‘Our happy life turned into hell,’ says released hostage as Israel marks 7 October anniversary – live updates

Yolande Knell
Middle East correspondent, in Re’im

With a breeze block for a headstone, Emaan al-Wahidi prays by the grave of her dead son in central Gaza.

Early last year, Jehad, who was 17, was on the street when an Israeli air strike hit nearby. He died from internal bleeding two days later.

“In these two years, I lost so much. I lost Jehad. I lost my home which is destroyed. We lost all of the beautiful life that we lived before the war,” Emaan says.

Early in the war, she was displaced with her family to Deir al-Balah and set up a temporary school to help children like her own who were missing their education. She is proud of her oldest daughter, who was able to leave Gaza to study at Glasgow University.

In the ceasefire at the start of this year, Emaan returned home to Gaza City only to be forced to flee with her three youngest children last month, as Israeli forces advanced. Her husband stayed behind to care for his elderly parents who could not make the journey south.

Emaan is now living in a rented garage struggling each day to find food and clean water.

So far, Israel’s bombing has not stopped despite a demand from President Trump.

“When the evening comes, the fear comes with it,” Emaan says. “Me and my three children are afraid of the air strikes. All the night we are sleeping together, holding each other, especially my smallest child who puts his head on me all night.”

For Emaan, the war has felt endless. “We expected it would be one month, two months, three months but two years it’s a very long time,” she explains. “Every second we look at the news to see what happened. And I’m afraid that this ceasefire will not be completed and that the war will come back to us.”