On a windswept beach in southern Gaza, Ahmed Muin Abu Amsha stands on higher ground to catch a signal, his phone pointed toward the Mediterranean Sea below. Behind him, a parachute marks his makeshift home- one tent among thousands that line the shore of Zawaida, where displaced families huddle together with nowhere else to go.
“This is my camp,” Ahmed says, panning his camera across the beach. “That parachute over there is my tent. We do activities there.”
The music teacher from Beit Hanoun has become an unlikely symbol of resilience in Gaza, his viral video of children singing along to drone sounds capturing both the horror and the defiant spirit of life under siege. But behind the million views lies a stark reality: hunger, disease, displacement, and a future that grows more uncertain with each passing day.
Fleeing at 3 AM, Losing Everything
Ahmed’s journey to this beach began with a phone call at 3 o’clock in the morning. “We received a call that said ‘leave immediately,'” he recalls. “We ran away without shoes, without taking anything. After five minutes, they blew up the block. There were people who died. I lost my home. I lost my studio. I lost everything.”
The displacement from Beit Hanoun to Zawaida took ten days of deliberation and $500 for transport alone- a fortune in a place where money has lost much of its meaning. “Each van costs $1,200,” Ahmed explains. “I evacuated early, so I spent only $500 with my family. Each one of the families spent $300 to $500.”
Now, he lives on the beach with the families of his students, forming a small community held together by music and mutual survival. “It’s hard to live on the beach,” he admits. “There’s a lot of wind, a lot of cold. But we don’t have choices.”
A Day in the Life: Water, Food, and Music
Ahmed’s days follow a gruelling routine. “When we wake up, we’re trying to get clean water to drink. We search and walk a long distance to get a gallon of drinkable water. Each process takes maybe two to three hours. After that, we’re trying to find food.”
The situation is desperate. “We don’t have drinkable water. It’s not easy to get drinkable water here,” he says. Food, when available, is prohibitively expensive. “One kilo of flour costs you, right now, $10.”
The aid that does enter Gaza is insufficient for the thousands of displaced people. “From Deir al-Balah to Zawaida, there are thousands of camps,” Ahmed explains. “The aid that enters Gaza is not enough, so people are trying to buy food to feed their families.”
Even money from his GoFundMe campaign comes at a cost. “When you get the money in your wallet and you’re going to get it in cash, you have to pay 30% to 50% of the money. For $1,000, you take $500 to get it in cash,” he says. “If you have a million dollars, it’s like you have $200.”
Children Singing with Drones
Despite the hardship, Ahmed continues his work with children, creating moments of joy amid the chaos. It was during one such session that he created the video that would be viewed a million times.
“The drone was very loud,” Ahmed remembers. “The kids told me, ‘Mister, please stop. We can’t hear you. The drone sound is very loud. It’s annoying.’ It was terrible, really. It was very, very, very loud.”
Instead of stopping, Ahmed made a creative decision. “I told them, ‘No, we will not stop. We’re going to sing with it.’ They told me, ‘How are we going to sing with it?’ I told them, ‘Okay, let’s make it like background music, holding one note.’ And we’re going to sing with it.”
The children loved the idea. “I grabbed my phone and recorded this song. I never imagined that video… I woke up in the morning, and it had one million views. All the people liked this video really, because we are trying to escape from what we’re hearing, what we’re suffering, to turn something bad into something good and beautiful.”
For Ahmed, music has become more than entertainment- it’s survival. “Music is the food of the soul,” he says. At the beginning of the class, you can see the hunger and sadness inside their eyes. But after five minutes, they sing and play and laugh, and you can see it disappear.”
Medical Crisis and Missing Medicine
The humanitarian situation extends beyond food and water. “There are no hospitals,” Ahmed says. “I was ill- my knee is hurting me, and I have an infection. I searched a lot for medicine and didn’t find any.”
When medicine is available, the prices are astronomical. “A piece of medicine costs 10 shekels, which means $5. Each medicine costs $10 to $12 to $30. Before, it was one shekel, like a quarter of a dollar.”
Children are particularly vulnerable. “There are a lot of kids who are ill. They have to go to Deir al-Balah to have medical support. This area is not prepared for displaced people yet.”
Winter Is Coming
As temperatures drop, Ahmed faces a new crisis. “In the winter, you can’t stay here,” he says bluntly. “The waves are going to be big and the water will cover us in the winter.”
He is desperately trying to find an alternative shelter. “I’m now trying to find a place up there in Zawaida to bring all the families and the kids far away from the sea. In the winter, we can’t stay there. It’s not easy to live on the beach. There will be a lot of wind, a lot of rain. Maybe the sea will come over us.”
On Ceasefire Hopes and Political Solutions
When asked about peace talks in Egypt, Ahmed is cautiously sceptical. “We never lose hope. I never lose hope. I know everything has a beginning and an end. But there have been a lot of promises since two years that the war was going to end, that they’re going to ceasefire, and they broke it.”
Trust has been eroded. “A lot of people don’t believe in this news anymore because they think it’s propaganda. Nothing’s going to change until they go back home, until they can see there’s no bombing.”
On the question of whether Hamas should leave Gaza, Ahmed is direct. “It’s better to leave because if they’re going to stay here, I think the war will continue. We’re suffering a lot from Israel, from Hamas, from everyone.”
Regarding U.S. President Trump’s potential intervention, Ahmed is measured. “I don’t believe what Trump says. He says a lot of things, and nothing happens. Since the war, he said, ‘I want to stop all the wars in these worlds,’ and nothing happens. But I hope that Trump will stop this war.”
“Not All Gazans Are Terrorists”
Ahmed bristles at the Israeli defence minister’s characterisation of Gazans choosing to stay as terrorists. “Listen to me. I’m a musician and I have a lot of friends. I know a lot of people. All of them are innocent people. They’re trying to live. If some people are terrorists, not all of Gaza is terrorists.”
He emphasises the humanity of Gaza’s residents. “We don’t like killing and shooting- we are innocent people. We go to work, we eat, and we have children who go to school. This is propaganda. Is it real that two million people are terrorists?”
The Unbearable Weight of Loss
The personal toll of the war is evident in Ahmed’s voice. “I lost many friends. This is the biggest loss. A lot of neighbours, a lot of nephews. This is a genocide, really.”
The destruction, he says, is total. “They destroyed all the buildings, whether there was something there or not, whether with strikes or with bulldozers. They destroyed everything. Nothing remains. It’s only like land where nothing was there. So do you think this is a war? It’s not a war. It’s like a genocide- to clear any evidence that there were people there.”
A Life of Endless Wars
Perhaps the most poignant moment comes when Ahmed reflects on his life. “Since I was a kid, I grew up in wars. That’s enough. A lot of killing, a lot of bombing. Since when I was born until now- I’m thinking about, I want to be honest with you, I’m thinking about leaving Gaza.”
The weight of cyclical violence bears down on him. “I have a family right now. I have to take care of my family. I have five kids. Every three years, every five years, there will be a war destroying what you build, and we rebuild once again. It’s not a lie. Really, it’s terrible.”
A Fragile Hope
Despite everything, Ahmed maintains a thread of hope. “We are innocent people. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’re trying our best to spread peace and love and joy, even in these circumstances. There is a lot of darkness, but there is a spot of light that tells me that there will be a state of Palestine.”
He credits international support, particularly from France. “I have a lot of friends from all the countries in the world- they’re standing by us. Thanks to the government of France- they’re always standing by us and they are always talking about trying to spread peace in the Middle East.”
For now, Ahmed continues his work with children on a beach in Zawaida, turning the sound of surveillance drones into songs, transforming trauma into fleeting moments of joy. It’s an act of defiance, survival, and stubborn hope in the face of overwhelming loss.
“I feel extreme happiness inside my heart, really,” he says, “because I can do something good for my community.”
But as winter approaches and the waves grow higher, even Ahmed’s optimism has limits. The beach that serves as his classroom and home may soon become uninhabitable. And somewhere above, the drones continue their constant hum.
– Ends