IN HER OWN WORDS: SALMA’S STORY A MOTHER AND NURSE, POWERLESS TO SAVE HER SON I am Salma, a nurse, a widow, and the mother of six children. Today I say I am the mother of five, because I watched my fifteen-year-old son bleed to death in front of me and I could not save him. Our home was flattened, and we have been displaced more than ten times, now living in a fragile tent near the sea. Each move stripped us of clothes, memories, furniture, until now we are left with almost nothing. The most unbearable moment came when Israeli tanks attacked our neighborhood. Families were trying to evacuate when soldiers opened fire. My son was shot in the stomach. As a nurse, I knew what to do. I wanted to stop the bleeding, but soldiers pointed their guns at me. I was only two hundred meters away, hearing him scream my name, and I was forbidden to reach him. For many hours I watched him cry in pain and fear until he died. Soldiers blocked me from recovering his body, leaving him in the open for three days. Whenever I close my eyes, I hear his voice calling me, Mama help me. I wake up weeping, remembering that I could not save my own son. He was terrified and in pain, and I stood powerless, forced to watch his suffering. I have spent my life saving others as a nurse, yet I was not allowed to save my own child. Now my days are consumed by hunger and fear. Most days we eat once, sometimes not at all. We have no gas or electricity, so I cook over scraps of wood or cardboard in old tins. The smoke makes us cough and sick, but there is no other way. I have grown frail and malnourished. My body is weak, my voice faint, and my hands tremble. I feel I am disappearing. The loss of dignity cuts as deeply as the hunger. At aid centers, women face pushing, shouting, humiliation, even threats. I fear for my daughters in those places. Every attempt to get food feels like another wound. Recently I walked for hours to reach an aid distribution point. There were thousands of desperate people, crying and pushing while soldiers fired in the air. When I finally reached the front, everything was gone. I came back to my children empty-handed. On days when there is a little food, I give it to them and survive only on tea or water. Hunger does not care if you are a man or a woman, but women carry the weight differently. We cry in silence, we stand strong for our families while collapsing inside. I starve myself so my children can eat. I look at my children, thin and weak, and fear that hunger will take them too. I want my children to be safe, to eat until they are full, to return to school, and to grow up with dignity. I want no mother to live what I lived, powerless while her child died in front of her. Note: Names in all stories have been changed for women’s anonymity and protection. Women’s testimonies have been condensed for length and clarity. 5