CNN –
Nowara Diab tried to drown out the sounds of the airstrikes by listening to music, but it wasn't enough to shake the unsettled feeling in her stomach.
Then her phone rang. It was a friend who said he had heard that Maimana Jarada – Diab's best friend – and her family had been killed by Israeli bombing.
Her stomach clenched as she panicked. Diab repeatedly called Jarada's number, but when no one answered, she realized it was true – Jarada had been killed.
The 20-year-old says she burst into tears as she felt the walls closing in around her. The pain was even greater for Diab because she had learned just ten days earlier that another friend, Abraham Saidam, had also been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
“Living without her is the worst thing I’ve ever felt,” Diab said. “It hurts my heart every day to think that they are not here and will no longer be there for me.”
She remembers how she froze in disbelief and began to cry when she received the text message about Saidam.
“My mother looked at me and asked me what was wrong. I just put my hands over my mouth and said nothing, everything was blurry and I was completely shocked.”
CNN
Nowara Diab in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Despite repeated telecommunications outages during the Israeli siege, Diab has managed to speak to CNN from Gaza via voice notes, text messages and videos about the life and friendships she has lost since October 7.
As Israel's war approaches its fourth month, the ongoing bombardment by Israeli forces in Gaza has had a devastating impact on civilians there. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the “totally unacceptable” killing of civilians and renewed calls for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” to ease the suffering of Palestinians in the strip after the death toll rose, according to the statement released by Hamas led health authority had exceeded 25,000.
Throughout Israel's war, which began in response to the October 7 Hamas attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has repeatedly stated that it only targets Hamas militants and not civilians.
The enclave is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, with about 2.2 million residents.
At the start of the war, Diab witnessed bombs falling near her home in Gaza City. She and her family knew they had to leave for their own safety.
“That night was terrible, it was so scary, I was sure I was going to die,” she said.
After fleeing several times, Diab and her family are now in Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip and are among the almost 1.9 million displaced people in the entire area, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA).
The Israeli bombing and the resulting humanitarian crisis have made the situation in the enclave unbearable. The UN children's agency UNICEF described the conditions for children as “hell on earth”. The UN agency called Gaza the most dangerous place in the world for children and said the ongoing violence was exposing young people to devastating emotional trauma and psychological harm.
As she walks through the streets, Diab said, she looks at people's faces Resident of Gaza and sees nothing but sadness and pain.
She says losing her best friends and being forced to leave the life she knew behind is having an impact on her own mental health.
“I can't feel anything, I don't feel happy or sad or anything,” she said. “I don't know why but all this has taken my energy, I cry every now and then but not like I used to, it's very short.”
Before the war, Diab was a final year student studying English and French literature at Al-Azhar University. Like most young people, she enjoyed spending time with her friends and eating delicious food in the city.
Sometimes when Diab closes her eyes, she can still remember the faint smell of her family home in northern Gaza, which has been destroyed by bombings since October 7. “Even the flaws bring back memories,” she said. “When my little sister drew something on the walls, it made my mother angry, but it still holds a memory.”
Diab says she longs for the problems she had before the war, like missing the bus to college or being bored in lectures. “I can't do this anymore because my college was bombed, my house was bombed and I lost my best friend,” she said.
Diab describes her situation as worse than a nightmare because she is unable to wake up from it.
“I laugh at myself when I say 'my life' now, because that's not my life, that's far from my life,” she continued. “This is a glimpse of hell.”
Nowara Diab
Maimana Jarada (left) and Nowara Diab before October 7 in Gaza.
There is rarely a moment when Jarada and Saidam disappear from Diab's mind, she says, and she thinks of them whenever she looks through photos on her phone or sees other people with her friends.
“I need her (Jarada) more than ever right now, but I know she is getting better,” Diab said.
“And I know Abraham is happy now, I just know it, but I miss her.”
Diab and Jarada were childhood friends, and their shared humor and interests created a bond like sisters. In a video shared with CNN, the two sit next to each other, giggling and lip-syncing to a viral Tik Tok sound lifted from a Saturday Night Live sketch about friendship.
“How would I even describe Jarada? She's just one of a kind, a beautiful soul and a very artistic person,” Diab told CNN, adding that Jarada had “the biggest heart ever” and would create paintings for her.
Jarada painted a sunflower for Diab's birthday last year. Diab says she accepted it without knowing that it would be her friend's last gift to her before she died at age 20.
When Diab and her family fled Gaza City, she had to leave the painting behind.
Nowara Diab
A sunflower painted by Maimana Jarada for Nowara Diab's birthday last year.
In college, Diab's interest in the arts led her to join a theater group, where she became good friends with Saidam after initially thinking he was quiet.
“He even looked like an introvert, but then we found out he was an extrovert and so funny and extraordinary,” she said.
Diab remembers how they both took part in a play based on Homer's “Odyssey.” Saidam played King Odysseus and would make everyone laugh, she said.
The day Diab learned of her 27-year-old friend's death, she cried a lot but decided to be strong because there was nothing more she could do, she said.
Nowara Diab
Abraham Saidam rehearsing a play based on Homer's Odyssey.
In Rafah, Diab is just trying to survive another day, she said, looking for essentials like cooking gas and water, both of which are in very short supply.
“Can you imagine living a life without water? The most basic thing is to just drink, just keep living,” Diab said. “Now everyone is being killed, and if you don’t die of (airstrikes), we will die of hunger or thirst.”
But despite everything that happens, she says she will never forget the generosity and kindness of the neighbors who sought refuge in Rafah and Khan Younis.
A neighbour in Rafah would give them plates of food and let Diab's family shower at their home. “It's surprising to see someone give so much under these circumstances, and she's so kind,” Diab said.
“(Another family) came by and offered water to shower and charge our phones, and within an hour our phones were fully charged again,” she said — no small feat in Gaza, where access to electricity is difficult due to fuel shortages .
CNN
Nowara Diab in the house where she lives in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
Although aid arrived in the enclave, it did so under difficult conditions and the United Nations has repeatedly warned that the amount received remained “woefully inadequate.”
Diab says that due to extreme thirst, her family drinks water that is only suitable for washing or showering.
Families across the Gaza Strip are forced to consume contaminated water due to the Israeli siege, increasing health risks. Earlier this month, UNICEF warned that the worsening conflict has threatened the lives of over 1.1 million children, trapping them in a deadly cycle of violence, malnutrition and disease.
Amid airstrikes in southern Gaza, Diab fears for her safety in Rafah, saying there is not an inch of the enclave that is truly safe, even though Israel has declared a safe zone and regularly announces when the bombing will stop so that people can move safely.
And although she wants the war to end, she lacks hope for the future.
“We will see Gaza City wiped out, we will see it with our own eyes, which will be heartbreaking,” she said of any future return to her homeland.
“Imagine going back when this is all over and there is nothing left to go back to, no college, no house, nothing. Even when this is over, more torment and pain awaits us.”