After two months of war in Gaza, most of its people are homeless, crammed by a pounding Israeli bombardment into yet smaller areas of an already tiny enclave where the elderly and newborns live alike in tents amid the rubble.
Three women pushed from their homes in the Gaza Strip over 61 days of fighting have now ended up desperate for shelter and safety after fleeing from one place to another under air strikes and shellfire.
Zainab Khalil, 57, is seeking to move for a fourth time as Israeli tanks roll into the southern city of Khan Younis. Israa Al Jamala, 28, lives in a tent tending her infant daughter who was born the night a short-lived truce began. And Mai Salim walks by the Egyptian border fearing she and her family will be forced across it into a life of permanent exile.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people were taken unawares by the sudden disaster that began to unfold for them on October 7 as Israeli jets began strikes to retaliate for a surprise Hamas attack across the border.
Four-fifths of Gaza residents have now been displaced, many of them several times over. Their homes, businesses, mosques and schools have been damaged, destroyed or abandoned as too dangerous in the face of the Israeli assault. Health authorities in Gaza say 17,177 people have been killed there.
With no real sign of any imminent respite, Palestinians are living with little food or clean water, often on the street, trying to calm screaming children at night as bombs and shells fall.
“A new mother should be in her home raising the child with her mother, with her family,” said Jamala, cradling her tiny daughter, also called Israa, amid the tents that have sprung up around a hospital in Deir Al Balah in central Gaza.
After the Jamala home was shelled, the family moved into the makeshift camp outside Shuhada Al Aqsa hospital, she said. Little Israa was born there on November 24, the night a week-long truce began, raising hope that the conflict might relent.
But after a week, fighting resumed and the family remains in the tent, a carpet covering the sand and Israa sleeping in a small cot. Like others in Gaza they struggle to find food and other necessities. “See how much we’re in need. There’s no milk. No powdered milk,” Jamala said.
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