In Rafah, a young mother lives day to day
Madleen Kolab and children are among thousands of displaced Gazans hoping for the war to end
On Oct. 6, a day before Hamas’s massacre in Israel set off one of the bloodiest military campaigns in recent history, Madleen Kolab was in the Gaza City area, getting her home ready for another baby girl.
She arranged the room her family of five — soon to be six — once shared, washing the linen, cleaning the carpet and gathering what she would need when it was time to head to the hospital. The weather hovered in the twenties, but winter was coming, and that day she bought warm clothes for the baby and her other young children, as well as fresh produce and meat.
“Everything was available,” recalls Kolab, who in recent years has gained recognition as Gaza’s first and only fisherwoman.
Her life was far from easy, but she was, as humans do, looking forward. Now, as she awaits word on what might come next from a tent in Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, she can’t help but think of what she’s lost.
“I miss everything,” she recently told the Star in Facebook messages that were translated from Arabic. Her home, her boat, the port, the sea, her fellow fishers, her relatives, her friends. “There were a lot of hopes and plans for the future that are now gone. Nothing remains.”
Kolab and her family are among hundreds of thousands of displaced Gazans who’ve flocked to the tip of the Gaza Strip, along the Egyptian border, since the war began.
The sudden explosion in Rafah’s population — jumping from about 280,000 people to roughly 1.5 million, more than half of the besieged enclave — has spurred illness, hunger, extreme inflation and repeated warnings of disaster if Israel proceeds with a ground invasion of Rafah without safely evacuating civilians. At the moment, the only way out of the Gaza Strip costs thousands of dollars.
On Tuesday, Egypt said the latest round of ceasefire and hostage negotiations with Hamas had ended without a breakthrough, days before Ramadan — the informal deadline for a deal — is expected to begin on Sunday.
Meanwhile those in Rafah, like Kolab, are left waiting — their fate no longer in their own hands.
Israeli officials had previously warned that the military would launch a ground offensive of Rafah, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Hamas’s last stronghold, if Hamas didn’t release the remaining Israeli hostages ahead of the Muslim holy month.
In an attempt to eradicate Hamas, Israel began heavily bombing the Gaza Strip after Hamas gunmen charged into southern Israel on Oct. 7, killing roughly 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking about 250 people hostage.
Since then, Israel has killed more than 30,000 Gazans, with women and children comprising two thirds of the dead, according to the local health ministry. The staggering number of civilian casualties represents the “deadliest rate of conflict of the 21st century,” based on an analysis this year by Oxfam.
In mid-October, the Star reported on Kolab’s desperate search to find a safe place to give birth after fleeing her home in the middle of the night and heading south.
Wasila, now four months old, was born in a crowded hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, as Israeli warplanes flew overhead. A few hours later, mother and baby returned to the packed apartment where the family was sheltering with dozens of others who had been displaced by the war.
Eventually, the family left Khan Younis, pushing as far south as they can currently go.
During their first month in Rafah, Kolab’s children, three girls and a boy, all under four years of age, were frequently sick with what she believes was a bacterial virus. Along with a lack of food and clean drinking water, sanitation has been an enduring challenge in a city now dotted with tents. Without adequate infrastructure, “old and young relieve themselves between the tents,” Kolab said.
The day before the war began, Kolab’s family feasted on maglouba, a popular Levantine rice dish. Recently, they’ve mostly subsided on canned food such as fava beans and peas. Wasila has struggled to gain weight and appears much younger than her four months.
“I hope this torment will end,” Kolab wrote to the Star in late January. “Cold and frost eat away at our bodies.”
Although the packed border town has been spared the extreme destruction in northern Gaza and other parts of the besieged enclave, Israel has repeatedly targeted Rafah despite previously designating the area as a safe zone. At night, when Kolab’s children hear the bombing, they’ll nuzzle themselves into her. Sometimes they wet themselves. Her eldest, Sandy, 4, has a better understanding of what’s happening than the others. She peppers her parents with questions: “When will we go home? ... When will the truce come?”
It’s unclear what’s left to return to. Kolab’s father, the man who taught Madleen how to fish when she was young, refused to leave their family home in the north, saying he’d rather die in his house, according to Kolab’s relatives. She has since learned that her father, who was in poor health, has died, though the circumstances of his death are unclear. Her family’s home was also destroyed. “They say there is no house left suitable for living there.”
A few weeks ago, as concerns over a southern ground offensive grew, Kolab and her family nearly left Rafah. They had planned to travel to central Gaza but family cautioned them against it. They’ve decided to instead wait for Israel’s instructions on where to go next.
So for now, Kolab and her family live day to day. And as night falls, the children sleep while Kolab and her husband cling to their phones, afraid, if they close their eyes, they might miss news of an evacuation.
“We live every night in fear.”