In War-Torn Gaza, Fears of a New ‘Nakba'

 A woman reacts after an Israeli strike near an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023. (AFP)
A woman reacts after an Israeli strike near an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023. (AFP)
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In War-Torn Gaza, Fears of a New ‘Nakba'

 A woman reacts after an Israeli strike near an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023. (AFP)
A woman reacts after an Israeli strike near an United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) school in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023. (AFP)

Omar Ashur became a refugee during the "Nakba" or "catastrophe" experienced by Palestinians following Israel's creation 75 years ago and now fears the ongoing bombardment of Gaza will again force him into exile.

A retired general from the Palestinian Authority security forces, 83-year-old Ashur lives in Al-Zahra in central Gaza where Israeli missiles flattened an area of more than 20 buildings late on Thursday.

Residents had been warned to flee before the strikes, but many of them raced into the street with no idea of where to go.

When they returned in the early hours of Friday morning, they found a scene of devastation, with several blocks of buildings reduced to smoking ruins and rubble, an AFP journalist said.

The area lies about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Gaza City where Israeli warplanes have focused their fierce bombardments since Hamas militants stormed into Israel on October 7, beginning an attack that has killed at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israeli officials say.

Although Israel urged Palestinians living in northern Gaza to head south ahead of an expected ground operation, Ashur decided to stay.

Beyond the ongoing bombardment, he also worries about the future, fearing the war will push Gaza's residents -- two-thirds of whom are refugees -- to flee again.

'Destruction with a clear aim'

"What's happening is dangerous," Ashur told AFP.

"I fear that the ongoing destruction has a clear aim, so people don't have a place to live which will spark a new Nakba," he said, referring to the 760,000 Palestinians who fled or were expelled from their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation.

Gaza's population of 2.4 million is largely made up of descendants of those refugees.

Ashur was just eight when he and his family fled in 1948 from Majdal -- what is today the Israeli town of Ashkelon -- to Gaza.

And for him, the ongoing war brings back painful memories.

"What's happening today is much worse. At the time, Israel would shoot to kill and force people to flee but the current situation is more horrific," he said.

The October 7 attack was the deadliest attack on Israeli soil since the state was founded, with most of the victims shot, mutilated or burnt to death on the first day, according to Israeli officials.

Since then, more than 4,300 Palestinians, mainly civilians, have been killed in relentless Israeli bombardments, according to Gaza's health ministry.

'A hellish night'

At least a million Gazans have been displaced by the ongoing bombing campaign, the UN says, with Israel also cutting off supplies of water, electricity, fuel and food to the impoverished enclave.

Gazing at the destruction in Al-Zahra is Rami Abu Wazna, his haggard face struggling to take it in. At least 24 buildings were razed, an AFP journalist said.

"Even in my worst nightmares, I never thought this could be possible," he whispers.

Thousands of residents who had fled the neighborhood spent the night trying to find shelter from dozens of Israeli strikes.

"Why bomb us, we're civilians! Where will we go? Everything is gone," Abu Wazna said.

"We heard our grandparents speak of the Nakba and today we're the ones living it," he continued. "But we won't leave our land."

Among the ruins, Umm Ahmad and her two sons are trying to salvage a few of their belongings.

"We've had a hellish night. The sky was red, everything was destroyed," she says, her robes covered in dust.

"We didn't take anything with us. I'm trying to find clothes for the children so they don't get cold," she says.

"They want to make us homeless."



Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
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Gazans’ Daily Struggle for Water After Deadly Israeli Strike

 Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)
Palestinians wait for donated food at a community kitchen in Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, Monday, July 14, 2025. (AP)

The al-Manasra family rarely get enough water for both drinking and washing after their daily trudge to a Gaza distribution point like the one where eight people were killed on Sunday in a strike that Israel's military said had missed its target.

Living in a tent camp by the ruins of a smashed concrete building in Gaza City, the family say their children are already suffering from diarrhea and skin maladies and from the lack of clean water, and they fear worse to come.

"There's no water, our children have been infected with scabies, there are no hospitals to go to and no medications," said Akram Manasra, 51.

He had set off on Monday for a local water tap with three of his daughters, each of them carrying two heavy plastic containers in Gaza's blazing summer heat, but they only managed to fill two - barely enough for the family of 10.

Gaza's lack of clean water after 21 months of war and four months of Israeli blockade is already having "devastating impacts on public health" the United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA said in a report this month.

For people queuing at a water distribution point on Sunday it was fatal. A missile that Israel said had targeted fighters but malfunctioned hit a queue of people waiting to collect water at the Nuseirat refugee camp.

Israel's blockade of fuel along with the difficulty in accessing wells and desalination plants in zones controlled by the Israeli military is severely constraining water, sanitation and hygiene services according to OCHA.

Fuel shortages have also hit waste and sewage services, risking more contamination of the tiny, crowded territory's dwindling water supply, and diseases causing diarrhea and jaundice are spreading among people crammed into shelters and weakened by hunger.

"If electricity was allowed to desalination plants the problem of a lethal lack of water, which is what's becoming the situation now in Gaza, would be changed within 24 hours," said James Elder, the spokesperson for the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

"What possible reason can there be for denying of a legitimate amount of water that a family needs?" he added.

COGAT, the Israeli military aid coordination agency, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, an Israeli military official said that Israel was allowing sufficient fuel into Gaza but that its distribution around the enclave was not under Israel's purview.

THIRSTY AND DIRTY

For the Manasra family, like others in Gaza, the daily toil of finding water is exhausting and often fruitless.

Inside their tent the family tries to maintain hygiene by sweeping. But there is no water for proper cleaning and sometimes they are unable to wash dishes from their meager meals for several days at a time.

Manasra sat in the tent and showed how one of his young daughters had angry red marks across her back from what he said a doctor had told them was a skin infection caused by the lack of clean water.

They maintain a strict regimen of water use by priority.

After pouring their two containers of water from the distribution point into a broken plastic water butt by their tent, they use it to clean themselves from the tap, using their hands to spoon it over their heads and bodies.

Water that runs off into the basin underneath is then used for dishes and after that - now grey and dirty - for clothes.

"How is this going to be enough for 10 people? For the showering, washing, dish washing, and the washing of the covers. It's been three months; we haven't washed the covers, and the weather is hot," Manasra said.

His wife, Umm Khaled, sat washing clothes in a tiny puddle of water at the bottom of a bucket - all that was left after the more urgent requirements of drinking and cooking.

"My daughter was very sick from the heat rash and the scabies. I went to several doctors for her and they prescribed many medications. Two of my children yesterday, one had diarrhea and vomiting and the other had fever and infections from the dirty water," she said.