The Ones Who Remain: Gaza’s Survivors of Erased Families

By Malak Hani Radwan

They were just a stone’s throw from home, a few hundred kilometers marked on the map of their longing. In their bag, they carried the simple artifacts of a life ready to resume; in their hearts, they counted the days until they could feel their mother’s embrace again, until her voice, the very sound that once soothed the dawn, would wake them. But war is a thief that comes before the journey’s end. It left them alone in a world that grew vast and silent, where the names of their loved ones no longer reached them through the air but from the cold glow of a screen, a chorus of ghosts in the digital ether. 

They are what they call ‘survivors’, yet they have become refugees in the wreckage of their own memories. Their citizenship now relies on recent photos and fading letters. They must learn to live with two devastations: that the house which held their childhood is now just rubble, and that the family that once waited for them no longer does. Their waiting is over; this has only just begun, an eternal vigil for a past that can never be reclaimed.

This is the story not of those who died, but of those who were left, those whose bodies were saved while their souls were utterly lost.

We try to understand the architecture of a life after the world that gave it meaning has been erased.

How does the soul continue its journey when its compass is broken?

Within just twenty-four months, the Gaza Government Media Office estimates that more than 2200 Palestinian families have been “completely erased” from the civil registry in Gaza, meaning all their members have been killed.

Additionally, other data indicate that over 5,120 families have lost all their members, leaving only one survivor, and more than 9,351 children have been lost. Only the family units remain after repeated attacks on residential areas. This number is more than just a census; it’s an open wound in collective memory, holding thousands of photos that were never taken and names that will no longer be spoken. 

The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported in its daily update that since the start of the Israeli genocide, the number of victims has risen to 42,519, with about 99,600 Palestinians injured, many suffering from severe trauma and life-threatening conditions. 

Outside Gaza: Yousef Radwan, a dental student in Egypt

How did you know that? What was your reaction when you found out about your family’s martyrdom? 

The news of the martyrdom reached me at nine in the evening. In my apartment in Egypt, a phone call from my cousin, Abdel Hadi, shattered my world.

He first told me about the martyrdom of my father, Yasser Radwan, my beloved, my support. Then he spoke of my mother, Aida Abu Al-Jidyan, my soul, my heartbeat. Hearing it alone broke me completely.

Remembering it now takes me right back to that panic, that uncontrollable burst of fear. Waking from the shock and refusing the bitter truth, I could not forget my beloved brothers, part of my very soul. Where were they? I began to ask, fearing the worst. For hours, the news was vague: they were okay or had minor injuries. My thoughts were merely distractions. Then, hours later, overwhelmed with pain and regret, I discovered the ultimate truth: they had all been murdered. Hala, Sama, Rima, Ahmed, Maryam, and Ammar.

It was an immense tragedy, a ripping of the chest, a breaking of bones. To perish alone in this world, unable to survive.

My mother used to tell us during wars to stay close, so if a missile struck, we would all be taken together.

In that moment, my survival meant I was left alone. I wanted to go with them. But all that’s left to say is, ‘To God we belong, and to Him we shall return.’ 

How has your life changed?

Yousef observes that “As for how life has changed, I cannot say if it is a change or if my soul has simply ascended, leaving behind a dilapidated shell of a body afflicted with worry and sorrow, devoid of spirit, numb to feeling, empty of joy, stripped of everything.

Now, I only perceive sadness and a pervasive grayness in all things, for I have lost what was most precious to me.”

Yet, the days go on, and I must now become a family for myself. I must raise it, nurture it, and bear all its burdens alone, the demands of study, the toil of work, the details of domestic life: eating, cleaning, procuring every necessity. The weight of an entire existence now rests on a single pair of shoulders.

How do you handle memories, images, and sounds?

Yousef mentioned that, over time, memories become the most challenging part. Their memories and voices are all that remain of them for me. I will never forget them, including my father’s and mother’s commands, which stay in my mind every day and each time they are present, along with their pictures and memories that I cannot see, or rather, I couldn’t see them even once.

They were everything. They were the flavor of the life I experienced; I wonder about any life. May God have mercy on them. They will stay with me as long as I live. 

What drives you to keep going? If you return to Gaza, would you like to go back as well? 

Sometimes I realize it’s not always necessary to keep going or that facing the challenges of an incident is pointless. However, I have prepared the paths, motives, and divine reasons with inner resolve to fulfill and achieve a dream I initially had for my parents.

No matter how difficult the path, I will reach and accomplish what I seek because God does not give the most brutal battles except to His strongest soldiers. Here, we are patient, offering our pain and suffering to God Almighty.

Honestly, my only reason for returning to Gaza is to visit the families of the martyrs and sit beside their graves. May God bless their souls, for Paradise is the highest, God willing.

In wars, no one truly survives. Some leave with their bodies, others are left with their souls hanging on the ruins of destroyed houses.

Lone survivors don’t celebrate just surviving; they learn each day to live with half a heart and keep walking in a world that has lost its shape. They hold onto images of loved ones in their memories as protectors of life, waking each morning with an unanswered question: Why me? Yet they move forward because deep down, there is a small thing called hope that refuses to die, even in the darkest and most barren places.

Being a survivor doesn’t mean you’re outside Gaza or beyond the reach of war. For many, survival is a divine fate written in dust and rubble, a second chance at life that often leaves one completely alone. An entire family, a whole world, has been murdered. What endless agony rests in the chest of someone who inherits such silence? It is the weight of an entirely vanished lineage carried by a single, broken heart. This is not escape; it is a continuation of suffering within a prison of memory.

Survivors Inside Gaza: Mahmoud Abu Saif

In the broken heart of Gaza, at Al Maghazi camp, a home became a tomb. Mahmoud lost everyone: mother, father, brothers, sisters, the whole family constellation, all wiped out in a single blast.

By a fate he believes is from God, he alone was pulled from the rubble. He scrambled for an ambulance, calling out for his wounded father and brother, but found only silence. Returning seven days later, he saw the final, brutal chapter: they were gone, and the ruins had been bombed again.

From this abyss, a deep emptiness took root, fostering a stark independence. Though his relatives try to ease the weight of his new responsibilities, the true burden remains inside.

He keeps their faces on his phone, a portable shrine where a glance brings a sharp ache and an hour of silent remembrance, as Mahmoud mentioned. Yet, what sustains him is the indelible echo of their love, his mother’s voice, his brothers’ laughter, a chorus forever lodged in his soul. He is driven by a vow to become someone they would be proud of, feeling their presence as a gentle push forward. Now, living with his mother’s family after their displacement, he works as a financial manager, aiming to reflect their will and protect their legacy. Every step highlights their kindness and the core values they instilled in him, with each small success a blessing, a dream of theirs kept alive through him.

Psychological State of the Survivor

The only survivor doesn’t truly survive but exists amid the ruins, carrying a memory shattered by pain. Every day, he wakes up to a void larger than life itself, hears the echo of voices that once filled the house, and speaks of absence as if they were still present. His face bears the features of those who have passed away, and his extended silence is an endless elegy.

Between a heartbeat and a tear, his soul swings between gratitude for surviving and guilt for being the only one left. He is no longer afraid of death but fears forgetting, that the last features of those he loved will fade away, and his survival will be a painful coincidence in the Book of Pain.

They will never forget and will always struggle to cope with this loss, no matter how many years go by. Youssef Radwan pointed out: “Salvation is the cruelest form of death.”

“I did not survive; I stayed to carry the memory, to remember those who passed away, and to live among them in their absence”, he says. “Many faces surround me, but they do not resemble theirs, and no one in the entire world can fill the void they left. I spend my days in silence that feels like prayer, and if I find any peace in this life, it is for your sake, O God, and for their memory.”

For Gaza’s survivors, life has become both a duty and a devotion. Each breath honors those who were erased; each memory defies the silence left behind. They have no monuments but their hearts, no graves but their dreams. Yet even here, amid dust and absence, they continue because remembrance itself has become their act of resistance.