Saving Sila

Yara Abualjedian was nine months pregnant when the bombing started in Gaza. Her husband, Ahmad, was in Canada, 9,000 kilometres away, with no way to reach her. Then she went into labour. A story about love and perseverance in a time of war

- Andrea Yu

YARA ABUALJEDIAN and her husband, Ahmad, are from the Jabalia neighbourhood of Gaza. Shortly after they were married in early 2023, the couple found out they were going to have a baby. Ahmad, who is a permanent resident of Canada, had been living in Brantford for five years. He returned there in September, before the baby was born, to prepare for his family's arrival. On October 7, Hamas attacked Israel and war erupted. Then Yara went into labour. Below, they explain what happened next.

Ahmad: I was born in 1998 in Jabalia, the youngest of five brothers and seven sisters. I have a visual impairment I'm blind in my right eye, and I have limited vision in my left eye-so I'm reliant on a cane to get around. When I was four years old, the Red Cross arranged for me to attend a school for the blind in Bethlehem. I was sent alone, without my family.

Yara: Our extended families are very close, so Ahmad and I have known about each other all our lives. But I was born in 2002, after he left for school, so we didn't spend any time together growing up.

Ahmad: I went to the West Bank for high school and university, where I studied psychology. I sold napkins on the street to pay for school. I've witnessed so much conflict and violence in my life, especially in 2014, when I was back home in Gaza and the neighbourhood where I was staying, Shuja'iyya, was bombed by the Israel Defense Forces. I saw dead bodies everywhere and was tripping over body parts-legs, heads-trying to escape the bombing. A few of my childhood friends died during that conflict.

Yara: You never feel safe in Gaza. Living with bombing and explosions is just a regular part of life there. You don't even question it.