Extract from ABC News
By Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn in Jerusalem and ABC staff in Gaza
Gazans share desperation and despair after a year of devastation | ABC NEWS
More than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed inside Gaza since the war began more than one year ago.
Over the past year, ABC News has followed the lives of many civilians trapped in war in Gaza.
Now, as the war enters its second year, we find out what’s happened to them.
Hiba Abu Sadeq, 13, describes the last year as a "war of hell". (ABC News)
The teen selling bracelets for bread
ABC News first met Hiba Abu Sadeq in December, a few months after Israel launched its military assault inside Gaza in response to the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks.
At the time, the 12-year-old was displaced and trying to survive in a tent in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. She had worn the same clothes for weeks and used to get bitten by bugs at night.
Now 13, Hiba dreams of being able to go to school, like other girls her age.
Instead she sits on the side of the road, surrounded by bombed and broken houses, selling handmade bracelets.
"Come buy bracelets for one shekel," she shouts, spruiking her colourful strings of beads for about 40 Australian cents each.
Hiba Abu Sadeq tries to sell bracelets on the side of the road for the survival of her family. (ABC News)
If she manages to sell five of them today, it might be enough to buy her family some flour to make bread.
"I am selling bracelets because we do not have money, and I want to provide money for the family," she says.
"Nobody [in my family] works, so I buy food for the household."
Hiba Abu Sadeq has watched as huge swathes of her community have been reduced to rubble. (ABC News )
Food shortages have become the everyday normal for Hiba and her family.
Since we first met Hiba, the family has had to flee at least another 10 times, and say each new displacement was worse than the last.
They recently returned to their home in Khan Younis to find better shelter as winter approaches and saw their apartment had been significantly damaged.
"The last time we were here, this tower was not destroyed," Hiba says.
"Things were good and I used to play with my friends. Now I do not have anyone left here.
"I spend time only playing with my beads."
Hiba Abu Sadeq's father looks around what's left of their home. (ABC News)
Hiba's father Talaat Mohammad Saleem Abu Al Sadeq has been trying to patch up some walls, to make the building liveable.
But he worries constantly for his daughter's safety.
"Now while you are sleeping, you are watching out for if the missile will hit you, or anything else will happen to you," he says.
"When you walk down the street and hear a missile, you shake in fear."
Hiba's description for the last year of her life seems hard to reconcile with someone of such a young age.
"It's a war of hell, of genocide, a war of fire and destruction," she says.
Life in Gaza through the eyes of a 12-year-old girl | ABC News
The paramedic who found his nephew
Near the beginning of the war, ABC News travelled with Yasser Abed to the site of an Israeli air strike, where he scrambled through the rubble, searching for survivors.
Paramedics like Yasser Abed have been on the front lines since day one, scrambling to save lives from under the rubble of Israeli bomb sites.
The physical and mental exhaustion has taken its toll.
Yasser breaks down as he describes the worst experiences of the last year.
"I am a human being; I belong to humanity and I wish that the war would end as soon as possible," Yasser Abed said. (ABC News)
"I think it was the children that I've seen dismembered and injured, this was hardest for me," he says through tears.
"We are in the 21 century, and how is someone still allowed to kill children regardless of their religion, or homeland, or where they live?
"Killing children is inhuman."
Tragedy has struck Yasser's own family.
"Almost two months ago, there was an invasion of Al Nureirat, and when I was evacuating the injured, I found my nephew at my sister's house that was bombed. He was martyred and the rest were all injured," he says.
"It was very hard. I saw them and carried them myself. It was a horrible experience."
Yasser has recently undergone hernia surgery after being injured from carrying too many wounded and bodies. (ABC News)
Yasser has recently undergone hernia surgery after being injured from carrying too many wounded and dead bodies.
"We had to work 24 hours a day nonstop. Sometimes we had to carry heavy people to rescue them. This was very hard for me."
He's still displaced from his home and fears constantly for his life.
"During the bombings, we are evacuating the injured, and there is still bombing all around us," he says.
"We were almost dead but we have to do our job."
As war enters the second year, Yasser asked to send a message to the world.
"I am a human being; I belong to humanity and I wish that the war would end as soon as possible."
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