In a dimly lit room in Gaza, powered by a flickering solar lamp, Israa Abu Libda sits at an ageing sewing machine, guiding red and black threads through embroidered fabric while pressing the pedal with her remaining foot. She pauses at intervals to check the stitching, running her fingers over the cloth before continuing.
Her life was not always like this. Before Israel's genocide in Gaza , Israa spent her days in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in northern Gaza City, delivering hand-embroidered dresses to customers and returning home to her husband and three children.
That changed on 3 January 2024, when an Israeli airstrike struck near her home, killing her husband and leaving her seriously injured.
She later woke up in Al-Shifa Hospital to find her left leg had been amputated above the knee. Her children had survived, but each had been injured.
"We were together… and then everything was gone," she told The New Arab .
Her children, now aged between six and twelve, continue to live with the consequences. One struggles to walk because of a foot injury, another has partial hearing loss, and the youngest has burns and ongoing pain. Israa says their condition has been harder for her to accept than her own.
"I wanted to carry them, to help them, but I couldn't even stand up," she said. Work as necessity According to the World Health Organization, more than 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 500 women, have undergone amputations since the genocide began, highlighting the scale of injury but not the reality of how people manage day to day.
After being displaced to southern Gaza, Israa underwent surgery in crowded hospital conditions and moved between shelters with her children.
"I didn't have time to mourn," she said. "I was only thinking about how to keep my children alive."
She later returned to the remains of her home and found her sewing machine still intact, saying, "When I saw it, I felt like something of me had survived," and from that moment she began working again, adapting to her injury by repositioning the machine and sewing while seated, noting, "We were healing together," as her children stayed close by while she worked.
She now sells embroidered dresses with the help of her sister, who delivers orders, saying, "Currently, there is a high demand from customers for embroidered dresses, especially for brides, and this helps me gain some money."
The income is limited but remains the family's only source of support, and as she put it, "I am both mother and father now… There is no one else."
Her day begins early, preparing whatever food is available before spending long hours sewing, stopping only to care for her children.
"Sometimes I feel I can't continue," she said, "but when I look at them, I know I have no choice," adding that she sees her work not just as a way to earn money but as something that carries meaning, with "every stitch" telling a story not only of tradition but of everything they have endured. Education under fire Elsewhere in Gaza City, 27-year-old Reem al-Haddad has also returned to work in difficult conditions. Sitting in a crowded space with an unstable internet connection, she teaches English online, continuing lessons even when distant shelling can be heard.
Before the genocide, she worked at a private school, many of which have since been destroyed. She was at home with her family when it was hit.
"I was sitting with my family when the house was hit," she said. "There was a huge explosion and then nothing."
She lost consciousness under the rubble and was later pulled out by rescuers, recalling that she could not feel her arm and realised something was seriously wrong, before doctors later amputated her left arm above the elbow.
"I woke up and felt the absence immediately," she said. "I kept trying to move it, then I realised it was gone."
In the weeks that followed, she struggled to adjust, recalling that at first she could not even sit in front of a screen and felt as if her life had ended, but as schools closed and families lost income, she began teaching again, first helping children nearby and later expanding to online lessons.
"I don't just teach English," she said. "I try to give them something stable — even if it's just for an hour."
She now teaches around 25 students despite frequent power cuts and poor connectivity, saying they stop and then continue, and that continuing is a kind of resistance, while also recalling that learning to write with one hand was one of the most difficult adjustments, as she would spend hours trying to form letters and sometimes cried but kept going because students were waiting.
Her earnings help support her family and cover her mother's medical needs. "It's a message," she said. "That I am still here, and I still have something to give." Between scarcity and survival In the Nuseirat refugee camp , Umm Mohammed Abu Shawish, 45, is also working to support her family. Standing on a prosthetic leg, she prepares pastries and savoury pies over a wood-fired stove, using whatever ingredients she can find.
After months of treatment, she returned home to a difficult situation, having lost her leg in a bombing at a market where she had gone to buy supplies, and said she wants the food to taste like home, as she found her husband too ill to work and four children depending on her.
"We had no choice," she said. "Either I worked, or we starved."
Before Israel's genocide, she was known among neighbours for her baking, especially during Eid. She is now trying to rebuild that work under much more difficult conditions.
On some days, customers come and tell her the food reminds them of earlier times.
"Those words give me strength," she said.
On other days, she is unable to sell what she has made. Ingredients such as flour, sugar and oil are often difficult to obtain, and many people cannot afford to buy food.
"People don't have money," she continued, saying that sometimes she returns home with everything unsold, but even so, she continues to work, because she does not want to beg and wants to live from her own work. Recovery without resources Ultimately, these accounts reflect a wider reality in Gaza, where many people are now living with permanent injuries.
The World Health Organization says life-altering injuries make up a significant proportion of casualties, placing additional pressure on an already limited healthcare system .
Rehabilitation services are scarce, and access to prosthetics remains restricted.
Hanaa al-Zaq, a social worker working with injured women, said the impact is often greater for women.
"Women with amputations face double the burden, but despite everything, they continue to find ways to survive — and more than that, to rebuild," she said.
For Israa, Reem and Umm Mohammed, returning to work has become part of that process.
"We don't want pity," Israa said, adding that they want a chance, while Reem said that if they can work, they prove life is stronger than war, and Umm Mohammed added that as long as she can stand, she will keep cooking.
Their circumstances differ, but each is trying to maintain some form of normal life in Gaza, where much of the impact of the genocide is measured in numbers, and their experiences show how that impact is lived day by day. Sally Ibrahim is The New Arab's correspondent from Gaza