Hamza M.Salha

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA STRIP—The genocide in Gaza is fast approaching 20 months since it began. My family and I have been displaced from our home in the Jabaliya refugee camp several times, but this is the first time we were forced to leave the north and flee south to Deir al-Balah, from where I am writing to you.

Living in Jabaliya had become impossible. By stripping us of our health and money, ongoing displacement has forced changes on us: from being a proud family to one that lives in humiliation. We were pushed south last month, during Israel’s fourth invasion of Jabaliya in mid-May. In preparation for yet another ground invasion, the Israeli military started pounding Jabaliya with airstrikes, leveling buildings to the ground. Israeli troops began advancing from the north and the east, getting closer every day.

I started looking for a home to rent in western Gaza City, where it was somewhat safer and where we could find some kind of shelter. On May 20, while returning from that search, my father called me in a panic to say a quadcopter was firing heavily at our home in the western Jabaliya camp. Our time was up. We had to flee. So we decided to spend the night at my brother’s burned down house in central Jabaliya.

We figured we would stay the night and leave the next morning, but that night we were plunged into the depths of hell.

Just two hours after arriving at my brother’s place, we heard someone outside shouting, “People of the neighborhood! The army is threatening to bomb the area! Evacuate immediately!” My legs began to tremble. Barely ten seconds later, the house next to our was bombed. It felt like the Day of Judgment had come, and my brother’s house would be next. I scrambled and grabbed some of my mother’s things, picked up my five- year-old niece, Deema, and ran down the stairs.

I found my mother—an elderly woman in her sixties—on the ground floor struggling to make her way through the rubble to escape. She could barely stand, and she couldn’t see in the pitch-black darkness. I held her hand, picked up the bags, and while still carrying Deema, we made our way outside. We walked, not knowing where we were going. We just walked blindly.

We couldn’t hear each other because of the shock. One person would say something and another would reply with something else. I was silent, unable to speak or think. We eventually made our way to my cousin’s house on Al-Jalaa Street in western Gaza City. I don’t know how we managed it. I don’t know how my mother was able to walk that far. I don’t know how Deema stayed asleep on my shoulder while I carried her and the bags.

The next morning, we managed to return home because the army tends to retreat slightly during the dayrun. We took advantage of that brief window to gather our things from our homes in west and central Jabaliya to leave for Deir al-Balah.