The silence of the early hours was unbearable, perhaps worse than on any night since 7 October 2023. Bassem Abudagga paced around his flat in Manchester waiting desperately for an answer. He knew from a WhatsApp group of 800 relatives, set up by his extended family in Gaza, that houses near where his wife and two young children were holed up to the west of Khan Younis were being hit by Israeli missiles. His wife, Marim, was not picking up.
“Every single minute, I am with them 24 hours a day and night. When there is any risk, I keep in contact all the time with them online,” he says. “It depends on the connections, sometimes they are very bad. Even when I am sleeping I keep the notifications very loud and I keep just waking up when one goes off. When they are at risk they just text me. It is very exhausting because they feel that if I am in touch with them it is like a hope, they just hold it. I cannot sleep if there is a bombardment.”
