• Hunger leaves Palestinian mother in Gaza with no choice but to part with her slain daughter’s clothes to feed her surviving children
• ‘My daughter is precious, and her clothes are precious to me. They are part of my soul, but I was forced to do this,’ Safaa al-Farmawi tells Anadolu

GAZA CITY/ISTANBUL

In a worn-out displacement tent in southern Gaza, Palestinian mother Safaa al-Farmawi sits cross-legged on a mat, clutching the clothes of her daughter Ghazal, who was killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid in Rafah. 

For more than 22 months, Israel’s siege and relentless bombardment have starved Gaza’s population. Safaa recalls how she had taken Ghazal to one of the distribution points now grimly known as “death traps”, places where desperate Palestinians gather in hope of receiving food, only to face bullets. 

That day, their search for bread ended in tragedy. Safaa returned alone, holding only her daughter’s clothes, pressing them to her face in hopes of breathing in what little scent remained. It was a temporary comfort for a permanent loss. 

But hunger shows no mercy. With three surviving children to feed, Safaa was left with no choice but to sell Ghazal’s clothes. 

“I sell my martyred daughter’s clothes to bring food for my children because there is no provider and because of the conditions of the war,” she said. 

Inside the tent, there is no electricity, no steady supply of water, and no income. She relies on the occasional free meal from a community kitchen, though often her children return empty-handed. 

Her second daughter, Jana, suffers from shrapnel wounds, one lodged in her liver, and cries through sleepless nights from the pain.   

‘Selling memories to survive’ 

“I will have to sell another piece of Ghazal’s clothing,” Safaa continued. “My daughter is precious, and her clothes are precious to me. They are part of my soul, but I was forced to do this.” 

She had hoped to keep Ghazal’s clothes as mementos, but with no income, she recently sold one set for just enough to buy a kilo of eggplants. Now she faces the same decision again: part with another piece of her daughter’s memory, or watch her children go hungry. 

Before the war, Safaa made and sold cleaning products, but Israel’s closure of Gaza’s crossings and its ban on raw materials have ended her work.
The siege has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in Gaza’s history. Hunger and disease now stalk the displaced population. 

According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, 1.2 million children face “severe food insecurity,” and at least 239 Palestinians, including 106 children, have died from starvation since October 2023. 

The World Food Program warns that 100,000 children and women are suffering from acute malnutrition, while a quarter of Gaza’s population lives in conditions “close to famine.” UNICEF says children are dying at “unprecedented rates” from hunger.  

Cruel transaction

Safaa remembers the day of her daughter’s death in painful detail. 

“I went with my daughter to Al-Alam Roundabout, west of Rafah, where the soldiers fired at us. We lay down on the ground in the middle of a large crowd, then moved forward a little. But with the renewed gunfire, I lost my daughter and only found her later at Nasser Hospital, where she had been martyred.” 

She collapsed when she saw Ghazal’s body. “I started screaming when I saw my daughter covered in blood after being hit by exploding bullets,” she said. 

Now she survives in a flimsy tent, selling pieces of her child’s memory to keep her other children alive -- a cruel transaction forced by war, hunger, and loss. 

The Israeli army, rejecting international calls for a ceasefire, has pursued a brutal war in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, killing more than 61,700 Palestinians. 

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.