u/Alternative_Ad_7173

When we went back, we already knew things wouldn't be the same.

But knowing doesn't make it easier.

The door was broken. The windows were gone. The rooms felt empty in a way that was heavier than silence. Most of what we owned had disappeared. Closets empty. Drawers open and stripped. It felt like our life had been erased, not just damaged.

We stood there not knowing where to start.

Then we noticed the refrigerator.

Still standing in its place. Door broken, slightly torn off. It didn't work anymore. It couldn't cool anything. It had lost its purpose.

And yet — it was one of the few things left.

So we cleaned it. Removed what was broken. Laid it down carefully. And without really planning to, we gave it a new role.

The refrigerator became our closet. We started placing inside it the few clothes we had, our papers, the small things we managed to keep.

It no longer preserved food. It preserved what remained of our daily life.

It may seem like a small detail. Just an old appliance in a damaged house. But for us it was a quiet decision: we will use what is left. We will adapt. We will not wait for perfect conditions to begin again.

Sometimes coping doesn't look heroic.

Sometimes it looks like turning a broken refrigerator into a place to store your clothes.

We are a family from Gaza trying to rebuild after losing almost everything. Our home was damaged, our belongings stripped, and our daily life turned upside down. We are doing our best with whatever is left.

If this story reached you — please share it. And if you are able to help, even a small amount makes a real difference for us.

👉https://gofund.me/f16aa05f2

Thank you for seeing us. Thank you for not scrolling past.

My name is Saeed Alhallq. I’m writing this from Gaza.

There was a time when $100 meant something ordinary. A few bags of groceries. A normal day. Nothing you would think about twice.

Now, it feels like something distant. Almost unreal.

If I somehow manage to hold $100 today, I don’t think about saving it. I think about how fast it will disappear.

A whole chicken costs $25.

Tomatoes are $17 a kilo.

Potatoes $15.

Cucumbers $10.

You stand there in the market doing the math in your head, knowing before you even start that it won’t be enough. Knowing that whatever you choose means leaving something else behind.

A single meal can take all of it.

We eat once a day now. Not by choice, but because there is no other way to stretch what we have. Dinner became a memory so quietly that I don’t even remember the exact day it disappeared.

The hardest moments are not the numbers. It’s the small conversations.

A child asking for chicken.

Someone mentioning a food they miss.

That pause before answering, where you try to change the subject without making it obvious.

The last time we had a proper meal was more than ten days ago. It still comes up in conversation, like something rare, something worth remembering.

Everything here requires effort now. Water, even when it’s available, has to be carried. Gas is too expensive to use freely. Flour is something you think twice about before buying.

Life didn’t stop. It just became heavier.

I’m not writing this to make it sound dramatic. This is just what things are like.

If you are able to help, even a small amount matters more than I can explain.

And if you can’t, I understand.

But even reading this means something. It means, for a moment, we weren’t invisible.

Donation link: https://gofund.me/f16aa05f2

Thank you.