Name: Asaad Maher Al-Aswad
Age: 35
Location: Al-Karama area, Gaza
Occupation: Cleaning worker at Al-Shifa Hospital

I am Asaad Maher Al-Aswad, 35 years old, married, and responsible for supporting a family of six members, in addition to my parents and my two sisters with disabilities, aged 23 and 25. I used to live in Al-Karama area in Gaza, before it was completely destroyed.

Before the war, I worked as a cleaning worker at Al-Shifa Hospital through a private company, earning a monthly salary of 700 shekels [about 175 euros at the time]. My work was difficult, but it was the only source of income for my family. When the war began, everything changed. Work at the hospital stopped in November 2023, and we were never paid our salaries for September and October 2023. Since then, I have lost the only income that supported my family.

During the war, we worked inside the hospital under extremely difficult conditions. For the entire month of October, we worked 24 hours a day and could not leave the hospital, because of the work pressure and the situation outside. Our work was not limited to cleaning only. We were also moving the bodies of martyrs to the refrigerators and transferring injured people to hospital rooms. During that whole period, I did not see my children or my family for almost one and a half months.

At the beginning of November 2023, while I was going to work, I was injured by airstrikes. The injuries affected my lung, hand, and back. Despite the seriousness of the injuries, they were not registered as work injuries, and I received no compensation or support.

Later, my house was completely destroyed, and now my family and I live in a small tent made of cloth and nylon. Life in the tents is extremely difficult. There is no privacy for children or women, and rats, mice, and insects are everywhere, causing skin diseases and infections without any medical treatment or support to deal with them.

Every part of daily life has become a struggle. We have to carry water from very far places for drinking and daily use. We also spend hours waiting in food distribution lines that do not provide enough for the children, many of whom are now suffering from anemia and malnutrition.

Day and night, we hear the sounds of bombs and explosions, because we are close to northern Gaza and the areas [inside the Gaza Strip] still controlled by Israel. We live constantly in fear and insecurity.

During the entire war, the only assistance I received was flour and canned food from the World Food Programme. I never received any financial assistance. I feel that everyone abandoned us, including the companies we worked for and even the Ministry of Health, which did not pay us our rights.

Today, my greatest hope is for the war to end completely, for reconstruction to begin, and for people like us to have decent housing instead of living between sewage water, extreme summer heat, and winter cold.

We simply want to live like the rest of the people in the world. We are civilians and peaceful people, yet every day we continue to face fear, danger, and suffering.