RAFIF ESLEEM

Gaza - Since October 7, 2023, Israel has continued its assault on the Gaza Strip. Women and children are the most targeted by attacks while a suffocating blockade has left even a small piece of bread a rare fortune. In Gaza, where people are deprived of their most basic necessities, hunger has been used as a weapon of war. Each passing day, more lives are lost to starvation.

For Palestinian women, forced into constant displacement, the bags on their back have become their homes. These “emergency bags” contain not only the supplies for survival but also fragments of their memory — the last traces of their lives and homes that they left behind. When strikes start or evacuation orders are issued, the first thing women do is to take their bags, called “emergency bags.”

‘A bag of confusion’

Before the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Sahar Bulbul used her bag when going to the beach or elsewhere. After the start of the attacks, she began to use it in order to carry her belongings. “It is a bag of confusion,” Sahar Bulbul told us. “Because women never know what to put in when preparing it. They usually put clothes, identification papers, medicine, or a bit of food and water in these bags. They try to put everything in them but most things must be left behind.”

Whenever an Israeli strike starts or Israeli soldiers warn that a building will soon be destroyed, women first take their bags because these bags are their most precious thing for them. “My bag contains everything that I have. “If I could have carried my home on my back and run, I would have done it without hesitation. But this is all I managed to take.”

Identity, memory, and life

When Bulbul finally put her bag down in a shelter, she breathed deeply and asked herself: “Is this me? Is this really all I could save from my home? Has my house truly been turned into rubble, never to return?” Despite everything, she comforts herself, vowing to hold on to the memories inside the bag until she will be able to build another home.

The most valuable belongings she carries in her bag are her family photos. Bulbul does not trust digital devices — because phones can break, and pictures can be erased. For her children, the photos are especially precious. Her youngest daughter hugs her missing father’s picture every night before going to sleep, the only thing that makes feel safe amid airstrikes and attacks.

Forgotten bags, lost lives

Many women have to leave their bags, jewelry and everything they have behind during attacks while others have to leave them on the long journey of displacement in fear of being shot. Many later regret it — as the bags contain not only their belongings, but also their lives, memories, and identities.

Bulbul believes that even if the war ends, Palestinian women will always remember the emergency bags, symbolizing the war. “We left our homes and could only take a single bag,” she said, calling on women living in conflict zones to “Prepare such bags in advance and keep them close. Do not wait until the last moment. Otherwise, you may spend a lifetime regretting what you could not save.”