Paralyzed, widowed, and hungry: Mona’s fight to keep her wounded children alive in Gaza

GAZA CITY, Palestine/ISTANBUL

Inside a ragged tent pitched on the rubble of her destroyed home near Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital, Mona Kahil lies motionless on a thin mattress, a wheelchair pushed against the wall of nylon and canvas. Around her, four children sit close in torn clothes, their faces pale with hunger and pain.

Mona, 35, once lived in a home filled with the noise of eight family members. Today, she is paralyzed, pregnant, and battling cancer, left to care alone for her four wounded children. Israeli attacks have killed her husband, two sons, and both her parents.

“I cannot move,” she says softly, “but I tell my children what to do. We have no bread, only poor wheat. Every day is survival.”

A family destroyed ​​​​​​​

In March 2024, Israeli snipers killed one of Mona’s teenage sons during the army’s storming of Shifa Hospital. Months later, an airstrike flattened her home, killing her husband and another son and leaving Mona with a shattered spine. She has not walked since.

The children who survived carry their own scars. Moaz lost his left eye and suffered burns across his hands and legs. His sister has partial hearing loss from a blast. The two youngest suffer from untreated fractures and wounds.

“I see with one eye only,” Moaz told Anadolu. “Doctors said I have a one percent chance of seeing again. My only hope is to leave Gaza for treatment — and for this war to end.”

Life under siege

Like hundreds of thousands in Gaza, the Kahil family survives under siege. Since March 2, Israel has sealed all crossings, blocking the entry of food, medicine, and fuel, while aid convoys pile up at the borders. What little food trickles in is scarce and often unsuitable.

Hospitals have collapsed. Patients lie on the ground, doctors work without medicine, and families like Mona’s are left to fend for themselves in tents, with nothing but hunger and fear.

Loss upon loss

The cycle of grief did not stop with her husband and sons. Five months later, another Israeli strike killed Mona’s parents, her sister and her brother. She is now orphaned herself, with no family support.

Her body suffers from partial deafness, blurred vision, and constant pain. Yet despite it all, she refused to end her pregnancy. “I lost too many already,” she said. “I cannot give up on this child.”

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, nearly 14,000 Palestinian women have been widowed since the war began. Mona is one of them, raising her injured children in a tent without food, medicine, or safety.
Even in her weakness, she clings to one prayer: that her children live long enough to see a life beyond the rubble.

Israel has killed more than 62,800 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. The military campaign has devastated the enclave, which is facing famine.

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.