Amr's story: "Every day I navigate through destruction and fear"
Amr Ali and his family are among millions who have been displaced in Gaza. PHOTO: Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Last updated 28 July 2025
Amr Ali, his wife and children, 7-year-old Adam and 3-year-old Maria, have been displaced five times since hostilities escalated in Gaza in October 2023.
Alongside nearly 2 million other displaced people, Amr and his family first looked for safety in the north, in Khan Younis. They lived in tents through the summer in Rafah and later the destroyed shell of his brother’s house.
Since then, Amr and his family have returned to Gaza City. Their family home is still standing, but there is extensive damage and they now sleep under a roof they fear will collapse.
It is estimated that 90% of the population have been displaced and that more than 14,000 people remain missing in Gaza and the West Bank.
Work and family in a warzone
Amr is a media officer with the Palestine Red Crescent.
Every day starts the same for Amr, rising early and struggling to find food and water for his family.
Warehouses are empty and there are no more food distributions. No humanitarian aid has entered Gaza for months, malnutrition is rising and drinkable water is scarce.
“It’s becoming harder every day to meet even the most basic needs,” Amr says.
“Every day I navigate through destruction and fear, working with the Palestine Red Crescent to document the society’s response, the relentless suffering of my people and provide help where I can.”
Amr walks more than 10 kilometres a day, to the office and home and to try and buy essentials for his family. Like the other staff and volunteers of the Palestine Red Crescent, his day is a cycle of uncertainty and exhaustion. Every day they leave their homes not knowing if they will make it back to their families again.
“When I am at work, I carry the unbearable weight of leaving my family behind in a city where death strikes without warning,” Amr says.
Read more about the Gaza aid situation with our explainer: how is aid getting into Gaza?
Stolen childhoods
Destruction and displacement have led to massive overcrowding in areas of Gaza.
With people living in tents and ruined buildings, wastewater and sewage in the streets and a lack of hygiene supplies, diseases are spreading at an alarming rate.
“My children have been exposed to numerous infections and illnesses over the past few months, which have significantly affected their health, and of course, we have not found treatment for them,” Amr says.
“My daughter, Maria, suffered from a small wound on her foot that remained open for more than a month due to the lack of proper treatment.”
While Amr’s wife helps their children learn or find space to play, there is no opportunity for formal education or playing with friends.
“Even if there were a place for education, time for learning is a luxury we cannot afford amidst this chaos,” Amr says.
“Maria no longer knows the joy of playing; her toys are now only stones and sand, as the conflict has stolen her childhood.”
Find out more about the catastrophic humanitarian situation and how we're trying to help: What is happening in Gaza?What it means to be safe in Gaza
People in Gaza want others to know about the real situation they are facing, Amr says.
“Gaza is a place where you can see a doctor who lost his family while saving others, families living in cemeteries, a boy who lost his entire family, a little girl asking for her mother who was killed.”
Amr met a girl who writes her name on her hand, so if she dies, she can be identified, and her family told. Despite this unending heartbreak, Amr finds small moments of beauty, a bird singing from the wreckage of a building, the support people give one another.
His greatest hope is for peace: “For my children to sit at a school desk again, for us to rebuild our shattered lives. But I also know that, after all we have endured, we need a chance to heal.”
“I want to feel what it means to be safe.”
Continuing our work in Gaza
Just like Amr, the lives of many working for the Palestine Red Crescent have been upturned by the conflict in Gaza.
Our Palestine Red Crescent colleagues are from the very communities they now help. Living and working in impossible conditions, staff and volunteers continue their vital work every day to help their neighbours in need.
Over the past 19 months, nearly 1,600 Palestine Red Crescent staff and volunteers have distributed 1.6 million emergency aid items like food, blankets, mattresses, tents and hygiene kits as they’ve processed more than 22,000 trucks of humanitarian aid.
Our work and your donations offer a small glimmer of hope to families in a very dark time.
Through our Gaza Crisis Appeal, we’re helping the Palestine Red Crescent prepare so that they can get vital aid into and distributed within Gaza as quickly as possible.
Gaza Crisis Appeal
Millions of people across Gaza, Lebanon and the wider region are in urgent need of food, shelter and medical care. Please help now.
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