Like the Virgin Mary, Rawan Aljuaidi speaks with dignity, each word chaste and carefully chosen; only facts and intention are allowed when spoken.
Can you do a story about my infant son, Aboud? He suffers from malnutrition.
I’ve known Rawan for almost eighteen months, and this is the first time she’s asked me to write a story for her. Most refugees beg for help, pleading as if their lives depend on it. Maybe that’s because their lives do depend on it. But Rawan waits patiently like an elder, even though she’s only twenty-eight years old. And that’s fitting, because our online fundraising group functions like a tribal council, where members of a global village come together to weigh in on matters of life and death.
Yes, I can do a story.
After I give Rawan a list of questions for her to answer, she ends our messaging politely like she always does: Thank you for reaching out and for your willingness to hear our story from Gaza—a story that is often silenced, misunderstood, or ignored. I’ll try to tell you everything with honesty, though sometimes words fail to capture the pain we carry.
Such a tone comes naturally to Rawan. I’ve been helping her with the intricacies of communicating with humanitarian aid organizations and native English speakers since we first met. But the dignity she speaks with is all her own; it’s not something that can be taught. She fits perfectly into our ancestral council of spiritually minded Americans who follow a Sufi path and appreciate the grace of a humble woman.
Rawan exists in a world shaped by war and genocide; the monsters fighting to control the hearts and minds of innocent people just like us. In between the bombs and bullets, she scrounges for money, hoping to collect enough to get a temporary wi-fi card. Contact with the outside world is a piece of heaven for Rawan; it gives her time to dream of better days and the privilege of listening to something other than the ongoing destruction of her homeland.
Death is Rawan’s constant companion as she explains the fate of her family: My sister-in-law’s husband left to run errands…and never came back—he just disappeared. No one knows what happened to him. My cousin’s husband was killed by an airstrike while trying to fetch water for his family. At least we had a body to bury. My aunt had severe dysentery, and with no medicine or IVs at the hospitals, her body couldn’t rehydrate. We watched her fade day by day until she took her last breath in our overcrowded tent. No help to summon. No hope for miracles. That’s how people die in Gaza.
But Rawan doesn’t run away. Like Hans Christian Anderson’s Steadfast Tin Soldier, she stands still, facing adversity even though it may all end in a fiery explosion. That’s the price one pays for loyalty and courage. So, with her delicate paper heart charred and torn, Rawan perseveres, making diamonds out of dust; creating a child, where before there was only barrenness.
I was pregnant with my son Aboud during the first year of the war, carrying my baby while bombs fell all around us. There were days I didn’t know if either of us would survive—not because of a direct hit by a bomb or missile, but because there was no food, no water, no shelter, and no medical care.
As the war raged on, my belly grew, and my clothes no longer fit. So I wore old, tattered, loose-fitting dresses donated by relatives or kind neighbors in the camps. I had no options, no alternatives. I was simply trying to cover my body with whatever was available.
I went into labor on a chilly night in December 2024 as warplanes bombed the world around me. I reached Al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat, not knowing whether my baby or I would come out alive. Near the entrance: rubble, shards of glass, and wounded souls lay scattered across the asphalt. Inside: darkness and chaos, screams an omnipresent sound. Doctors rushed through narrow hallways, no medical equipment to be found. No delivery room. No bed. No medicine. No privacy. No comfort. And with the power out, no light. Only pain and the will to survive. I gave birth sitting on a plastic chair.
Aboud didn’t get neonatal care after birth. I simply left the hospital with him. No check-ups, no diapers, no infant formula. It costs four hundred dollars a month for diapers, which we can’t afford. Often, I keep him in the same diaper for long hours. I know it’s wrong. I know it’s harmful. But I have no choice. Now I have a plastic reusable diaper that I fill with rags. I wash them in brackish water every day.
Aboud was born into a world that doesn’t welcome babies. His first clothes were, like my maternity garments, pieces donated by friends and relatives. That winter, I dressed him in whatever would keep him warm. He’s never known the touch of clean, soft baby clothes since the day he was born. And now that he’s growing, nothing fits.
I still try to breastfeed my son, but my body is too weak. I live off flour, salt, and sorrow. I weighed 70 kg before October 7th, but only 55 kg now. How can I produce milk when I don’t have enough to eat? Formula, when it’s available, costs around $100 per can. Aboud is slowly starving, and all I can offer him is my arms…and my tears. I try to feed him bits of mashed lentils or bread, but it’s not nearly enough for a growing seven-month-old infant. His body is already showing signs of malnutrition, and I fear for what that means long-term. He’s just a baby, and I already feel like I’ve failed him.
Recently, I carried my little boy to the clinic… holding him close to my chest, as if I could shield him from the truth I feared. The doctor measured the upper part of his tiny arm, paused for a moment, and looked at me with eyes that said more than words. “His mid-upper arm circumference has decreased by 4 millimeters… the malnutrition is worsening.” Just 4 millimeters! It might seem small, but in our world it’s the difference between hope and despair.
Then she looked at me again and said: “You too… you’re losing weight. Your body is weakening.” I stood there in silence, trying to find the words to explain how I give up my meals so that Aboud can eat. How I’ve learned to hide my hunger—but I can’t silence his cries.
The doctor handed me a long list: vitamins, therapeutic peanut butter, nutritional supplements… All things my child desperately needs to regain his strength. But I cannot afford such things. I have nothing. Nothing but my body, and the exhaustion of a mother trying to remain standing for her son. I haven’t even had a taste of sugar since the day Aboud was born.
Basic things like eating, sleeping, and bathing become immense challenges. After our home was bombed, we moved again and again. Now, we live in the fragments of a house in northwestern Gaza. There’s no water, no electricity, and no doors—only a leaky ceiling held up by bullet holes and battered walls. There are twenty of us left: my baby, my husband Ahmed, and I, plus my in-laws: Ahmed’s parents, his siblings, and their children. We sleep on the floor. We huddle underneath thin blankets. With all the smoke, dust, and smoldering debris, we can’t breathe, and we can’t keep clean. We share whatever bread we can find. We grow hungry together.
They show aid on the news channels, but it’s just a performance. Aid doesn’t reach us. It doesn’t touch our lives. It exists only in press releases. How can you eat a press release? How can you drink a politician’s speech? What U.N. resolutions heal the wounded? What reaches us is hunger, cold, and pain.
Sometimes, when I look around, I feel like we are no longer seen as humans. And yet, we are just like you—we dream of peace, we long for normal lives. But we are being starved and buried in silence. We are not asking for political change—not even for justice anymore. We’re simply asking to live. To feed our children. To survive another day.
Before October 7th, I was happy. I was a pharmacist and studying for a Master’s degree in Public Health. I came from a family of teachers and medical professionals. My husband was a lawyer who helped families—often for free. He ran a barbershop in his spare time, just for the joy of bringing a smile to someone’s face. Now it’s all gone—the pharmacy, the law office, and the barbershop. Only memories remain.
Rawan’s grace reminds me of Siddhartha, from Herman Hesse’s novel of the same name.
Siddhartha does nothing; he waits, he thinks, he fasts,
but he goes through the affairs of the world like a stone through water,
without doing anything, without bestirring himself;
he is drawn and lets himself fall.
Likewise, Rawan waits for our weekly meeting without complaint. She prepares her words thoughtfully. She eats only one meal a day. Who are we to compare ourselves to her? Who among us has waited for hours to fetch brackish water to wash diapers with? Who among us has tried to translate one’s words into a foreign language as bombs land nearby? Who among us has starved themselves to keep their child alive?
Rawan does what she’s called upon as a mother to do. And we, those who listen to her every week, are blessed with her presence, for it is Rawan who leads us through the genocide. It is Rawan who is a role model for those seeking to love thy neighbor.
One of our fellow Americans, named Sue, wrote this about her experiences with Rawan:
Eloquent, poignant, evocative, and touching…it feels like her words reach through the screen and go straight to my heart.
I know what it is like to be a young mother of an infant for the first time, caring for a helpless and infinitely precious innocent being who needs so much love and attention. Then add a war and a genocide. It’s unimaginable. Yet Rawan squarely faces all her tragedies, such as losing her milk supply as she starves, then losing access to baby formula, and now watching her baby sicken and waste away from malnutrition. Even in her pain, she persists in holding unwavering love for her baby, soothing him as he cries, taking him to the hospital under fire, and using all her wits to find him food, medicine, and shelter.
Rawan is so heartfelt that I find it easy to connect with her across the oceans between us. She is never impolite, she addresses us as friends, she works with her limited English to communicate the hardships she endures, and seems endlessly patient even as she insists upon survival and her need for help.
Rawan welcomes my words of compassion and care, and replies with “I love you,” a phrase laden with emotion and shaped by memory. Meeting Rawan has been, for me, the heart of sincerity. She has taught me how simple it can be to love her, as a sister on the path, as a friend holding her hand, as a mother holding her heart. Despite how painful it is to hear her suffering, I feel honored to know Rawan and support her. Truly, it is Rawan who has given me so much.
But such epiphanies can’t be savored for long. Aboud is sick again. Malnutrition has caught up to him. Rawan sends me a video of his current state. His skin is covered in a rash, he has a fever, he’s coughing, he’s crying, he’s vomiting, and he has diarrhea. I suspect that, if he weren’t malnourished, he wouldn’t be ill. But he is, and none of the hospitals, medical clinics, or pharmacies have any of the medications he needs. Death is one step closer, and Rawan is worried:
I returned from the hospital today carrying my little boy in my arms—holding him with fear, love, and trembling hands, as if I were carrying the last thread of life itself. I watch him closely, waiting for a miracle.
The post A Palestinian Mother and Son Starve with Dignity first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Eros Salvatore.