In Gaza, where the ruins whisper the names of the lost, mothers are learning to walk again, not with their feet, but with the unbreakable strength of their hearts. In the alleys of Al-Zaytoun and Nuseirat, the sounds of explosions have been replaced by the soft determination of women who rise each day to care for their children, despite the limbs the genocidal war has taken from them.

Haneen, once a mother of three who baked bread in her kitchen in Al-Shuja’iyya, now moves on a wooden crutch carved by a neighbour. Her right leg was torn away by a missile, yet her defiance remains untouched. “My leg is gone, but I’m still a mother,” she says, her voice steady but tender. Her nine-year-old daughter, Maryam, places the crutch beside her mother’s bed each night, a child’s quiet gesture of protection in a world that offers none.

In a small tent in the Nuseirat camp, Hiba’s life also changed in an instant. She had been decorating her daughter’s wedding room when a strike buried her dreams beneath the rubble. “I don’t want a new leg,” she whispers. “I want a homeland where laughter returns.” Her daughter, Layan, now holds her hand through the pain, remembering a mother who once moved like a breeze and now fights for every step.

According to health officials, thousands of Palestinians have lost limbs since the war began, many of them women and children. Yet, behind every statistic is a heartbeat, a mother who still wakes before dawn to bake bread, comb her daughter’s hair, or mend what remains of her world. These women are Gaza’s quiet miracle: walking on the edge of despair, yet carrying life forward, step by step, on the strength of their hearts.