My friend Laila from Jabalia camp called me crying bitterly, and I held back my tears as I tried to calm her down while she explained to me what has happened to her family during the ongoing siege of Jabalia.

“For 17 days,” Laila told me, “myself, my children, and my 2-year-old grandson (whose father had lost his leg during this genocide) have been moving from one house to another and from one school to another with no food and little water. We fed Qais, my 2-year-old grandson, some water, sugar and flour: and that is what all the children have received.”

“The situation has been unbelievable. Tanks surrounded us from all sides and fired randomly. In front of my eyes, I saw a family of five people who were executed on the spot. It was the first time I had seen the bodies of martyrs around me and in the streets.”

Laila continued: “My family and I were among crowds of camp residents who were ordered by the army, under a hail of bullets, to leave the camp and go to the vicinity of Al-Awda Hospital near Zayed roundabout. There they separated the children from the women and arrested my sons Ahmed, Mohammed and Amjad. My heart ached as I imagined how my wounded son Ahmed, who lost his leg, would endure the torture in detention.”

“There were no more patients in Al-Awda and the Indonesian hospital and they were bombed. All that remained were doctors and nurses.”

Laila’s story is one of 2.3 million similar stories of trying to survive the ongoing genocidal attacks. Starvation, execution, arbitrary detention and torture are everyday occurrences now. We are used to hearing about the bombing of homes. Last week I lost more than 30 people from my extended family in Khan Younis. I can’t even mourn them. No one from Gaza can mourn while the massacres continue. I don’t have the luxury to grieve my own personal loss right now because everyone in Gaza is my community and we have to keep working to demand an end to this genocide and to provide what support we can to the families in Gaza.