how did the door survive?  

Please be kind to this house, and don’t awaken its pain

For homes, too, have souls, just like people.

(The Palestine Chronicle)