Gaza – “I am fine and I am not fine.” With these words, Hana Aliwa described her situation and her family’s experience of displacement from her home in Gaza City to “nowhere” in the city of Rafah. This is the case for thousands of residents in the north Gaza stripwho were forced to flee, only to be pursued by death and destruction to the “southern half” of the Strip, as the Israeli occupation army claimed that it was safer than its northern half.
There is no safe place on the land of Gaza or under its sky, says Aliwa and the displaced people from Gaza City and its north to the cities south of the Gaza Valley, after the occupation army warned them on the seventh day of its war on the Strip. Families were separated, until the homes of relatives and friends “overflowed” and shelter centers in the cities. The South is displaced from the North.
Aliwa was displaced with her husband and three children on October 13, from the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood southwest of Gaza City, which is one of the neighborhoods most subjected to intense air strikes, “adrift” and to an “unknown destination” in the south of Wadi Gaza, where He settled there in the city of Rafah, the farthest city in the small coastal strip on the border with Egypt.
There is no specific place for the displaced people to settle in the southern regions of the Gaza Strip, after they were displaced from their homes out of fear, and were dispersed in the streets and public squares, before the majority settled in shelter centers.
The southern regions of the Gaza Strip are known to be the poorest, as there is no infrastructure, facilities or hotels that can accommodate the influx of hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the northern regions.
Official estimates by the Government Information Office indicate that 1,400,000 people, or 70% of the Gaza Strip’s population, which is estimated at 2.3 million people, have been displaced from their homes and residential areas, whether to the southern regions, or to other areas within the same city.
The security lie in the south
In their new areas of displacement, the people of Gaza lacked the “desired safety,” and according to the head of the “Governmental Media Office,” Salama Marouf, thousands of martyrs and wounded were killed in “horrific massacres committed by the Nazi Israeli occupation forces” in the areas they claimed were safe, and the occupation targeted the displaced in a systematic manner. Live on the streets, in the homes of their relatives and friends, and in shelter centers.
The government official told Al Jazeera Net that “the remains of women and children in Gaza” exposed the Israeli lie that the areas south of the Gaza Strip are safe from brutal aggression and intense and treacherous air strikes.
Bahaa Al-Kahlot fled with his family to the house of one of his friends in the city of Rafah, without knowing that he was taking his infant to his destination, as he was martyred in an Israeli air strike that targeted a nearby house.
Muhammad Al-Shaqaqi tells Al Jazeera Net that his friend Bahaa took refuge with his family from the northern Gaza Strip, seeking security, after the Israeli threats to the residents of those areas, and he did not think that he would dig a “grave” for his infant child in Rafah.
Al-Kahlot could not bear to stay in Rafah after losing his child, “Hamoud,” and he headed with his family to the Nuseirat refugee camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip, which is within the areas of the southern Gaza Strip, and was the scene of several massacres, the bloodiest of which was targeting shoppers and passers-by in the “Nuseirat Central Market.”
Al-Kahlot and his family spent a few days in the city of Rafah, and he left with the loss of his child and his car, which was completely destroyed in the same air strike, which struck many nearby homes and led to the death of 6 Palestinians, including two in the targeted house, two in a neighboring house, and a passer-by. According to Al-Shaqaqi, he and his family miraculously survived the raid.
The hardships of the day and the terrors of the night
Hana Aliwa says, “Literally not a single meter in Gaza is safe, and even our conditions change in the blink of an eye… Now I am fine, and I do not know if I will remain so, and my life may change at any moment.”
She keeps her eyes on her three children, Lima (15 years old), Fouad (12 years old), and Lilia (8 years old), throughout the day, and she does her best to give them – what she personally lacks – a sense of security and hope, and she says, “We spend the day doing arduous tasks to manage our basic needs.” Of food and water, and when night comes it brings with it a lot of fear and terror, as the bombing and night raids intensify, which makes hope for a new day the highest thing we wish for our children.”
Aliwa, her family, and 5 other families, including her siblings and her husband’s family (35 individuals), reside in a small apartment in the Shaboura refugee camp, which is one of the most famous and most densely populated camps in the city of Rafah. She tells Al Jazeera Net that this is her first experience of displacement, and the experience of living in a refugee camp, She brought back her ancestors’ stories about the 1948 Nakba.
“We used to hear about the tragedies of migration and displacement to which the Nakba generation was exposed, and now we emulate part of it ourselves,” says Aliwa, who with her husband is responsible daily for providing the needs of the six families. “We deal with the new reality with immediate management and an emergency plan, according to what is available, and we largely avoid cooking.” And hot drinks that require cooking gas.”
All types of fuel, including domestic gas (cooking gas), have run out in the Gaza Strip, as Israel imposes an effective blockade and strict restrictions, and has prevented the entry of any amount of fuel since October 7, amid warnings from local and international institutions that the Gaza Strip is heading toward a “certain catastrophe.” “.
Houses of graves
The feeling of fear and isolation is increasing inside homes, with a complete power outage, and the decline in communications and internet services as a result of the destruction caused by air strikes to vital installations, facilities, and transmission stations. Here Aliwa resorted to a trick to reassure her relatives and loved ones, and because she was unable to respond to their inquiries about her conditions, she wrote an article and sent it. Through short text messages to her brother in Belgium, she gave him the ability to access her personal account on the Facebook platform and publish it.
Small, routine daily details have become “complex and almost impossible tasks,” such as charging mobile phones, finding a place with Internet service, or providing drinking water as well as water needed for hygiene and home use.
Amid this amount of pain and suffering, Aliwa and her family members are considered lucky to have a house next to them that has electricity through solar cells, which they use to charge their mobile phones, and a small battery used to light the house during the dreary hours of the night, according to her description.
Aliwa owns a media production company in Gaza, which she was forced to close due to the displacement, the intensity of the air strikes, and her fear for the lives of her crew members. Although the war has turned her life upside down, she currently only hopes to “get her family safe from this crazy war,” and longs for what she described. “Waking up from the nightmare of displacement and returning to my home in Gaza.”
