A Tent Camp for Displaced Palestinians Pops Up in Southern Gaza, Reawakening Old Traumas

FILED - 20 October 2023, Egypt, Rafah: Aid convoy trucks loaded with supplies stands in front of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Sayed Hassan/dpa
FILED - 20 October 2023, Egypt, Rafah: Aid convoy trucks loaded with supplies stands in front of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Sayed Hassan/dpa
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A Tent Camp for Displaced Palestinians Pops Up in Southern Gaza, Reawakening Old Traumas

FILED - 20 October 2023, Egypt, Rafah: Aid convoy trucks loaded with supplies stands in front of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Sayed Hassan/dpa
FILED - 20 October 2023, Egypt, Rafah: Aid convoy trucks loaded with supplies stands in front of the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip. Photo: Sayed Hassan/dpa

When the sun rose on Friday and the autumn heat baked the rotten debris on Gaza's streets, Mohammed Elian emerged from the zipper hole of his new canvas home.
He — and hundreds of other Palestinians displaced by the latest war between Israel and Hamas — have crowded into a squalid tent camp in southern Gaza, an image that has brought back memories of their greatest trauma, The Associated Press said.
Last week after the Israeli military ordered Elian's family, along with more than 1 million other Palestinians, to evacuate the north, the smartly dressed 35-year-old graphic designer from Gaza City ended up homeless in the city of Khan Younis, with few comforts but thin mattresses, solar-powered phone chargers and whatever clothes and pots he could squeeze into his friend’s car.
With nowhere else to go, Elian, his wife and four kids landed in the sprawling tent camp that cropped up this week as United Nations shelters overflowed in Gaza, where most people are already refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel's creation.
“We have left behind everything, and we are not even safe," Elian said from a nearby hospital where he searched for water to bring back to his kids, ages 4-10. The distant roar of airstrikes could be heard over the phone.
Scores of Palestinians have lost or fled their homes during the intense Israeli bombardment prompted by a bloody cross-border attack by Hamas militants nearly two weeks ago. The impromptu construction of the tent city in Khan Younis to help shelter them has elicited anger, disbelief and sorrow across the Arab world.
Row after row of white tents rise from the dusty parking lot. Children sit in the shade and play languidly with rocks. Men cut each other's hair. Newly acquainted neighbors wait outside to receive their shared meal from UN workers — a couple of loaves of bread and cans of tuna or beans.
“These images are something that the Arab world cannot accept,” said Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian journalist in Jordan.
Scenes of Palestinians hastily setting up UN tents are dredging up painful memories of the mass exodus that Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or “catastrophe." In the months before and during the 1948 war, an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel. Many expected to return when the war ended.
Seventy-five years later, those temporary tents in the West Bank, Gaza and neighboring Arab countries have become permanent cinderblock homes.
“1948 is immediately brought to mind when Palestinians in Gaza are told to flee, it's immediately brought to mind when you see those images (of tents),” said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University. “Palestinian writers have etched this into the Arab consciousness.”
The UN Palestinian refugee agency said the camp is not permanent. It said that the agency distributed tents and blankets to dozens of displaced families in Khan Younis who couldn’t fit in other UN facilities “to protect them from the rain and provide dignity and privacy.” Gaza already is home to eight permanent camps, which over the years have turned into crowded rundown urban neighborhoods.
But regional anxiety over the Khan Younis tents and Israeli evacuation warnings has grown, adding fuel to the huge, angry protests surging in Mideast capitals over the war in Gaza that began on Oct. 7, when Hamas mounted its raid that killed 1,400 Israelis. Since then, Israel's retaliatory bombing campaign has killed more than 4,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Many of the victims are women and children.
“It’s very worrisome for the government of Jordan," the journalist, Kuttab, said of the wave of displaced Palestinians. “ They don't want to see even a hint of this idea.”
Protests in the typically sedate kingdom of Jordan, home to a large population of people descended from Palestinian refugees, have rocked the capital, drawing thousands of demonstrators with an intensity unseen in years.
Elian has been so stressed about where to sleep and get food he said he hasn't had time to fret over the symbolism. He and his family tried sheltering in one of the crowded UN schools, but the conditions were “horrific,” he said — no space to sleep, no privacy. At least here he can close his tent flap.
“We are living from one moment to the next," he said. “We try not to think about what comes next — how or when we'll go home.”



Report: Israel Hit Syrian Bases Scoped by Türkiye, Hinting at Regional Showdown

 Debris is scattered at the site of an Israeli strike on a military airbase near Hama, Syria, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP)
Debris is scattered at the site of an Israeli strike on a military airbase near Hama, Syria, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP)
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Report: Israel Hit Syrian Bases Scoped by Türkiye, Hinting at Regional Showdown

 Debris is scattered at the site of an Israeli strike on a military airbase near Hama, Syria, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP)
Debris is scattered at the site of an Israeli strike on a military airbase near Hama, Syria, Thursday, April 3, 2025. (AP)

Türkiye scoped out at least three air bases in Syria where it could deploy forces as part of a planned joint defense pact before Israel hit the sites with air strikes this week, four people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The bombardment signals the risks of a deepening rift between two powerful regional militaries over Syria, where opposition factions have installed a new government after toppling former leader Bashar al-Assad in December.

The Israeli strikes on the three sites Türkiye was assessing, including a heavy barrage on Wednesday night, came despite Ankara's efforts to reassure Washington that a deeper military presence in Syria was not intended to threaten Israel.

The factions replacing Assad have alarmed Israel, which is wary of their presence on its border and has lobbied the United States to curb Türkiye’s growing influence in the country.

Ankara, a longtime backer of opposition to Assad, is positioning to play a major role in the remade Syria, including with a possible joint defense pact that could see new Turkish bases in central Syria and use of Syria's airspace.

In preparation, Turkish military teams in recent weeks visited the T4 and Palmyra air bases in Syria's Homs province and the main airport in Hama province, according to a regional intelligence official, two Syrian military sources and another Syrian source familiar with the matter.

The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the visits, which have not been previously reported.

Turkish teams evaluated the state of the runways, hangars and other infrastructure at the bases, the regional intelligence official said.

Another planned visit to T4 and Palmyra on March 25 was cancelled after Israel struck both bases just hours beforehand, according to the regional intelligence official and the two Syrian military sources.

Strikes at T4 "destroyed the runway, tower, hangars and the planes that were grounded. It was a tough message that Israel won't accept the expanded Turkish presence," said the intelligence official, who reviewed photographs of the damage.

"T4 is totally unusable now," said a fourth Syrian source, who is close to Türkiye.

When asked about the visits, a Turkish defense ministry official said: "Reports and posts regarding developments in Syria - whether real or alleged - that do not originate from official authorities should not be taken into consideration, as they lack credibility and may be misleading."

A spokesperson for Syria's defense ministry declined to comment.

Türkiye’s foreign ministry on Thursday called Israel "the greatest threat to regional security". On Friday, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters Türkiye wanted no confrontation with Israel in Syria.

HEAVY STRIKES

In the four months since Assad was toppled, Israel has seized ground in southwest Syria, made overtures to the Druze minority, and struck much of the Syrian military's heavy weapons and equipment. Wednesday's strikes were some of the most intense yet.

Syria's foreign ministry said Israel struck five separate areas within a 30-minute window, resulting in the near-total destruction of the Hama base and wounding dozens of civilians and soldiers.

Israel said it hit the T4 air base and other military capabilities at air bases in Hama and Homs provinces, as well as military infrastructure in the Damascus area.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the air strikes a warning that "we will not allow the security of the State of Israel to be harmed". Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Ankara of seeking a "Turkish protectorate" in Syria.

Noa Lazimi, a specialist in Middle East politics at Bar-Ilan University, said Israel was concerned that Türkiye could establish Russian anti-aircraft systems and drones at T4.

"The base would enable Türkiye to establish air superiority in this area, and this poses a serious concern for Israel because it undermines its operational freedom in the region," she said.

'IDEOLOGICAL COLLISION COURSE'

Türkiye has tried to reassure the US that it wants to work towards a stable Syria.

Foreign Minister Fidan told US officials in Washington last month that Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa would not pose a threat to neighbors, according to a senior regional diplomat close to Türkiye and a source in Washington briefed on the meetings.

Fidan and other Turkish officials had earlier told Sharaa that Ankara was carefully calibrating its moves towards a defense pact so as not to irk Washington, one of the Syrian military sources said.

" Türkiye, not Israel, would pay the highest price among regional states were there to be failure or destabilization in Syria, including with refugees and security," an official in Türkiye’s ruling AK Party told Reuters.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute think tank, said Türkiye and Israel were on an "ideological collision course" but could avoid military escalation through mediation with Washington.