Diaries from Gaza: 'What if those windows had still been glass?'

Noor, 27, a translator and media coordinator at a research center, has not left Gaza since the early days of the war. She tells L’Orient Today about her family home, destroyed in March 2024 by Israeli airstrikes.I woke up early that morning because I had a dentist appointment. I made breakfast, tidied up the house and finished the chores quickly. Since Mohammed had the day off, I planned to leave Lya with him and head out without worry. It felt like it was going to be a normal day.But in a blink, everything turned upside down. My brother-in-law’s daughter came back from school trembling, her eyes red with tears. She rushed to her mother and said one of the neighboring houses — just a few meters from ours — had been given an evacuation order. It was going to be bombed.“We’ll be safe. It’s a bit away from us,” Mohammed tried to reassure...