It’s been two years since Israel launched its war in Gaza and life in the enclave has never been harder.

With at least 67,173 people killed and another 169,780 injured, one in nine people alive in Gaza before the war has been wounded or is dead, the Ministry of Health in the enclave reported on Tuesday.

A “man-made” famine is spreading across the territory and the vast majority of people have lost their homes and livelihoods. Many have lost hope too, despite the indirect ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas currently underway in Egypt.

Israel launched the war after the October 7, 2023 terror attacks in which Hamas and its allies killed more than 1,200 people and took 251 hostages to Gaza.

Israel’s conduct in the war has been such that international experts, including the International Association of Genocide Scholars, two leading Israeli human rights organizations and an independent United Nations inquiry, have concluded that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza – an accusation the Israeli government has consistently denied.

For people in Gaza, life has long become about survival. About trying, and almost always failing, to secure the basic necessities for their loved ones.

Here are the stories of a few of them, shared with CNN through messages and phone calls.

‘The hardest days we’ve ever lived’

This photo of Mahmoud Nabil Faraj was taken during his brother Mohammad’s wedding some 18 months before the war.