Gaza - New York: Europe and the Arabs
"You will find yourself chasing rats all the time, and flies surround you from everywhere," is part of the daily life of the Palestinian girl, Tala Al-Za'anin, who conveys to the world the daily suffering of the displaced in Gaza via social media after being displaced more than once with her family since the outbreak of the war in October 2023. According to the United Nations daily news bulletin,
Tala, who lives with her family in one tent and helps them with all daily life tasks tirelessly, told the UN news correspondent in Gaza, "Our lives were turned upside down. We were displaced from our warm homes to a tent in Deir al-Balah after being displaced more than once from Jabalia, then to Al-Zawaida. We found ourselves in a tent that lacks the most basic necessities of life."
Tala, who is 16 years old, described living in displacement tents as "the worst ever," in addition to diseases, bad smells, sewage, insects, and rats that surround them from all sides. Tala was a high school student when the war broke out, living a “beautiful life.”
She was part of a team working on a robotics project that lasted for five years, but “the war destroyed everything. It destroyed our dreams and hopes.”

Tala Al-Za’anin, a 16-year-old displaced Palestinian girl, has turned her life into a daily journey to survive.

“We are really tired”
Now, outside the tent that has become her and her family’s home, and inside it, her life has turned into a daily journey to survive, where she spends her day fetching water from a newly dug well near the tent, and preparing daily meals using primitive means.

Tala said: “In the tent, which is one room, we cook, shower, sleep, study, and do everything. All this in one room. It is very difficult.”
Tala wanted to do something about this suffering, so she chose to convey this reality and the details she experiences every day to the world.
In one of the videos, which shows scenes from her daily life, she shows how sewage water surrounds the adjacent tents crowded with displaced people in the town of Al-Zawaida in the central Gaza Strip.
She tells her followers that when she chose to head to the place where one can feel comfortable and safe, which is the beach, “you find all these tents and garbage surrounding them and flies, and you smell a deadly stench, in addition to a lot of sewage.”
Tala confirmed to UN News that all she wants is to convey their cause to the other side of the world.
She expressed her hope that the war will end as soon as possible, “because we are really tired, and we do not want to suffer anymore.”
Tala said: “We want to live like other people, in safety and peace. Nothing more, nothing less. That is all we want.”