During Gaza’s long and bitter nights, Israeli warplanes rain missiles down on small homes while ballistic rockets from Tehran fly across the same dark sky towards Tel Aviv. Below, Gazans watch in hollow silence the fire of explosions above their only light.

As news outlets across the globe are fixated on the Israel-Iran confict that broke out a week ago, all focus seems to have shifted from the ordeal Palestinians in Gaza have been subjected to since October 2023.

With the genocide continuing unabated, Gazans who are still alive are living in constant fear of falling to Israeli bullets any moment, especially while they queue up for relief. 

TRT World speaks to a few residents whose lives have turned upside down during the war on Gaza.

Every evening, Abdullah Dababsh, 37, leans against the cracked door of his home in northern Gaza, his eyes fixed on the streaking missiles, just like every other neighbour on his battered street.

Before the war, Dababsh drove a taxi. His car was bombed right outside his house. Now, he owns a grinder with which he grinds falafel dough — a popular street food in Gaza — to earn his daily bread.

In recent days, Gaza has slipped off the news. 

Palestinians cling to the hope of a truce that will end their war, but doubt creeps in. Will their broken lives improve, or are they merely pawns in a much larger regional game?

People die silently every day at the aid crossings. Children starve without making a sound. Men, women, and the elderly are buried next to sacks of flour while the world focuses on headlines about warplanes over Tehran and rockets over Tel Aviv.

"At the flour points, killing has become routine. People go and never return. I saw the body of a man I knew lying beside a truck, his hand clutching an unopened sack of flour. One bullet ended his long wait. The whole world is busy with Iran’s war. Who remembers him?" says Dababsh, brushing invisible dust from his worn-out pants as if wiping away an indelible stain.

Abdullah Dababsh: "I sell chips to buy my children a lie called life"

In the heart of the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, just outside his front door, Dababsh sits at an old school desk — once used for lessons before the war. People gather around him to grind falafel — the most commonly consumed dish amid the famine.

He glances toward the sky when a surveillance drone buzzes by.

“Our sky is never empty of missiles anymore. There is awe in watching them every night, ever since the Iran-Israel conflict began. But here, we still die for flour, shot by occupation soldiers without the world noticing. Everyone wants us gone as we search for food and life."

I ask him how it feels to watch Tel Aviv under attack. 

“I watch the rockets fly over Gaza towards Tel Aviv every night. I sit and follow them with my eyes, along with the cheers of the young people — they are hungry for joy and a breakthrough in this misery,” he says after a long silence. 

“I sat by my old phone trying to catch FM radio stations because the internet was cut off by the occupation during the first five days of the war. But I could hear the explosions. A tiny moment of revenge... I wished that everything above their heads would collapse the way it did here. But then what? Are my kids fed? Did my car start working again? No, here we die slowly, unbearably slowly.”

Dababsh does not trust Iran.

"Iran does not act for Gaza. It acts for itself. Gaza has become a giant playground for others. We are merely game pieces, countless victims laid on other people’s tables."

He raises his hand towards the sky as if bidding farewell to something that would never return.

"Our people are left alone, crushed by rising prices and the fear of tomorrow. They sleep hungry. Gaza stands abandoned. They all fight there while we are skinned alive here without bread or food.”

Mohammed Al-Madhoun: "I want the occupation to hurt before we all die"

I meet him in Gaza City where he is tending to his makeshift cigarette stand. Tobacco is banned from entering Gaza now. 

Al-Madhoun grinds dried molokhia leaves and mixes them with diluted liquid nicotine to satisfy smokers. Earlier, he was a trader.

“I sell people something that reminds them of life before we were thrown into this hell. Fake cigarettes... fake like everything here, in a life where all joys have been stolen," says Al-Madhoun, 35.

He adds as he carefully rearranges his goods: "I follow Iran’s war news every night. Maybe one big strike (on Israel) will make them stop hitting Gaza. The occupation only understands fire. If they burn over there, maybe they will think about us."

But sadness suddenly dims his eyes.

“My brother went to get aid yesterday at the Zikim crossing, north of Gaza. He came back shaking. He said he saw people falling near the flour sacks — soldiers firing as they grabbed the bags. Even bread is soaked in blood now."

He whispers to himself: “What a strange world. They obsess over missiles above Tel Aviv and Tehran but don’t hear the groans of hunger here. Hunger has become part of life. No horizon. No change."

After a moment contemplating, he adds: "If this war ends one day... if there's just one day without planes... I'll sleep on the ground. No tent. No fear. I’ll sleep like a normal human being who longs for life, not death as they want us to.”

Amani Abu Tuwaila: "I don’t want to die as a toy in the hands of Iran and Israel"

Amani Abu Tuwaila, 42, sits on a rock at the entrance of her tent in Jabalia, looking down at her swollen feet, swollen from standing and running in flour line after flour line.

“I stood for three hours today for a sack of flour. While waiting, I thought: Will a missile hit us now? Will I die here, or starve to death in two days?"

Brushing dust from her long skirt, she continues: “People are exhausted. We want a ceasefire here, just for us. I don’t want to be tied to Iran’s war. What do I have to do with Tehran? Or Tel Aviv?"

But she confesses that she laughs when she sees explosions in Israel.

"Yes, I laughed for the first time in months. I felt the wheel turn. They tasted a little of what we lived through: Rafah, Jabalia, Shuja'iyya — now they have their copies in Tel Aviv."

She gasps suddenly, as if struck by a thought.

"But what good is it? There's no bread, no water, no medicine. My son has a chest infection. I’ve waited two weeks for medicine that won’t come. Even gauze is a dream now."

She raised her head to the pale sunset.

"I just want a truce. No major war. We want to live as humans, not as hollow bodies walking the camp roads and waiting to be killed by a sniper, famine, or missile.”

Worry over future, dream to escape, hope of normalcy

The people of Gaza live in confusion and psychological distress. War and starvation have stolen any chance of returning to normal life. Anxiety over crime, theft, and chaos abounds, with gangs hijacking aid in the absence of law and order.

The war between Iran and Israel only deepens their fear. Their unease grows as the oil slick of violence in the region expands, because they know such wars open unpredictable doors.

“I worry constantly about the future, about running out of food and aid being blocked. Famine is creeping slowly and strangely," says Dababsh. 

“My mental state is deteriorating at the thought of the Iran-Israel conflict dragging on. I fear what comes next. Gaza is not a big country; it's a small city with no resources. If the war continues, the suffering will only grow. I pray all wars end."

Al-Madhoun dreams of escape: "I just want to leave Gaza. The region is drowning in war. Rebuilding Gaza? It's impossible if the violence keeps spreading here and everywhere. I want to find life elsewhere, far from all this killing."

But Abu Tuwaila disagrees.

"I’ll stay in Gaza, no matter what. I believe the war in Gaza may end in the coming weeks. Iran and Israel have their own agenda. Whether it's long or short, none of it changes our fate here."

As regional powers clash for dominance, Gaza remains alone, waiting for its bloodstained bread, its delayed truce, and an ending not yet written. 

Amidst Dababsh’s new job, Al-Madhoun’s counterfeit cigarettes, and Abu Tuwaila’s flour line, Gaza's aspirations converge into one fragile hope: 

A day without planes.

A sky that does not terrify, that does not rain death.