I was planning a birthday party.
My daughter Leen was turning nine in two weeks, and she’d been asking for months if we could finally do “the big one”—you know, the kind with a real cake, balloons, and all her cousins. The kind of party that makes a kid feel like the center of the universe for exactly one day.
I told her yes. Of course, yes.
I was working late that night—October 6th—trying to finish a project so I’d have time to focus on party planning. My wife Doaa was already asleep. The house was quiet except for the sound of my keyboard and the occasional car passing outside.
I remember thinking: Life is finally stable.
I had no idea I was living the last normal hour of my life.
By sunrise, normal would become a word I couldn’t even remember the meaning of.
The man I was (before)
Let me tell you who I was on October 6th.
I was a 33-year-old computer engineer. I have three children: Leen, Moein, and Rima, who was born in the first week of the Gaza war. I’d built a small company called Lord Group—nothing fancy, just me and a team I’d trained myself, working from home, taking on projects, slowly building something real.
We weren’t rich. But we were comfortable. My children went to school. My wife didn’t have to worry about groceries. We had a home. We had plans.
I used to stay up late working on projects—websites, systems, automation tools—the kind of work that feels like solving puzzles. I loved it. I was good at it. And more importantly, it let me provide for my family.
That was my definition of success: being able to say “yes” to my daughter’s birthday party without checking my bank account first.
Simple, right?
That’s all I wanted. A simple, stable life where my kids could be kids and I could be the kind of father who didn’t have to disappoint them.
I had that life for exactly one more night.
October 7th, 6:47 AM
I woke up to explosions.
Not the distant kind you hear on the news. The kind that shake your walls. The kind that make your heart stop before your brain even understands what is happening.
I ran to my children’s room. They were already awake, crying, asking me what was happening.
I didn’t know.
By noon, we knew we had to leave. By evening, our home was gone. By the next week, everything I’d spent 11 years building—my company, my work, every single project, every client, every plan—was rubble.
And Leen’s birthday party?
We spent it in a tent.
No cake. No balloons. No cousins.
Just my wife, our three children, and the sound of drones overhead.
Happy birthday, sweetheart.
The questions children ask
My youngest daughter, Rima, was born six days into the war.
October 13th, 2023.
She has never lived in a house. Never had a bedroom. Never experienced falling asleep without the sound of explosions in the distance.
When she’s old enough to ask questions, what will I tell her?
How do I explain that she was born into a world where safety is a luxury we can’t afford?
But it’s my older children who break my heart the most.
Baba, when can we go back to our house?
I don’t know how to tell her there’s no house to go back to.
Baba, why did this happen to us?
I don’t have an answer that makes sense.
Rima doesn’t ask questions yet. She just cries when she’s hungry. Which is often.
And I sit there, in a tent, with three beautiful children who deserve so much more than this, and I wonder: How did this become our life?
The new math
I used to solve problems with code. Now I solve them with survival.
Here’s what a day looks like now:
6:00 AM — Wake up. Check if everyone’s still here. Relief.
7:00 AM — Start the walk to get water. 1.8 kilometers. Carry 40 liters back. My spine screams. I ignore it.
9:00 AM — Try to find food. Sometimes there’s bread. Sometimes there isn’t.
11:00 AM — Sit in the tent. Try to keep the kids entertained. Fail.
2:00 PM — Walk for water again. My neck is damaged now—herniated disc, spinal issues from months of this. I can’t afford treatment. I can’t afford to stop.
5:00 PM — Ration whatever food we have. Make it last. Pretend it’s enough.
8:00 PM — Try to get the kids to sleep. They’re scared. I’m scared. I lie and tell them everything’s okay.
10:00 PM — Lie awake. Think about everything we lost. Everything I can’t give them. Everything I’m failing to protect them from.
Repeat.
This is my life now.
Not coding. Not building. Not planning birthday parties.
Just surviving.
What war actually steals
People think war steals your home, your safety, your possessions.
It does.
But that’s not the worst part.
The worst part is what it steals from the people you love.
It stole my daughter’s ninth birthday.
It stole my newborn’s first year in a real home.
It stole my wife’s peace of mind.
It stole my ability to be the father I promised I’d be.
I used to be able to fix things. To solve problems. To provide.
Now I can’t even give my children a decent meal.
That’s what war steals. It steals your ability to protect the people you love. And then it makes you watch them suffer anyway.
The hardest part
You know what the hardest part is?
It’s not the hunger. It’s not the fear. It’s not even the physical pain.
It’s the hope.
Every single day, I wake up and I have to choose: Do I keep hoping? Do I keep fighting? Do I keep believing that somehow, some way, we’ll get out of this?
Or do I give up?
And every single day, I look at my children, and I know I can’t give up.
Not because I’m strong. Not because I’m brave.
But because they’re watching me.
If I give up, what does that teach them? That the world is too cruel? That hope is pointless? That survival is the best we can aim for?
No.
I want them to see that even when everything falls apart, you keep fighting. You keep hoping. You keep building, even if all you’re building is one more day of survival.
That’s what fathers do.
Even when it’s impossible.
What I miss most
People ask me what I miss most about my old life.
They expect me to say my home. My company. My career.
And yes, I miss those things.
But what I miss most are the small, boring, beautiful moments that I used to take for granted.
I miss my children running through the house, laughing, making noise, being kids.
I miss my wife cooking in a real kitchen, complaining about groceries, planning dinners.
I miss bedtime stories in an actual bed, not on the floor of a tent.
I miss being able to tell my kids “yes” without calculating whether we can afford it.
I miss feeling like the future was something to plan for, not something to survive.
I miss being a father who could protect his children, not just a father who’s trying his best and failing anyway.
I miss normal.
And I’m starting to forget what normal even felt like.
What I’m fighting for
I’m not fighting to go back to who I was.
That person is gone. That life is gone. That version of normal doesn’t exist anymore.
I’m fighting for something new.
I’m fighting to get my family somewhere safe. Somewhere my children can go to school instead of hiding in a tent. Somewhere my wife doesn’t have to ration water. Somewhere I can work again, not because I need to prove anything, but because I miss feeling useful.
I’m fighting for a future where Rima’s second birthday isn’t in a tent.
Where Leen gets the birthday party she deserves—even if it’s three years late.
Where my children don’t have to ask, “Baba, why did this happen to us?” because it’ll finally be over.
That’s what I’m fighting for.
Not the life I had. But a life worth living.
What I’m asking you for
I’m not asking you to fix everything.
I’m not asking you to understand what this feels like. (I hope you never do.)
I’m asking for something simpler:
See us.
Know that we exist. Know that behind the headlines and the statistics, there’s a father who just wants his children to be safe. A wife who just wants to cook in a real kitchen again. Children who just want to be children.
We’re not asking for luxury. We’re asking for normal.
And if you can help—through our fundraising campaign, or even just by sharing our story—you’re not just helping my family.
You’re teaching my children that the world still has kindness in it. That humanity still exists. That hope isn’t stupid.
That’s worth more than you know.
The promise I made
On October 6th, 2023, I promised my daughter a birthday party.
I couldn’t keep that promise.
But I’m making a new one:
I promise to get my family out of this tent.
I promise to find a place where they’re safe.
I promise to rebuild—not what we lost, but something new.
I promise to keep fighting until my children don’t have to ask, “Baba, when will this end?”
And I promise that one day—maybe not soon, maybe not easily, but one day—Leen will get that birthday party.
With a real cake. Real balloons. All her cousins.
The kind that makes a kid feel like the center of the universe for exactly one day.
She deserves that.
And I’m going to give it to her.
Even if it takes everything I have left.
How you can help
Our fundraising campaign is here: chuffed.org/project/nabil
If you can donate, thank you. If you can’t, please share this story. Your voice might reach someone who can help.
Other ways to support:
- PayPal: paypal.me/nabilzaqout
- WhatsApp: +970 599 011 300
- Video from our tent: youtube.com/shorts/aXde_UPSJyg
- Full documentation: Google Drive folder
Verified by: Aral Balkan and Molly Shah
This is real. We are real. And we’re running out of time.
One last thing
If you’re reading this, thank you.
I know your time is valuable. I know there are a million other things you could be doing right now.
But you’re here. You read this far. You saw us.
That matters.
Maybe you’ll donate. Maybe you’ll share this. Maybe you’ll just remember that somewhere in Gaza, there’s a father trying to give his children a future.
Whatever you do, it’s more than we had yesterday.
And sometimes, that’s enough to keep going.
Nabil Zaqout is a 34-year-old computer engineer, father of three, and survivor currently living in Khan Younis, Gaza. He used to build websites. Now he’s trying to build a future. He still remembers what his children’s laughter sounded like when they weren’t scared.
“I don’t need you to save us. I just need you to see us. The rest, we’ll figure out together.”
Support Nabil’s family:
Campaign: chuffed.org/project/nabil
Contact: +970 599 011 300
Links: link.me/engnab
