r/Gaza • u/QusayAbuOuda • 7h ago
When survival itself is priced out of reach — our reality in Gaza
Hello everyone, my name is Qusay. I’m 22 years old, from Gaza. Since the beginning of this I’ve been displaced with my family, trying to survive one day at a time. I usually don’t post on Reddit—I’ve always been more of a reader and listener—but today something happened that I just can’t carry inside. I need a space to speak from my heart.
Me and my family have been displaced from our home for about four months now. Since then, we’ve been living in my aunt’s apartment in Al Sheikh Radwan, in the west of Gaza. Anyone following the news knows how bad things are here recently, the situation escalates every single day, and more and more families are forced to evacuate, mostly to the south of Gaza.
Yesterday, after sitting with my parents, we decided it was time to prepare ourselves to evacuate again. From our past experience—we’ve already been captured three times—we know it’s only a matter of days before they reach us again.
So I went out to look for a tent. Our old one was left behind with our house, and at this point we don’t even know if that house still exists. I searched the markets, made calls, asked around and finally found three people who had tents for sale.
That’s when the shock hit me. The first asked for $1,000 in cash. The second asked for $1,100. The third also asked for $1,000.
All in cash. For a single tent.
I still can’t process those numbers. We simply can’t afford it. And that’s just the tent without even counting transportation and everything else. In the end, we decided to stay here, no matter what happens.
It breaks me to think that our big homes—our safe places, our memories, our lives—have been reduced to a tiny piece of cloth called a tent. And now even that little tent, we can’t afford.
I don’t want to judge those who asked for this money. In a way, it’s just supply and demand. No tents are being allowed into Gaza, the supply is almost zero, and as the situation escalates the demand only gets higher. But it is all deliberate. It is like even survival is turned into something impossible.
So here we remain, trapped between fear and helplessness. Every day the danger grows closer, and we know what could happen if we stay. But we have no choice. We sit in this apartment, hearing the sounds of war getting nearer, waiting for whatever fate decides for us. It feels like the walls are closing in, and yet we stay because there is nowhere else to go.
These are just words I needed to take off my chest, because the weight of them inside is too heavy. 💔