By Shaima Ahmed
When people hear “Women of Gaza,” many imagine sadness, destruction, or war.
But the truth is deeper than that…
Women of Gaza are patience itself, a fire that never goes out.
In every Gazan home, a woman starts her day before the sun rises.
She lights a fire—not because it’s cold…
But because the gas has been cut off for a long time,
And she has a family to feed.
She washes clothes by hand,
And bakes bread over fire in the scorching heat,
And sometimes, all of this happens in one day.
Yet she does not complain…
She simply says:
“Alhamdulillah” (Praise be to God).
Between house and house, there is a tent.
A woman displaced for the second or third time…
Maybe more.
Trying to create warmth from plastic sheets, and safety from cardboard.
In summer, the sun burns the tent from above,
In winter, the rain floods it from below.
But she remains, steadfast,
Holding her children with all the tenderness in the world as if she lost nothing.
She cooks over fire,
Protects her children from the cold,
Hides her fear, and puts on a face of strength.
Not because she is without pain,
But because she is a Gazan mother… unbreakable.
Amid all this pain,
There is a doctor who was saving lives at work,
Only to discover that nine of her children died under the bombing.
And another mother who said goodbye to six of her sons,
They went to work… and never returned.
What kind of heart can bear such loss?
What kind of soul can keep going despite all this?
I don’t know how to express all that I feel for the women of Gaza.
But I know they are not strangers…
Each one of them feels like my mother, my sister, or myself.
We have lived the same circumstances,
The same oppression, the same bread baked over ash,
The same laundry washed with pain, not just water,
And the same tent that does not shield us from the cold… but unites us.
They are not just oppressed…
They are women who deserve to live with dignity, comfort, and pride.
And the surprising thing? They still create hope.
They laugh.
They raise their children with love despite the hatred.
They bake, plant, love life…
And silently tell the whole world:
“We are not broken.”
“We are life.”
“We are Gaza.”
The women of Gaza are not written about only with tears.
They must be written about with reverence, respect, and awe.
Because they are among the most honorable and pure women,
And the pride in them is something rare.
Sporas 
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