After eight years in Israeli prisons, Muhammad Murtaja stepped into a Gaza that no longer resembled the home he once knew. The former director of the Turkish TIKA office in Gaza, arrested in 2017 on fabricated charges of aiding his own people, walked free on February 1, 2025—only to find his city in ruins and his life forever altered.

Murtaja endured years of psychological and physical torment, deprived of medical care and forced to endure degrading treatment. Yet, the deepest wound was the forced separation from his family. Seeing his daughter Sarah for the first time in nearly a decade, no longer the toddler he remembered, was a moment of joy shadowed by the pain of lost years. “Imagine meeting your own child as if she were a stranger,” he reflected.

His return to Gaza was not the homecoming he had envisioned. Streets once filled with life were now unrecognizable, reduced to rubble by relentless Israeli attacks. Standing amid the destruction, he whispered a prayer for his people, knowing that true freedom remained distant—not just for him, but for thousands still imprisoned.

Murtaja’s story is not just one of survival but of resilience. Though freed from his cell, he now faces the challenge of rebuilding his life in a homeland still under siege. For him, as for Gaza, the struggle continues.