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Palestinians in Gaza Say Israeli Bombardment Feels Like New ‘Nakba’

A Palestinian flag flies among the rubble in the destroyed al-Rimal neighborhood following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 10 October 2023. (EPA)
A Palestinian flag flies among the rubble in the destroyed al-Rimal neighborhood following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 10 October 2023. (EPA)
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Palestinians in Gaza Say Israeli Bombardment Feels Like New ‘Nakba’

A Palestinian flag flies among the rubble in the destroyed al-Rimal neighborhood following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 10 October 2023. (EPA)
A Palestinian flag flies among the rubble in the destroyed al-Rimal neighborhood following an Israeli air strike in Gaza City, 10 October 2023. (EPA)

Palestinians in Gaza say Israeli bombardment has been so heavy they feel they are living their own "Nakba," the Arabic word for catastrophe that refers to the 1948 war of Israel's creation that led to their mass dispossession.

Israel on Tuesday pounded the Gaza Strip with the fiercest air strikes in its 75-year conflict with the Palestinians, leaving Gazans like Plestia Alaqad, 22, running for their lives.

"The situation is crazy - literally no place is safe. I've personally evacuated three times since yesterday," said Alaqad, who has been filming personal accounts of life under bombardment and posting them on her Instagram page.

After her apartment block was hit, she took refuge in a friend's home but then got a call it would be targeted too. After a brief stay in a hospital, where she charged her phone, she headed to another home to take shelter with journalists.

"Only yesterday I understood what my grandpa, may he rest in peace, told me about 1948 and the Nakba. When I used to hear the stories about it, I didn't understand," she said via videocall from a home in Gaza where she and others were seeking refuge from bombardment after the surprise Hamas attack on Israel.

"I'm 22 years old - and yesterday I understood the Nakba completely."

More than seven decades after the Nakba, Palestinians still lament the calamity that resulted in their displacement and blocked their dreams of statehood.

In the war surrounding Israel's founding, some 700,000 Palestinians, half the Arab population of what was British-ruled Palestine, fled or were driven from their homes, and have been denied return. Many ended up in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria as well as in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel has already tightened its blockade of Gaza, fully banning food and fuel imports and cutting the electricity supply. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that the price Gaza would pay "will change reality for generations".

Radwan Abu al-Kass, a boxing instructor and father of three boys, said his five-storey house in the al-Rimal district had been destroyed in bombardment on Monday night.

"We'd never imagine our house could become a mountain of rubble. That's all it is now," he told Reuters by phone.

Al-Kass and his children were now seeking refuge at a friend's home a few kilometers away, but feared that heavier bombardment was to come.

"This is our 1948. It's the same thing. It's another Nakba."

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Winter Rains Pile Misery on War-torn Gaza's Displaced

With many residents of Gaza displaced by the war, often living in cramped tent camps, the coming winter is a cause for concern - AFP
With many residents of Gaza displaced by the war, often living in cramped tent camps, the coming winter is a cause for concern - AFP
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Winter Rains Pile Misery on War-torn Gaza's Displaced

With many residents of Gaza displaced by the war, often living in cramped tent camps, the coming winter is a cause for concern - AFP
With many residents of Gaza displaced by the war, often living in cramped tent camps, the coming winter is a cause for concern - AFP

At a crowded camp in Gaza for those displaced by the Israeli war on the strip, Ayman Siam laid concrete blocks around his tent to keep his family dry as rain threatened more misery.

"I'm trying to protect my tent from the rainwater because we are expecting heavy rain. Three days ago when it rained, we were drenched," Siam said, seeking to shield his children and grandchildren from more wet weather.

Siam is among thousands sheltering at Gaza City's Yarmuk sports stadium in the north after being uprooted by the Israeli bombardment.

He lives in one of many flimsy tents set up at the stadium, where the pitch has become a muddy field dotted with puddles left by rainfall that washed away belongings and shelters.

People in the stadium dug small trenches around their tents, covered them with plastic sheets, and did whatever they could to stop the water from entering their makeshift homes.

Others used spades to direct the water into drains, as grey skies threatened more rain.

- 'Catastrophic' -

The majority of Gaza's 2.4 million people have been displaced, often multiple times, by the war that began with Hamas's attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed 44,235 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.

With many displaced living in tent camps, the coming winter is raising serious concerns.

Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defence agency, told AFP that "tens of thousands of displaced people, especially in the central and south of Gaza Strip, are suffering from flooded tents due to the rains", and called on the international community to provide tents and aid.

International aid organizations have sounded the alarm about the deteriorating situation as winter approaches.

"It's going to be catastrophic," warned Louise Wateridge, an emergency officer for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees currently in Gaza.

"People don't have anything that they need," she said from Gaza City. "They haven't had basic, basic, basic things for 13 months, not food, not water, not shelter," she added.

"It's going to be miserable, it's going to be very desperate."

The rainy period in Gaza lasts between late October and April, with January being the wettest month, averaging 30 to 40 millimetres of rain.

Winter temperatures can drop as low as six degrees Celsius (42 Fahrenheit), AFP reported.

Recent rain has flooded hundreds of tents near the coast in Deir el-Balah, in central Gaza, as well as in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, according to Gaza's civil defense.

- 'Nothing left' -

Auni al-Sabea, living in a tent in Deir el-Balah, was among those bearing the brunt of the weather without proper accommodation.

"The rain and seawater flooded all the tents. We are helpless. The water took everything from the tent, including the mattresses, blankets and a water jug. We were only able to get a mattress and blankets for the children," said the displaced man.

"Now, we are in the street and we have nothing left," said the 40-year-old from Al-Shati Camp.

At the stadium, Umm Ahmed Saliha showed the water that pooled under her tent during morning prayers. "All of this is from this morning's rain and winter hasn't even started properly."