Over nine months of war between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian families in Gaza have been uprooted repeatedly, driven back and forth across the territory to escape the fighting.
Hassan Nofal, 53, who was displaced by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, holds the keys to his home that he was forced to leave with his family at a makeshift tent camp in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 4, 2024. Each time has meant a wrenching move to a new location and a series of crowded, temporary shelters.
Israel has said Palestinians will eventually be allowed to go back to their homes in Gaza, but it is not clear when. Many homes have been destroyed or heavily damaged.triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has driven some 1.9 million of the territory’s pre-war population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. Most of them have been uprooted repeatedly since then, fleeing over and over across the length of the strip to escape a series of ground offensives.
Despite its name, Israel has carried out deadly airstrikes in the “safe zone.” Conditions are squalid in sprawling camps of ramshackle tents set up by the displaced — mostly plastic sheeting and blankets propped up on sticks. With no sanitation systems, families liveNofal, a 53-year-old employee of the Palestinian Authority, said he, his wife and six children fled their home in the northern refugee camp of Jabaliya in October.
Ola Nassar also holds onto the keys to her home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. For her, they symbolize “safety, stability, freedom. It’s like my identity.” “Every displacement we experienced was hard because it takes time to cope. And by the time we cope we’d have to move again,” she said. Finding food was often difficult because of skyrocketing prices. “There were days we’d eat only one meal,” she said.
Omar Fayad kept a picture of his daughter and one of himself when he was 10 years old. But after multiple moves — “each place worse than the other" — he wishes he'd never left his home. “It would’ve been better for me if I stayed in my house there and died,” the 57-year-old said, longing for his home in Beit Hanoun in north Gaza.
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