March 21 marks both the beginning of spring and Mother’s Day in Palestine. A day of celebration, of hope, but it is hard for us to think of hope now.

My 12-year-old son apologized to me because he could not buy me a present on Mother’s Day, I hugged him and said that their survival – for now – is the most precious present that God has given me, I want nothing more.

I live in Beit Lahia. We are still sweeping the rubble, trying to restore our damaged house, to make it livable, more than a month after our return to the north. Everything here is a struggle: to be a mother during genocide is to fight, every minute, every second to maintain your family when nothing is available. Getting clean water is a battle; securing food is a battle; getting fresh vegetables or fruits is a dream, but I am a lucky mother because my children are still alive.

I look at my children and feel guilty because they have been denied their childhood, they were forced into the cruel world of adulthood, of war: no schools, no playgrounds, no daily walks by the sea. I hear bombs and wish I could wrap them with my own body, wish that my love, larger than the universe could protect them, shelter them.

Half an hour before we were due to break our fast, on Mother’s Day, in Ramadan, we saw that the Israeli military has ordered our area to “evacuate,” but to where? We are tired of displacement, of carrying an entire life on our shoulders and fleeing again, starting all over again; we are trying to rebuild the remnants of our lives: we were hoping to do that without fearing the non-stop bombs raining on us. Was that too much to ask?

You have no choice under genocide. You gamble with death: please stay away from my children; We were already displaced on nine occasions to flee death. We try to cheat it, but eventually you know that we are all defenseless against this.

A mother from Beit Lahia, Gaza.

You have no choice under genocide. You gamble with death: please stay away from my children; We were already displaced on nine occasions to flee death. We try to cheat it, but eventually you know that we are all defenseless against this.

I do not know if we will survive this round of bombardment, I do not know if the world will remember that one day people lived in a small place called Gaza, which had the most beautiful coastline in the world. Here lived people who wanted to live, they had so many dreams, they wanted to raise their children under normal circumstances but never got the chance to do so.

All I know that if we do not make it, we will leave knowing that we did everything in our power and beyond to protect our children. Beit Lahia is the capital of strawberries and flowers; it is now a city of rubble, smoke, and stench of death. But please remember us by our strawberries and poppies and remember the names and faces of our martyred children, who will never have the chance to give their mothers a present on Mother’s Day.

Note: The author’s name has been withheld for security reasons.

Header image: Palestinians visit the city cemetery damaged by Israeli attacks after performing the Eid al-Fitr prayer marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan in Beit Lahia, Gaza on March 30, 2025. Photo by Abdalhkem Abu Riash/Anadolu via Getty Images.