I was 9 when my world collapsed.
One moment, I had a father. The next, I didn’t.
He was just… gone.
And suddenly, I wasn’t a child anymore. I was an orphan.
We were three left behind, my mother, my 3-year-old brother, and me.
My mum had no education. No job. No idea how she would feed us.
And me?
I stopped asking for food.
Even when my stomach ached so badly I couldn’t sleep.
Even when I thought I might break.
Because I knew if I whispered “I’m hungry,” it would shatter my mum.
That’s what being an orphan felt like:
Swallowing your hunger so the person you love most doesn’t drown in it.
But as cruel as that was, I was still lucky.
Because my uncle stepped in. My grandfather stepped in.
They gave us food.
They gave us school.
They gave us a chance.
And because of them, by 16, I could carry my family.
I could fight for their survival.
That’s why I’m here today. Why I can write these words.
But Gaza’s orphans?
They don’t get that ending. Their fathers vanish too, but not quietly.
Not to sickness. Not to fate.
To fire. To rubble. To war.
Their mothers are left behind too, but with nothing.
Not even food that exists.
I thought my hunger was unbearable.
But their hunger eats them alive from the inside.
I had uncles. A grandfather. They have no one.
And that’s the part that stops me cold.
Because my story was already hard enough to survive.
But theirs…
Theirs is a cruelty so sharp it steals the breath.
My story ended with survival. Theirs ends with tiny graves.
And that contrast? it doesn’t fade.
It stays ringing in your chest, like a silence so heavy you can’t shake it.
That’s why I can’t stop writing. Why I can’t stop asking.
Because I know what it feels like to lose a father.
I know what it feels like to see your mother break under the weight of survival.
I know what it feels like to go to bed hungry and pretend you’re not.
But I also know what it feels like when someone steps in.
And Gaza’s orphans?
They have no one left to step in.
Except us.
Please be that someone.
Be the reason they live to tell their own story.
Because if we don’t,
their silence will never stop ringing.
With every piece of my broken childhood,
Hafsa
