The mother
Oct. 7 began as a day of joy for Safaa Zyadah.
Just hours before midnight Oct. 6, she had given birth to her fifth child — a girl she named Batool — at a hospital in Gaza City.
But as she cradled her newborn, the noises of war crashed into her ward. Zyadah, 32, who had lived through several wars in Gaza, hoped this one might end quickly. But as she returned home later that day, it became clear this time was different.
The walls of her home trembled as Israeli warplanes roared overhead, dropping bombs in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack that Israel says killed about 1,200 people Oct. 7. Zyadah and her husband gathered their five children, the eldest age 13, and began to run.
In the early weeks of the war, they changed houses several times, sheltering with relatives until fighting or Israeli warnings forced them to move on. As the family scurried through the streets, she said, they saw fighter jets firing on targets and spotted corpses strewed on the roadside.
They finally halted at a makeshift United Nations-run camp in the city of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. It was crowded and dirty, but supposedly safe. Cramped into a tiny tent, her family members began to organize their lives as best they could. A few days later, she cradled Batool as she spoke to the Times, grateful they had survived. “We are tired of running,” she said. But their respite was short-lived.
In early December, Israeli troops entered Khan Younis, hoping to flush out the Hamas fighters they said were hiding among civilians. Fighting raged around the perimeter of the U.N. camp, which housed 43,000 people, sometimes piercing it.
On Jan. 24, several shells hit a U.N. shelter in the camp that housed about 800 people, killing 13, the U.N. said. The White House said it was “gravely concerned” by the episode.
It was unclear whether Zyadah and her family were affected. They could not be reached by phone recently.