Footballer Maha fights for survival in Gaza
"The situation is difficult from all sides," says Palestinian footballer, referee, and coach Maha Mohammad Shabbat as she describes her situation in the Northern Gaza Strip amid the genocide conducted by the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF).
Her dream of building up women's sports, especially football is now a dream from a distant past.
Maha is a young football coach and referee from Beit Hanoun, but the last nine months have been the worst of her life like for her fellow Palestinians after October 7.
In just nine months, the dream of starting more women's football clubs has reduced to a constant fight for struggle.
"Without sports, my life is worth nothing," she wrote about her motto in August 2023 when she represented her community at the Discover Football Festival: Unseen Game event in Berlin.
Before October 7 Maha had been an active part of the football community in the Gaza Strip, where she worked as a referee in matches organized by the UNHCR and other foundations and institutions.
However, now it has been nine months that she has not touched the football and has seen many of her students getting massacred and/or left with amputations.
Maha represents the best and the brightest of women's sports as she lives in a place that has been, to be clear, labeled as the world's largest open prison even before October 7, where survival under colonial power has been difficult.
If one doesn't die because of the bombings then there is a constant threat of hunger and thirst along with diminishing safe places.
But now every moment only brings in more uncertainty with constant bombing and attacks.
"At any moment we might not survive," Maha tells this correspondent. "Bombing, lack of food, terror, fear, thinking, and psychological torture, all together. And even if things are expensive, it's hard for someone to buy."
Despite the political, and geo-political violence that Palestinians endured over more than seven decades, Maha represents the best of the human spirit too because even in the most desperate of situations in the middle of a war, one can feel warmth, love, affection, and hope through her voice messages and texts she sends to this correspondent.
She even finds moments of joy and jokes about things as we try and take a brief mental respite from the ongoing genocide of people who have to see their children, parents, siblings, and friends die, who have been displaced for more than nine months now.
Maha lost her brother and her cousin in the genocide, and just last month she said that she woke up to the horror and sound of their roof falling over them due to the bombardment. That attack had left her with an injured shoulder which she is still struggling with.
Meanwhile, lack of food, clean drinking water, and the grief of losing her beloved brother has left her stomach in such a bad shape that she is having trouble keeping anything in, but she has no means to continue the treatment due to financial constraints
"Today, I went to see a doctor for my stomach. I did all the tests and treatments and by God, it cost me a lot of money. I still have some treatment left but I can't afford it.
"I don't know the reason behind my stomach ache, since my brother was martyred, it's been about nine months.
"The problem is that some people tell me that it is because I am in shock and I am upset, and that it'll go away. But it has not gone away all this time."
But she added that it becomes increasingly difficult to take care of oneself as the Palestinians are dealing with loss every day witnessing more deaths or just hearing more news of the death of friends and family.
25 of Maha's family members are gone
"I am a resident of the Gaza Strip, from the north in Beit Hamoun. Since October 7, 2023, I have been moving every day from place to place searching for safety.
"There is no safety," Maha shared her story, as they were displaced just 10 days into the genocide starting on October 7.
"My family and I left Beit Hanoun for central Gaza. Then I was transferred again to West Gaza.
Then I was again moved to another school and then that school was bombed so we moved to another school. After that, we transferred back to North. One of these moves included coming to places from where occupation forces withdrew. But all the while we are searching for safety.
"The One who preserved my brothers and sisters and my brother's son. The fear of losing someone is difficult to live with. Losing someone is difficult. I lost my brother and cousin too."
Forced to die hungry or die while fetching food
She explained that her brother and cousin were martyred on their to a bakery to get some food for the children of the family.
""There is the Al Sahaba area. My brother and my cousin were martyred as they were going to a bakery to get some food for our children.
"We lived in this house and then we went to a safety point in western Gaza, and the house in which we were living was bombed a second time. At home, 16 missiles were over our heads and we still got out. Thank God.
"Because of the martyrdom of a large family of 25 people, then the martyrdom of my brother and three cousins there are so many psychological effects on us. But life is just so difficult and making a living in the Gaza Strip is difficult."
Living on 245 calories a day
In another conversation, Maha cried that she had no idea what she and her family were eating or drinking.
It is a known fact that Israeli Forces have blocked all humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza and in a report on July 10 2024 the United Nations experts said that famine has spread across Gaza, while many more children have been dying of malnutrition.
In April Oxfam reported that on average people in Gaza are forced to live on just 250 calories a day, which is less than even 12 % of an average adult's daily need.
Risking life for internet
In these difficult times keeping connections becomes imperative.
Just to keep the connection with the outside world Maha has to travel to a more unsafe place away from a shelter at a school where the internet is barely available.
She often risks her life to even carry on communicating with the outside world or in the hopes of finding her friends that are now lost, without any contact when the attacks became more intense and all of their homes got destroyed.
"This is the point where we open the internet," she sent a picture accompanying the text, the pictures showed a mound of debris. It looked like more houses were destroyed by the Israeli bombs. "A little while ago, the point next to us was bombed. But this is just a small example of destruction in Gaza."
But staying back is also not a choice and through communication, she hopes to let her situation be known and pray that some help can arrive to ease the burdens of war, as everything has become expensive.
"Alhamdulillah, the pain is a pain that lasts all night and all day, we search for water and carry it.
"As for the food, thank God today I ate lightly. Yesterday I didn't eat anything," Maha spoke of agony with health issues and scarcity of food and water amid the genocide.
"God willing, there is no safe place. I would lie if I told you that there is a safe place in Gaza.
"All the fear and terror is like [we see] in the movies."
Maha's dream now, like others, is to see the end of the war that has taken everything from them.
"May God make things easy for us, God willing. I swear, I want the war to end soon. We are tired, we can't sleep or eat," she added.
Even the Eidul Azha came and went without much meaning too as Maha explained that they didn't even have clothes because their house was bombed.
"By God, we don't even have clothes, nor do my nephew's children.
"There was no Eid, even for the children. This was a sadness on its own
"We are living, but we are not living."
Flashback of the past keep the hope alive
Maha remembers her life before October 7 and her trip to Berlin where she was a part of the all-inclusive festival highlighting the unseen aspect of the game, especially when it comes to women and oppressed communities.
"They were sweet days in practicing sports, doing sports, and spreading women's sports in the Gaza Strip like the rest of the world.
"I wish it hadn't happened to us and our women."
Women's sports in Gaza
She says that after returning from Berlin she got back into her community and she had more ideas of making more clubs for women, however, all of that came to a shattering end in less than two months.
"I was at the conference in Berlin. I participated in football refereeing and after my return to Gaza, I was thinking broadly about the idea of women's sports in Gaza. To not deprive them of support and to open some women's football clubs.
"But the occupation came back again and deprived us of it, and some participating girls who wanted to become footballers were martyred and others had their limbs amputated.
What happened to the stadiums and sports facilities?
Maha said that almost all the stadiums in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed by the occupation forces with heavy bombardment over them. But the greater grief and struggle has been just the safety of the young children who want to play sports.
"There are these grounds where we want to engage children into activities and maybe we can help them as they are witnessing so much violence too, but I have not gotten the soul to go down to those grounds," she explained as the Israeli Occupation has taken away all the strength. She appealed to world organizations if they could help the children with their trauma and mental health too, just to get back on the field even before thinking about training properly.
"The occupation forces have demolished everything, the stadiums, and clubs, and I hope one day we can rebuild these grounds and stadiums once the war ends, to build clubs that can embrace women's sports especially, but even that would take lots of effort," Maha added as sadness kept popping up from the cadence of her voice, that she has been struggling to remain motivated.