In my home town of Khan Younis, a refugee camp to the south of the Gaza Strip, my family home has finally been evacuated. The building suffered substantial damage when 36 of my relatives were killed in a bombing on 26 October. But they had clung on to the small piece of safety they felt they had there and continued to live in the home anyway. Then, on Christmas Day, the terrifying news fell from the sky written on leaflets – a directive to evacuate.
In the Christian story of Jesus, his mother and father travelled the land looking for somewhere safe to stay. Everywhere they heard: “There is no room at the inn.” Later, fleeing with their infant to Egypt for safety, one of the places they visited was Gaza. For Palestinians, more than 2,000 years later, the question remains: “Where can we go?”
My brothers and their families had no time for contemplation. For them, moments like these are not just a stark choice between life and death. They are worse than that: a choice between dying in one place, or another. People in Gaza are asking themselves: shall we stay in our homes and face inevitable death together; or leave, and die in a strange place, perhaps alone? Many have witnessed the unfolding genocide and preferred to stay in their homes and die with their families. This way they might be helped, or rescued. Or their bodies might be identified. Or – at least – they might be buried and not left for the cats and dogs to eat.
My brothers and their families gathered the essentials: blankets, mattresses, pillows, clothes, kitchen necessities, food and water, important documents and cherished valuables. The adults quickly made decisions about what to take and what to leave. However, the eight children, aged between three and 16, wanted to pack everything precious to them. My nieces’ and nephews’ tears flowed as their parents rejected most of their choices. Sixteen-year-old Amal, who dreams of one day being a doctor, asked, “Will this be our last day at home? Will we ever return? Will I take my books and my schoolbag?” But there was no time or way to explain.
My family decided to move to al-Mawasi, on the Mediterranean coast, which had been declared a safe zone. Eventually, they found a man driving a donkey cart, and paid him $US70 (about a week or two’s salary for a typical person in Gaza) to take them there. Half of this man’s family had been lost when their home was bombed, he told them. He had travelled south, with his children, from Gaza City’s al-Shati refugee camp in a desperate search for safety, and had been living in Khan Younis with his family in a UN school since then. He joked darkly that this trip with my family might be his last one but at least the money would help his remaining children survive a few more weeks. All the time they were travelling, drones flew overhead, ready to target any moving object. A seemingly straightforward trip that would usually take 20 minutes on foot became a harrowing odyssey.
Al-Mawasi is one of Gaza’s most beautiful beach areas, once a popular spot for families. Today it is a scene of desperation, not recreation. By the time my family arrived there, tents, plastic and even pieces of wood were nowhere to be found – they had all been claimed and utilised by those seeking shelter. In a desperate attempt to combat the biting cold or cook their food, people had resorted to burning anything they could find, be it remnants from their homes, debris from the streets or materials salvaged from under the rubble. My siblings made their shelter using blankets and whatever little plastic they could gather.
That night, sleep was impossible. The bitter cold and darkness, interrupted by the bombs, the roar of the waves, the sound of the wind and the cries of adults and children from neighbouring tents created an environment of perpetual distress. In the following days and nights, homelessness exposed them to the appalling realities of war, from which their home had shielded them until 25 December. They saw people with life-threatening injuries forced to sleep in tents or on the sand; children with amputated limbs cried out in pain and despair, cold and hungry. Four-year-old Shahd now refuses to leave the tent as she is unable to fathom what is happening around her.
In our last conversation, my sister-in-law Arwa painted to me a picture of desperation and humiliation: the queues for inadequate rations of food and water; the absence of proper facilities for basic needs such as toilets and showers (especially for women and girls); once-dignified individuals reduced to begging. The onset of diarrhoea further intensified the misery and indignity.
Then the horror from the death-raining sky descended upon al-Mawasi on 4 January, when Israeli airstrikes hit tents not far away. The shelling ended the lives of the Abu Hattab and Salah families: 10 children and their parents, obliterated in an instant. Panic and chaos followed as people scattered, screaming, only to return to the tents to discover who had survived and who had not. People gathered to bury the victims and evacuate the wounded to Nasser hospital on donkey carts. There was no time to inform relatives or family members.
My nieces and nephews were terrified. In the nights that followed, Shahd cried to return home, fearing the next shell would hit their tent. A few days later, I spoke to my brother, who shared the grim reality: “We survived, but we don’t know what tomorrow holds for us. It is like living in a chicken coop, waiting to be slaughtered. Every day they come and pick 300, 400 or 500 to slaughter. Our turn is yet to come.”
Sadly, this account is not unique. It is only one example of the horrors experienced each day by Gaza’s 2.3 million people. We have become the pawns in a regional struggle for power.
The UK and US governments claim they are upholding international law by attacking the Houthis in Yemen. But they are not doing enough to uphold international law in Gaza. Israel claims that a new phase of the conflict has begun, yet the indiscriminate bombing of families and civilians continues. Without an immediate ceasefire, the people of Gaza will continue to bear the brunt of the world’s failure to act. My greatest fear is that the next time I hear from Gaza, it will be about yet another heartbreaking episode of loss within my own family.
Ghada Ageel, a third-generation Palestinian refugee, worked as a translator for the Guardian in Gaza from 2000 to 2006. She is currently visiting professor at the department of political science at the University of Alberta.
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