Displaced in Gaza: Dispatches
We share their dreams and aspirations, to tell them that there will be a day when the Palestinian people will live in freedom and dignity.
Yousef Aljamal
To be displaced is one the hardest experiences a human can endure. To be displaced during a genocide, ongoing for almost a year in Gaza, without access to food, shelter and clean water is another level of difficulty. To be displaced under such conditions with death haunting you, your loved ones, your memories, and what remains of your city is horrifying.
This is the reality for 1.9 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza today.
The following are some examples of the experiences Palestinians have gone through since October 2023. These are the stories of Palestinians who are witnessing a genocide first hand. Nothing is more powerful than storytelling and documenting the lives of these Palestinians who are going through immense hardships as the world is falling short of stopping the Israeli genocide against them.
We tell their stories to show them that they are not forgotten. We tell their stories to show them that their agony is felt across oceans and spaces. We share their dreams and aspirations, to tell them that there will be a day when the Palestinian people will live in freedom and dignity.
There is nothing more important than sending a message of hope to these Palestinians today who are subjected to a brutal military machine that not only tries to erase their homes and physical presence on their land, but also their memories.
We tell these stories to keep their memories alive.
Displaced in Gaza is a project of the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee in collaboration with the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. The aim of this project is tell the stories of Palestinians on the ground who have been largely absent from the mainstream narrative. It is a project of solidarity and remembrance that we hope will translate into actions which we also hope will bring an end to the genocide and restore dignity and freedom to the people of Gaza.
Lastly, as you read these stories, remember that these are only a few stories of 2.3 million people, each one has a story to tell.
My name is Rehab Musa Aljamal, I am 54 years old from the village of Aqir, which was occupied in 1948. I live with my brothers, their children, and grandchildren in Al Nuseirat camp in the middle of the Gaza Strip. I was born and spent my childhood, youth, and the rest of my life in this camp.
Our house is located on the main street of the camp, known to all its residents. It is one of the oldest concrete houses in Gaza, built by my late father over 40 years ago. The house is spacious, exceeding 400 square meters on each floor, and it accommodates six families. Below the house, there are six commercial shops that we rented out. I lived with my brothers and their families until the war began, during which I lost ten members of my family. Today, I am displaced, having lost my house and my eldest brother in an Israeli airstrike on our home.
Since the early days of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, which began on October 7, 2023, many of our relatives have sought refuge in our house. My niece Hissab and her four children, my sister Marwa and her three children, my niece Suad and her three children, and my nephew Bayan with his child sought refuge in our house. Before the airstrike, I was in the house along with my eldest brother Azmi’s family (four members), my brother Hussam’s family (four members), my brother Shahab’s family (two members), my brother Emad’s family (six members), and my nephew Musa’s family (five members). There were 37 people in our house, mostly children and women, seeking safety amidst Nuseirat camp’s market and nearby UNRWA schools.
On Sunday, October 15, 2023, while arranging my apartment, my sister called to inform me of intensified bombing in Khan Younis city and their evacuation to our house. I prepared for their arrival, but suddenly, amidst loud explosions and intense bombing, I was thrown to the ground, covered in blood, sand, and black smoke. Confused and in severe pain, I discovered my severed finger on the ground. In the chaos, my relatives and neighbors found me and rushed me to the hospital for treatment.
During the bombing, my nephew Musa’s wife, Ayat Hassan Shaqfa, 35 years old, sustained injuries resulting in the amputation of her left foot, major fractures in her hand requiring surgery and a plate insertion, and severe burns across her body. Her son Azmi, ten years old, suffered burns and fractures, also needing a foot device unavailable in Gaza. Ayat endured hospitalization for a month and a half, only to later learn about the deaths of her uncle Azmi, his wife Hanan, her daughter Nada, and her son Mustafa, with her son Azmi seriously injured in the same hospital.
My name is Nidaa Zaki Abu Toha, I am 33 years old. Our dream is to get food and water daily, to return to our house in Al Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, and to be able to rebuild our house. I dream of educating my children and creating a beautiful future for them.
There is no water in the shelters. All the water wells in the UNRWA schools and Palestinian government schools, which have become shelters for tens of thousands of displaced people, are not functioning. There is barely any fuel. The Rafah and Karim Abu Salem crossings, which were used to transport fuel to operate our water wells, are closed. The only operating well is in Khan Younis city, where I, displaced, now live. I go to the well every day to fill a 20-liter gallon of water. This is a daily challenge. I can handle hunger, but I need water to survive, maintain hygiene, and cook.
Under normal circumstances, my family’s daily water requirement is about 20 liters per person. Today, I share 20 liters of water among 23 family members. We make great efforts to conserve water, as we do not have our own bathroom. We live in a tent for the displaced, and we use a public bathroom, which lacks cleanliness and water, but we are forced to live this way. We face a continual threat of disease, with no way to combat it due to the water shortage.
I have two children, Saif al-Din al-Masri, 12 years old, and Adam al-Masri, three-and-a-half years old. I divorced my husband three years ago, and I live in a small room with my children in my family’s house in Al Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City. Before the war, I searched extensively for a job to support my children, but I couldn’t find one. There are no job opportunities in the Gaza Strip. Most of the population suffers from extreme poverty.
My family’s displacement journey began on Tuesday, November 7, 2023, after the Israeli bombardment intensified on Al Shati refugee camp. On the fifth day of the Israeli occupation’s ground operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli incursion focused on Gaza City and the Northern Strip, bombing dozens of buildings adjacent to my family’s house, forcing us to leave our refugee camp under heavy bombardment.
I ran with my son Saif al-Din, gripping my youngest, Adam. I tried to protect them from the scattered Israeli shelling. There was shrapnel everywhere. The occupation forces asked us to head to the Southern areas of the Gaza Valley, and my father decided that we would evacuate to Khan Younis city. We walked long distances on foot as the occupation stopped the entry of fuel and petroleum on October 7, 2023, preventing us from being able to use a car. The walk is 40 km [24 miles] from our home in Al Shati refugee camp.
My name is Tareq Fareed Al Hajj. I am 30 years old.
It happened on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, the birthday of my little daughter Suwar, who turned three years old. I had promised her that her birthday would be special, but on her third birthday, the occupation killed her.
That day, my mother had asked me to let Suwar sleep at my brother Abdullah’s house because the occupation had bombed my neighbor’s house, destroying it. My mother had been staying with my brother since the first month of the war. My wife refused to let our children sleep there, saying she was afraid for our daughters and couldn’t sleep without them, promising to visit my mother in the morning with Suwar and Amar.
In the early days of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, the occupation bombed a house near us, resulting in the death of five-year-old Suleiman Yasser Al Hajj, Amar’s friend from kindergarten. She used to play with him all the time and constantly talked to her mother about him. She was deeply saddened by his martyrdom and entered a difficult psychological state for several days. The martyrdom of Suleiman wasn’t the only reason for Amar’s distress. The sounds of intense and continuous Israeli bombing caused fear, sleeplessness, and constant crying among my daughters. Fear gripped all of us, adults and children alike, in the Gaza Strip.
Before their deaths, my wife and I tried to calm our daughters, telling them that Suleiman was in paradise and had gone to a better place. But Amar remained sad; she wanted to play with Suleiman and go to kindergarten with him, but Suleiman was gone forever, separated from us Juhar Al-Dik by Israeli rockets.
To read the whole collection of dispatches, click here.
Yousef Aljamal is Gaza Coordinator at the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Aljamal holds a doctorate in Middle Eastern Studies, is a Palestinian refugee from Gaza and is a senior non-resident scholar at the Hashim Sani Center for Palestine Studies, University of Malaya, Malaysia. He has contributed to a number of books on Palestine, including Gaza Writes Back and Light in Gaza.
