Hassan Nofal keeps the keys to two houses on his keychain. One is to his grandparents’ house in what is now southern Israel, from where his family was expelled by Israeli forces in 1948 and to which they have never been able to return.
The other is from Nofal’s house in northern Gaza, which he had to flee last year after Israel launched its campaign of bombings and offensives in the territory.
In the nearly nine months since then, Nofal and his family have had to move four times, forced to travel back and forth across the Gaza Strip to escape attacks. Nofal said he is determined to make sure his key does not become a souvenir like his grandparents’.
“If the key to my house becomes just a memory as I move on, then I don’t want to live anymore,” said“I must return home… I want to stay in Gaza and settle in Gaza with my children in our house.”
Israel has said Palestinians will eventually be allowed to return to their homes in Gaza, but it is unclear when. Many homes have been destroyed or severely damaged.
Israel’s response in Gaza, triggered by Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, has driven some 1.9 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the territory before the war from their homes. Most of them have had to move repeatedly since then to escape a series of ground offensives across the strip.
Each time it has meant a painful move to a new location and a series of cramped temporary shelters — whether in the homes of extended family, United Nations schools or tent camps. Along the way, families have struggled to stay together and hold on to some possessions. At each new site, they must find sources of food, water and medical treatment.
In the latest exodus, people have fled eastern districts of the southern city of Khan Younis and parts of Gaza City in the north after Israel ordered evacuations there. Nearly all of Gaza’s population is now crammed into an Israeli-declared “safe humanitarian zone” covering some 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) on the Mediterranean coast, centered on an arid rural area called Muwasi.
Despite its name, Israel has carried out deadly airstrikes in the “safe zone”Conditions are squalid in the sprawling camps of ramshackle tents set up by the displaced, mostly plastic sheeting and blankets propped up on sticks. Without sanitation systems, families live next to open pools of sewage and have little access to clean water or humanitarian aid.
Nofal, a 53-year-old Palestinian Authority employee, said he, his wife and six children fled their home in the northern Jabaliya refugee camp in October. They first went to the central city of Deir al-Balah, then to Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city. They had to flee again when Israel launched an offensive there in May and moved to Khan Yunis. Last week they fled Khan Yunis to a tent in Muwasi.
“When you move to a new place, it is difficult to deal with insects and live in sandy soil.”he added. “We get sick because it is hot during the day and a little cold at night.”
But the first move, when they left their home in Jabaliya, was the hardest, she said. She picked up her keychain with the keys to her house and her grandparents’ house in what was once the Palestinian village of Hulayqat on the outskirts of what is now Gaza. Nothing remains of Hulayqat, since the precursor to the Israeli army took the village and nearby villages in early 1948, expelling their inhabitants.
Are those old keys prized possessions for the descendants of Palestinians who were expelled? Or fled during the conflict surrounding Israel’s creation. Many in Gaza fear that, like in that war, they will not be allowed to return to their homes after this one.
Ola Nassar also clings to the keys to her house in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya. For her, they symbolize “security, stability, freedom. They are like my identity.”
Her family had just moved into that house with a newly renovated kitchen when the Gaza war began. But it was badly burned, along with the clothes and decorations she had to leave behind when they fled in October. She misses a prized set of dishes that was a gift from her brother and was shattered during an airstrike.
She, her husband and their three children have been displaced seven times during the war, fleeing from town to town. From Rafah they arrived at their current shelter: a tent in Muwasi.
“Every displacement we experienced was difficult because it takes time to cope. And by the time we do, we have to move again,” he said. Finding food was often difficult as prices skyrocketed. “There were days when we only ate once,” he added.
As they rushed out of their homes, many left behind almost everything, taking only the essentials. Nour Mahdi said she took only her house keys, the deed to her apartment to prove ownership and a photo album of her seven children. The album was later ruined by the rain, so she said she used it as a cooking mat.
“This was very difficult because it was very important to me, as it contained memories of my children.”he added.
Omar Fayad kept a photograph of his daughter and one of himself when he was 10 years old. But after several moves, —“each place worse than the other”—, he wishes he had never left home. “It would have been better for me if I had stayed at home there and died.”said the 57-year-old, who is homesick in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza.
Hamas militants who attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7 killed about 1,200 people and took 250 others hostage. Israel’s response has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Muhammed al-Ashqar, also from Beit Lahiya, said he has been displaced six times with his four daughters, four sons and grandchildren.
Along the way, the family was separated. Al-Ashqar’s brother stayed in the north because his wife was pregnant and not healthy enough to move. Shortly afterwards, shrapnel from an airstrike hit her in the head and she died, but the baby was saved.
One of al-Ashqar’s sons went to the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to stay at his wife’s family home. The son was cooking one day when an airstrike hit the house, killing his wife and four of his children in the living room. One son had his leg amputated, and two of his surviving children now live with him. Another son was killed in a separate attack in Nuseirat.
After all that, it’s not possessions that the 63-year-old misses. “There is nothing to cry about after leaving everything behind, and seeing all these dead people and all this suffering.”
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Source: Gestion
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