Tag: israel

‘No joy in our hearts’: Bethlehem’s Christians face heartbreak at Christmas | Israel-Palestine conflict

Bethlehem, occupied West Bank – At Christmas, Noha Helmi Tarazi normally decorates her home with a large tree, which she describes as a symbol of light and joy.

The 87-year-old prepares the house for her family, who gather here each year, and makes Christmas sweets and large, festive meals. She usually places presents under the Christmas tree for her grandchildren, taking care to wrap them and label them with their names.

This year, no one will gather in her home. Even the children do not feel like celebrating, she says.

“There is no joy left in our hearts,” she says.

In the birthplace of Jesus Christ, the celebrations for Christmas are on hold. The decision to cancel Christmas has not been taken lightly, but it is one the church and community here are all united on, to show their solidarity with the Palestinians facing Israeli bombardment and a total siege in the Gaza Strip.

Israeli bombing and artillery fire have killed more than 20,000 people in Gaza since the war began on October 7, including at least 8,000 children. More than 300 people have been killed in the occupied West Bank, too, either by Israeli soldiers or by settlers who often attack with cover from Israeli troops.

The war has brought Bethlehem’s tourism – a bedrock of its economy – to a standstill at the time of the year when it usually peaks. Where visitors from around the world would usually throng Bethlehem’s markets around Christmas, the streets are empty this year.

But even if tourists were around, there’s no festivity among the residents of Bethlehem, many of whom have close family members in Gaza.

“How can we celebrate Christmas in the midst of this genocidal war?” asks Tarazi, known to those close to her as Um Shadi. “How can we celebrate when people in Gaza struggle to get even one meal a day?”

Um Shadi at her home close to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. She has lost two siblings during the war in Gaza and a third has been severely injured during an air strike [Munjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]

The images and news of the suffering in Gaza under Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground invasion are too much for her. Um Shadi, whose family lives in Gaza City, says she has been particularly disturbed by videos of people fleeing towards the sea and being forced to boil seawater to make it drinkable.

She grew up in the Remal neighbourhood of Gaza City and lived there through her 20s during the 1960s. She has “beautiful memories of the sea”, where she used to swim at night. People lived in peace, she says.

Life became harder after she graduated with a degree in English literature from Cairo University in 1967. She was unable to return to Gaza because it was occupied by Israel that year, and instead, she spent the next 10 years in Libya, where her brothers also lived and where she met her husband.

She eventually returned to the occupied West Bank, where she made her home and built her Christmas rituals with her family – traditions she will skip this year.

‘This Christmas, may God have mercy on them’

All signs of Christmas have disappeared from the streets and homes of Bethlehem. Usually, people flock to Manger Square, which is adorned with decorations, to watch fireworks. None of that will happen this year.

Lots of people in Bethlehem and the surrounding area have relatives in Gaza. Um Shadi herself has lost a brother and a sister since the war began.

Her brother died on October 17 after being unable to receive a life-saving gallbladder operation because of the aerial bombardment of hospitals in the Strip.

Just a few days later, one of her sisters died in an air strike on St Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church, where the family had taken shelter. Another sister lost a leg during the same bombardment.

Um Shadi
Um Shadi looks at a picture of her sister who was killed during an air strike on a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza where she had taken shelter from the Israeli bombardment [Munjed Jadou/Al Jazeera]

It has always been difficult to see her family, even before the war, but now she can barely even speak to them because of the telecommunications blackouts in Gaza.

Um Shadi was unable to attend another sister’s funeral in the enclave before the war because she was not granted a permit to travel there. Instead, her niece had to take a video of the ceremony for her.

In happier years, some Christians from Gaza had been able to obtain permits from the Israeli authorities to travel from Gaza to Bethlehem at Christmas – something her sisters and her friend Rose often did, she says.

“My sisters used to visit me, and I say this year on Christmas, may God have mercy on them.”

The agony of not being able to communicate with her family in Gaza is unbearable, she adds. It has brought her to “the brink of despair”.

Christmas used to be the one joyful event that everyone could count on each year, Um Shadi says. Now, that has gone, too.

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Palestinians flee homes in central Gaza after Israeli evacuation order | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Central Gaza strip — Israel’s war on Gaza has once again forced thousands of Palestinians to flee as the Israeli army issued new evacuation orders in the central Gaza Strip.

Avichay Adraee, the Israeli army spokesman, conveyed the directive on Friday through his social media platforms, urging residents of Bureij camp and other central Gaza areas to promptly vacate their homes and relocate to the southern city of Deir el-Balah.

In his message, Adraee stated, “To the residents of Al-Bureij Camp and the neighborhoods of Badr, the Northern Coast, Al-Nuzha, Al-Zahra, Al-Buraq, Al-Rawda, and Al-Safa in the areas south of Wadi Gaza: For your safety, you must move immediately to the shelter in Deir Al-Balah.”

Reports from the region indicated that the Israeli army directly contacted residents in some areas, compelling them to evacuate swiftly, prompting thousands to head to the south.

At the entrances to Bureij, displaced individuals could be seen carrying their belongings, blankets, and essentials on carts pulled by donkeys. Some improvised by placing sleeping mats atop vehicles as they headed towards Deir el-Balah.

Many among the displaced people, already grappling with the consequences of previous evacuations during the 77 days of conflict, believe that these latest orders further intensify the humanitarian crisis, especially considering that many have experienced displacement multiple times, particularly from the northern regions.

Deir el-Balah, like other southern areas, faces continuing bombardment from Israeli artillery and warplanes. Additionally, it contends with severe overcrowding as hundreds of thousands have sought refuge there from eastern regions close to the border, along with residents of Gaza City and the north displaced since the early stages of the Israeli war.

United Nations agencies have persistently warned about the dire conditions for civilians in the impoverished and densely populated strip. The Israeli bombings have obliterated entire neighbourhoods, leading to the displacement of 1.9 million Gaza Palestinians, constituting 85 percent of the population, according to the United Nations.

Simultaneously, international relief organisation Oxfam reported on Friday that 90 percent of Gaza’s approximately 2.3 million people strong population, confronts acute hunger, with the risk of famine escalating daily unless a ceasefire is brokered.

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‘Did not ask for ceasefire’ in Gaza: Biden after phone call with Netanyahu | Israel-Palestine conflict News

White House says the two leaders discussed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, including its ‘objectives and phasing’.

United States President Joe Biden says he did not ask Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in a telephone call between the two leaders.

“I had a long talk with Netanyahu today [Saturday] and it was a private conversation,” Biden told reporters on Saturday.

“I did not ask for a ceasefire,” he said, in response to a shouted question.

In a statement later, the White House said Biden and Netanyahu discussed Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, including its “objectives and phasing”.

Biden “emphasised the critical need to protect the civilian population including those supporting the humanitarian aid operation, and the importance of allowing civilians to move safely away from areas of ongoing fighting,” said the statement.

“The leaders discussed the importance of securing the release of all remaining hostages.”

The call between the two leaders came a day after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution calling for the scaling up of aid for Gaza but fell short of calling for a ceasefire or a pause in weeks-long fighting.

The resolution, which demanded “immediate, safe and unhindered” deliveries of life-saving aid to Gaza “at scale”, was passed after UNSC members wrangled for days over its wording and toned down some provisions at Washington’s insistence.

The US and Russia abstained from the vote, whose impact on the ground, aid groups fear, will be close to nil.

“This resolution has been watered down to the point that its impact on the lives of civilians in Gaza will be nearly meaningless,” Avril Benoit, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, said in a statement.

“The way Israel is prosecuting this war, with US support, is causing massive death and suffering among Palestinian civilians and is inconsistent with international norms and laws,” Benoit added.

The US also opposed the demand to create a UN monitoring mechanism for aid, assuring Israel would continue to have a role in inspecting deliveries.

Netanyahu on Saturday “expressed his appreciation” for the stance taken by the US at the UN, his office said. He also “made it clear that Israel will continue the war until all its goals are completed”.

More than 200 killed in 24 hours

Israel has continued to bomb Gaza for nearly 80 days, with more than 200 people killed in the past 24 hours.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll since the start of the attacks rose to 20,258 on Saturday, most of them being women and children.

According to UN estimates, the war has displaced 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population.

The UN has described the situation in Gaza as “beyond catastrophic”, with residents struggling to find food, fuel and water, while living in crowded shelters or tents.

In a post on X, the UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said it “cannot deliver meaningful aid” while the Israeli bombardment of Gaza continues.

“It is extremely tragic that politics stand in the way of 2.2 million people’s survival in Gaza,” UNRWA spokesperson Tamara al-Rifai said at a news conference on Saturday.

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Will motion passed by UN Security Council on Gaza have any impact? | Israel-Palestine conflict

Resolution on aid has been watered down to avoid a US veto and omits call for an end to hostilities.

The United Nations Security Council has passed a motion on the war on Gaza.

It comes after two months of Israeli attacks that have killed more than 20,000 Palestinians.

The resolution – weakened by pressure from the United States – calls for more aid but not for Israel to stop its bombardment.

So, will it have any impact?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Scott Lucas – professor of US and international relations at University College Dublin and founder and editor of online news site EA Worldview

Dmitry Babich – political analyst at the InoSMI internet media project in Moscow

Maleeha Lodhi – former Pakistan permanent representative and ambassador to the UN

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Gaza media office says 100 journalists killed since Israeli attacks began | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy latest to be killed in Israeli attack on his home in the east of Gaza City.

At least 100 journalists have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, according to new figures released by the government media office in Gaza.

Palestinian journalist Muhammed Abu Hweidy was the latest to be killed in an Israeli air raid on his home in the east of Gaza City on Saturday, the media office said.

“The number of journalists killed has risen to 100, men and women, since the start of the brutal war on the Gaza Strip, after the martyrdom of journalist Mohammed Abu Hweidy in an Israeli airstrike in the Shujaiya neighborhood,” the office said on Telegram social media.

Palestinian officials in Gaza say the number could be much higher.

However, according to a tally by the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 69 journalists have been killed in the conflict, including Al Jazeera Arabic’s cameraman Samer Abudaqa.

More than 50 media premises or offices in Gaza have been completely or partially destroyed by Israeli attacks. Hundreds of Palestinian journalists and their families have been forcibly displaced to the south.

The media workers were also forced to abandon their reporting equipment in offices in the north to live and report under difficult conditions amid frequent communication blackouts.

Journalists working in areas of armed conflict are protected under international humanitarian laws, which Israel is accused of violating repeatedly.

Palestinian journalists have said Israel is deliberately targeting them to silence their stories.

Tim Dawson, deputy general secretary at the International Federation of Journalists, told Al Jazeera it is becoming “impossible to ignore such a terribly, terribly high toll” of journalists.

“I don’t think we have seen a death toll of journalists to this concentration in any conflict that I can think of. There were about 1,000 journalists in Gaza at the beginning of this conflict. And while there are slightly different counts of precisely how many have died, if between seven-and-a-half and 10 percent have died, that is an extraordinarily high number,” he said.

Dawson said the journalists in Gaza “only have cameras, microphones and notebooks and continue doing their work despite this absolutely mind-blowing death toll”.

When asked by Al Jazeera if Israel is targeting journalists, he said some Palestinian journalists have told him they “received threatening calls from people” purporting to be from the Israeli military, “warning them that they are going to be targeted or that their families are going to be targeted in the coming days”.

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Ex-Palestinian PM Fayyad: ‘PLO should expand to include Hamas’ | Israel-Palestine conflict

Former Palestinian Authority PM Salam Fayyad says Palestinians should be tending to their own interests, not Israel’s.

“No national liberation movement in history is based on what its enemy wants,” says the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad.

For the Palestinian Authority to have any legitimacy in the eyes of the Palestinian people, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) would have to expand its membership to include Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Fayyad tells host Steve Clemons.

Without achieving a “national consensus”, the Palestinian Authority is in no position to rule the Gaza Strip when Israel’s war on Gaza ends, Fayyad says. Otherwise, the United States’ hopes for a “revitalised” Palestinian leadership are pointless.

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Famine by February: How bad is Gaza’s hunger crisis under Israeli attacks? | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Weeks of restricted access to food in the Gaza Strip have culminated in severe hunger and growing risks of famine in the besieged enclave.

Since early October, Israeli attacks across Gaza have damaged local bakeries and food warehouses, along with roads that are used to transport humanitarian aid. Israel’s total blockade on the enclave has also restricted food, water and fuel from entering in the first place.

How bad is starvation in Gaza and what is the food supply like since the war? Here is what we know.

What does the IPC report say about Gaza?

More than 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report on Monday.

The IPC, which measures hunger risks, also reported on Thursday that 2.08 million people in Gaza are facing “acute food insecurity” that can be classified in the organisation’s phase three of risk or above.

The IPC has five phases of acute food insecurity, ranging from none (phase one) to catastrophe or famine (phase five). Phase three and five are considered crisis and emergency. “Acute” food insecurity is a short-term phenomenon and tends to stem from unusual or man-made shocks, compared with “chronic” food insecurity, which is long term and a result of insufficient means for living.

Between December and February, Gaza’s entire population is projected to fall under phase three or above, according to the United Nations-backed report.

If current hostilities and limited aid continue, Gaza is also at risk of experiencing a famine by early February. The IPC definition of famine is when at least 20 percent of the population in an area falls under phase five of acute food insecurity.

What does food access look like in Gaza?

Families in Gaza have had to cope with deteriorating quality and declining quantities of food, along with an inability to cook meals due to fuel shortages.

Spending a day without eating any food has become usual. In early December, the World Food Programme (WFP) reported that nine out of 10 people across the enclave skip meals for long periods.

Nutritionally vulnerable groups such as pregnant women are at heightened risk, while baby formula and milk have been in severely short supply for toddlers who rely on it.

Even preparing meals requires finding alternatives to cooking gas, and aside from using firewood or cardboard, at least 13 percent of displaced people have been forced to burn solid waste, says the WFP.

Hunger has also quickly escalated since a brief truce ended in early December. Just 12 days after it ended, the WFP found that at least half of internally displaced people surveyed knew someone who had resorted to consuming raw meat.

Access to water is also scarce, with less than two litres (0.5 gallons) available for each person per day – far short of the 15 litres needed to survive, according to the WFP.

What level of food aid is entering Gaza?

Since October 7, the number of trucks carrying food that entered Gaza in a month fell by more than half, compared with at least 10,000 trucks before the war.

Over two months of war, only 1,249 trucks carrying food assistance reached Gaza, the WFP reported on December 6. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also reported that over the first 70 days of the war, only 10 percent of the food needed for Gaza’s entire population entered the enclave.

The WFP has recommended that at least 100 trucks carrying just food and water enter Gaza a day, but on most days since the war even the total amount of trucks entering has been less than that. The agency also noted that damaged roads near Rafah at the border with Egypt – where must aid is now dispersed from – cannot accommodate this increase.

At the height of aid supply during the truce lasting from November 24 to December 1, some 200 trucks entered daily, while the WFP was only able to reach about 10 percent of Gaza’s population with in-kind and cash-based food assistance.

Even once food aid is supplied, access to a sufficient share has not been possible. A report from the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) and Al Mezan, a human rights organisation based in Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, on December 14 found that people near Rafah’s food distribution centres would often have to wait in line for 10 hours, and sometimes still returned home empty-handed.

“I have to walk three kilometres to get one gallon [of water],” Marwan, a 30-year-old Palestinian, who fled south with his pregnant wife and two children on November 9, told Human Rights Watch. “And there is no food. If we are able to find food, it is canned food. Not all of us are eating well.”

Still, Gaza’s population primarily relies on humanitarian assistance for food, followed by local markets and assistance from friends or relatives. With rising shortages across all of these, support from relatives is also dwindling, according to the WFP.

As more of Gaza’s population is pushed into shelters in southern governorates, which are also under intense bombardment, competition for food is expected to increase, said the IPC.

(Al Jazeera)

Can people in Gaza access food locally?

Fighting across the Gaza Strip, and especially in the northern governorates, has particularly made it difficult to access food and aid.

Local farmlands, flour mills, bakeries and warehouses have also been directly damaged by Israeli bombardments.

Only a month after fighting broke out, all of northern Gaza’s bakeries closed due to lack of supplies such as flour and fuel, the UN reported on November 8. Risks of being hit by Israeli strikes also resulted in movement restrictions for those seeking to leave their homes for food.

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Israel says Gaza war is like WWII. Experts say it’s ‘justifying brutality’ | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Israel’s campaign of relentless bombardment against the Gaza Strip had been raging for three weeks when the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to address the heavy civilian death toll in the Palestinian enclave.

Netanyahu, who had earlier evoked the 9/11 attacks on New York’s Twin Towers and the Pentagon in 2001 to describe the deadly Hamas assault on southern Israel on October 7, looked to the second world war for validation, on this occasion.

The hawkish Israeli premier referred to the time in 1945 – he mistakenly mentioned 1944 – when a British air raid, which had been targeting a Gestapo site, erroneously hit a school in Copenhagen killing 86 children. “That is not a war crime,” he told reporters. “That is not something you blame Britain for doing. That was a legitimate act of war with tragic consequences that accompany such legitimate actions.”

Since then, the Allied campaign against Nazi Germany and Japan during World War II has become something of an historical precedent for an Israeli state seeking to justify the large-scale killings of the people of Gaza as it ostensibly pursues Hamas fighters. Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Tzipi Hotovely, has compared Israel’s campaign with the devastating Allied bombing of Dresden, which, conducted over three nights in 1945, was intended to force the Nazis into surrender, and led to the deaths of some 25,000-35,000 Germans. Non-state affiliated advocates of Israel have also drawn similar comparisons.

Yet, these attempts erase the roots of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their land during the creation of Israel in 1948, the destruction of 500 towns and villages at the time, and the subsequent illegal occupation of Palestinian territory. They also ignore how World War II led to a new international law regime, and serve to dehumanise Palestinians while justifying Israel’s decades-long violence and discrimination — described by many international rights groups as akin to apartheid — against Palestinians, say historians and analysts.

Israeli historian and socialist activist Ilan Pappé told Al Jazeera that these efforts by Israel are aimed “as a justification for its brutal policies towards” Palestinians and that they represent an old playbook used by the country.

He cited the instance when former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin compared the then-leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Yasser Arafat, to Hitler, and war-torn Beirut to Berlin, following Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

“I feel as a prime minister empowered to instruct a valiant army facing ‘Berlin’ where, amongst innocent civilians, Hitler and his henchmen hide in a bunker deep beneath the surface,” Begin said in a telegram to then-United States President Ronald Reagan in early August 1982.

But Begin’s words prompted criticism from many in his own country, with Israeli novelist Amos Oz writing that “the urge to revive Hitler, only to kill him again and again, is the result of pain that poets can permit themselves to use, but not statesmen”.

Reaching into the past to legitimise modern-day conflicts can also be ahistorical. Scott Lucas, a specialist in US and British foreign policy at the University of Birmingham, said the relentless use of World War II by Israel and its supporters to mitigate criticism of its bloody war on Gaza suggests that Israel wants to “wish away the post-1945 pledge – by lawyers, NGOs, activists and politicians – to say we need a better system so civilians do not suffer needlessly in war zones”.

He added that Israel’s decision to opt out of membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its attempts to “actively … undermine [the authority] of the United Nations”, founded after the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust, make its claims to be part of an Allied-like struggle disingenuous.

Israel has repeatedly accused the UN’s agencies and its officials, including Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, of bias because they have called for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, Israeli bombs have killed more UN staff members in Gaza since October 7 than in any conflict in the history of the organisation.

“Civilians will be killed in wartime,” Lucas acknowledged, but added that Israel appeared to be breaching the international law requirement of proportionality. In essence, a military whose war leads to civilian deaths, including through attacks on hospitals, schools and shelters – targets Israel has repeatedly struck during this war – must be able to show proportionate military gains through those strikes. That’s a bar Israel hasn’t met, according to many experts.

“You are currently having an excessive number of civilians who are being killed because there are not adequate protections that are being applied by the power that is carrying out the attack,” Lucas said. “And that’s what the Israelis should be judged by. Bringing in World War II and other narratives is [just] peripheral.”

Israel’s supporters continue to argue that the parallel with World War II holds. Jake Wallis Simons, editor of the London-based Jewish Chronicle, said that there were “two points of similarity” between the conflicts.

“The first is a sense of existential threat both during World War II and in the attacks by Hamas upon Israel,” claimed Wallis Simons. “The other is the nature of the aggressor.” He described Hamas’s actions as “barbarism”.

But UN experts, international human rights groups and many nations around the world have warned that it is Israel’s actions since October 7 – more than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and almost the entire population of 2.3 million people has been displaced – that could constitute modern-day genocide. Earlier this week, Human Rights Watch accused Israel of using food as a weapon of war. Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza since 2007, and since the start of the current war, has made it even more difficult for aid to enter the Strip. Right at the start of the current war, Israel also imposed a strict block on the entry of fuel and water – a restriction it has largely kept in place.

Against that backdrop, it’s useful for Israel to project World War II onto the conflict with Palestine, suggested German-Palestinian academic Anna Younes. It helps Israel dehumanise Palestinians and blunts sensitivity towards their suffering.

“By conflating Israel with Jewishness, it’s easy to project Nazism … onto Palestinians, but also onto all of their supporters,” Younes told Al Jazeera. “Nazism has thus become a globalised Eurocentric rhetorical vessel for everything … which doesn’t deserve empathy and context, and is free to be killed.”

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Gaza’s journalists: ‘Targets’ or ‘casualties’ of Israel’s war? | Israel-Palestine conflict

Gaza’s journalists are being killed at an unprecedented rate. Plus, Israel’s most powerful allies in the US – Christian Zionist broadcasters.

According to Gaza’s government media office, Israel’s military has now killed 97 journalists in the Strip. Israel has barred international media from entering Gaza, firsthand reporting on the onslaught there has been left to Palestinians already locked into the occupied territory – documenting their own genocide.

Contributors:
Amahl Bishara – Professor of anthropology, Tufts University
Arwa Damon – Former senior international correspondent, CNN
Sari Bashi – Program director, Human Rights Watch
Wael Dahdouh – Gaza bureau chief, Al Jazeera Arabic

On our radar:

The settler movement – which has placed 700,000 Israelis on the West Bank in complete contravention of international law – now has its eyes on Gaza. Producer Flo Phillips on Israeli developers’ plans in post-war Gaza.

The war in Gaza & the end times – the Christian Zionist view

Evangelicals in the United States – many of whom call themselves Christian Zionists – are some of the biggest supporters of Israel in the US, and they broadcast their support on TV and radio networks that have huge audiences.

Contributors:
Chrissy Stroop – Senior correspondent, Religion Dispatches
Melani McAlister – Author of The Kingdom of God Has No Borders
Sarah Posner – Journalist, author of Unholy

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Israel orders ‘death corridor’ evacuation for Palestinians in central Gaza | Israel-Palestine conflict

Central Gaza Strip — Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate from parts of central Gaza, its latest such directive as it pushes more of the besieged enclave’s 2.3 million-strong population into a smaller area while widening its bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military on Friday ordered families to flee for their “safety” to shelters in southern Gaza’s Deir el-Balah, from Bureij and areas of Nuseirat in central Gaza.

The announcement has incensed the region’s weary and exhausted residents, many of whom have already been internally displaced several times since October 7.

Scenes of mass displacement once again filled Salah al-Din Street that is linked to the entrance of the Bureij refugee camp.

Salah al-Din, a road stretching across the length of Gaza, has been dubbed the “death corridor” by many in the Strip. In previous evacuations, Palestinians fleeing parts of northern Gaza have been arrested, shot at and even killed – despite it being declared as a safe route by the Israeli army.

Scenes of mass displacement once again filled Salah al-Din Street [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

On Friday, hundreds of people carrying what is left of their personal belongings poured onto the street on foot. Others loaded pick-up trucks and donkey carts with mattresses, blankets, plastic chairs and whatever else they could grab.

Some could barely move after sustaining injuries from previous attacks, yet found themselves with no choice but to escape once again.

This was the case for Walaa al-Nuzeini, who was fleeing Bureij in a wheelchair and for the third time since the beginning of the assault.

Al-Nuzeini lived in the Shujayea neighbourhood of Gaza City when an Israeli air strike targeted her home on November 7.

“I lost my daughter, she died in my arms,” al-Nuzeini told Al Jazeera.

“We stayed under the rubble for three hours before they got us out,” she said, adding that the entire area is now “destroyed”.

Al-Nuzeini was badly hurt. She suffers from wounds in her leg, and said the nerve is affected which has been causing her “extreme pain”. She was taken to al-Shifa Hospital for treatment, but three days later Israeli soldiers raided the facility, Gaza’s largest hospital that is now no longer operating.

Walaa al-Nuzeini lost her daughter in an Israeli attack on their home in Gaza City’s Shujayea [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

“We left running out of fear and had to walk all the way to Nuseirat,” she recalled.

At the time, Israeli soldiers ordered doctors, patients and displaced people at the hospital to evacuate the medical compound, forcing some to leave at gunpoint, according to testimonies by doctors and Palestinian officials.

More than 7,000 people, including patients in a critical condition and newborn babies, were sheltering inside al-Shifa Hospital.

Humanitarian circumstances have become “very difficult”, al-Nuzeini said. She is now heading to Khan Younis, where her other children have set up a tent.

“This is not a life. We have no water, no food, no freedom of movement.”

‘We’re exhausted’

Two months ago, the Israeli military called on Palestinians in northern Gaza to flee to the south, but has continued to target and bomb civilians even there. Khan Younis is now a focus of Israeli attacks.

“There is no place that’s safe,” Salem al-Sheikh told Al Jazeera.

The elderly man said he was forcibly displaced from his home in Nassr neighbourhood in the west of Gaza City.

“They [the Israeli army] told us to leave, so I fled to al-Shifa Hospital, where I stayed for a month and a half. I then left to Nuseirat,” al-Sheikh said.

He was among the thousands who sought refuge in al-Shifa Hospital before it was attacked by Israeli forces.

Salem al-Sheikh has been forcibly displaced three times since October 7 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Now, for a third time, he is being displaced from Nuseirat.

The latest call for evacuation comes as Israeli ground troops continue to battle Palestinian fighters in southern and central Gaza.

In the last 48 hours alone, at least 390 people have been killed as the enclave plunged into digital darkness for the sixth time amid a communications blackout, Gaza’s health ministry said.

The United Nations says nearly 1.9 million people have now been displaced – more than 80 percent of the Gaza Strip’s pre-war population.

Many are crammed inside the Rafah governorate in southern Gaza, where al-Sheikh is heading.

The health ministry has warned that disease there is flourishing amid a lack of supplies, medicine, clean water and much-needed fuel.

Meanwhile, UN-run schools have largely become overcrowded shelters for thousands of displaced Palestinians.

“It’s been extremely difficult,” al-Sheikh said. “We walked from al-Shifa on foot … we passed Israeli army tanks until we made it to a school,” he said, referring to the second time he was displaced.

The schools, however, “are full,” he said. “There is no space.”

The United Nations says nearly 1.9 million Palestinians have been internally displaced in Gaza [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/Al Jazeera]

Many believe that the UN designation of these buildings will keep them safe from the constant Israeli bombardment.

However, several of the schools have been targeted or sustained damage from Israeli air raids in their vicinities. According to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), some 1.4 million Palestinians are trapped in overcrowded and unprotected shelters run by the body that are now uninhabitable. The poor conditions in the makeshift accommodations have already led to an outbreak of scabies and smallpox, among other infections.

Al-Sheikh said he just wants to return home.

“We’re exhausted, moving from one place to the next. They need to let us get back to our homes.”

Some 60 percent of all residential units in the Strip have been damaged, or 254,000 homes. More than 20,000 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the latest offensive, including at least 8,000 children.

Rights groups have warned of the consequences of mass displacement, with organisations including Human Rights Watch labelling it a “war crime”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needs to “stop committing crimes and killing people’s children,” al-Sheikh said. “He needs to stop destroying homes on top of people’s heads.”

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