Opinion: My Gaza garden grows under Israeli bombs. Will we survive?

Editor’s note: At the time of the publication of this column, the Jabaliya refugee camp was under Israeli bombardment, NBC News reported. It’s the 10th time people in this camp have been displaced since this war began.
Twice a day, in the early morning and late afternoon, my four children and I go up to the roof of our dilapidated home in northern Gaza to work on our small urban garden. I ask them to feel the soil between their fingers as they push in the precious seeds I sourced, to water the sprouting vegetables tenderly, and to be thankful and proud as they harvest their purslane, squash and arugula. 
A few months ago, growing my own vegetables seemed unthinkable. In fact, it’s a miracle I’m still alive and my house is standing at all. Located just west of the Jabaliya refugee camp, it was seriously damaged in an Israeli airstrike on the adjacent house. But I was determined not to leave. Instead, I spent six weeks clearing out the rubble, boarding up the windows and doors, and covering gaping holes left by Israeli artillery fire with nylon tarps. After being displaced nine times (narrowly escaping death), my family and I returned home in June. 
The rooftop garden was born of necessity and an inherent urge to solve problems. Back in February, my youngest daughter, 4-year-old Lilia, woke up crying in the middle of the night with hunger pangs. Israel had been blocking food and other humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, especially to the north, and large-scale starvation was looming.
All she had eaten that day was a bare soup made from wild mallow. 
I fed her stale pieces of bread my wife had baked from animal feed and our daughter quickly fell asleep. I, on the other hand, laid awake in bed for hours, agonizing over my children going to sleep hungry.
I decided that, no matter how much effort it took, I would find seeds, soil, even chickens if I could, and start a garden so my kids would not have to eat animal feed to stave off hunger.
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My older kids love to photograph the beauty of the garden and delight in finding a vegetable hidden between the leaves, while Lilia enjoys the fruits of their labor. Though our building is elevated and offers expansive views of Gaza, we are determined not to notice the absolute devastation visible in every direction, just as we try our best to block out the incessant and invasive buzzing of Israeli drones and fighter jets, ducking back inside quickly when the planes circle directly overhead. 
This is not the first time that I’ve had to find a way out of horrifying circumstances. I have endured decades of Israeli military occupation, an 18-year-long siege and multiple violent Israeli assaults. As an industrial engineer and inventor, I live by the idiom, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  
In fact, under the blockade, Israel banned the entry of 3D printers, so I figured out how to build them myself using scrap material and recycled filament. With my self-made printers, I made tourniquets to help save Palestinian youth who were shot by Israeli soldiers during the “Great March of Return” protests and printed protective masks shielding against burns during Israel’s bombardment of Gaza in the spring of 2021.
My workshop was destroyed in an Israeli bombing later that same year. In seconds, my childhood dreams, everything I had worked for over 15 long years, were destroyed. 
But I would not let despair overwhelm me.  
Israel may have destroyed all of my inventions, all the equipment and machinery I had made by hand, but they could not destroy my resolve; I was determined to rebuild.
For the next several months, I poured every ounce of my energy into remaking everything that had taken me years to build. I even received a substantial sum of money for some work I did to help me pay off my debt and expand my workshop. The future was looking bright and I was feeling optimistic.
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But optimism is usually short-lived in Gaza.
The attacks on the Gaza Strip that began a year ago have been relentless. Not only did Israel obliterate my workshop once again but they destroyed much of Gaza’s industrial infrastructure in a systematic effort to dismantle the productive sector, wiping out many, if not all, of the factories.
Rebuilding after the 2021 assault was excruciating. Rebuilding now is an exercise in the impossible. 
The international community, especially the Biden administration, has yet to put any meaningful pressure on Israel to stop the attacks that are killing and maiming tens of thousands of civilians.
I am about to celebrate a second birthday amid what’s being investigated as a genocide. I’ve lost more than 60 pounds as a result of chronic malnutrition and developed painful gout in my feet. I barely sleep. And yet, each morning I tell myself to live life to the fullest, to treat the day like it’s the last day of the assault. I push myself to accomplish something that will make the next day just a little bit better. 
Planting and harvesting vegetables with my children is not only about nutrition or mental health in the midst of trauma. Innovation, whether in the form of building a 3D printer out of scrap metal or creating a place of beauty in the center of devastation, is vital so that my children and my people will not only survive, but will also have a chance to thrive and to live meaningful lives with the freedom that we so desperately need and deserve.
Mohammad Abu Matar is an industrial engineer, inventor and father of four in northern Gaza.