Two Months of War in Gaza Leave Elderly and Newborns Destitute and Displaced

A flare falls over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, December 7, 2023. (Reuters)
A flare falls over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, December 7, 2023. (Reuters)
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Two Months of War in Gaza Leave Elderly and Newborns Destitute and Displaced

A flare falls over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, December 7, 2023. (Reuters)
A flare falls over Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, December 7, 2023. (Reuters)

After two months of war in Gaza, most of its people are homeless, crammed by a pounding Israeli bombardment into yet smaller areas of an already tiny enclave where the elderly and newborns live alike in tents amid the rubble.

Three women pushed from their homes in the Gaza Strip over 61 days of fighting have now ended up desperate for shelter and safety after fleeing from one place to another under air strikes and shellfire.

Zainab Khalil, 57, is seeking to move for a fourth time as Israeli tanks roll into the southern city of Khan Younis. Israa al-Jamala, 28, lives in a tent tending her infant daughter who was born the night a short-lived truce began. And Mai Salim walks by the Egyptian border fearing she and her family will be forced across it into a life of permanent exile.

Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people were taken unawares by the sudden disaster that began to unfold for them on Oct. 7 as Israeli jets began strikes to retaliate for a surprise Hamas attack across the border that Israel says killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

The Israeli military has vowed to crush Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules Gaza and is pledged to Israel's destruction, but says the group hides its weapons, command centers and fighters among a civilian population it uses as "human shields". Hamas denies this.

Four-fifths of Gaza residents have now been displaced, many of them several times over. Their homes, businesses, mosques and schools have been damaged, destroyed or abandoned as too dangerous in the face of the Israeli assault. Health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say 17,177 people have been killed there.

With no real sign of any imminent respite, Palestinians are living with little food or clean water, often on the street, trying to calm screaming children at night as bombs and shells fall.

"A new mother should be in her home raising the child with her mother, with her family," said Jamala, cradling her tiny daughter, also called Israa, amid the tents that have sprung up around a hospital in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.

After the Jamala home was shelled, the family moved into the makeshift camp outside Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital, she said. Little Israa was born there on Nov. 24, the night a week-long truce began, raising hope that the conflict might relent.

But after a week, fighting resumed and the family remains in the tent, a carpet covering the sand and Israa sleeping in a small cot.

Like others in Gaza, they struggle to find food and other necessities. "See how much we're in need. There's no milk. No powdered milk," Jamala said.

Even when the war finally ends, she does not know what she will do as their home was shelled. "Where will we stay? Where can we raise this baby? Where can we live?" she said.

Bombardment

Khalil lived in Sheikh Radwan, a suburb of Gaza City near Beach Refugee Camp in the enclave's north. Israel started telling residents to go south in mid-October, though it continued with air strikes across the territory.

She did not want to leave, calling it the most difficult decision of her life. She finally moved to a shelter nearby where she thought she would be safer from bombardment, but as air strikes intensified over 10 days she decided to move on.

"A journey mixed with fear, despair, displacement and sadness under heavy bombardment," was how she described her odyssey from shelter to shelter.

When Israeli troops pushed into Gaza City and surrounded al-Shifa Hospital, she headed south with a friend and her family, alternately walking and riding in a donkey cart.

As they crossed a front line, Israeli soldiers ordered them to "walk a bit and stop, walk and stop" over four hours, she said.

She wound up living in a school in Khan Younis being used as a shelter for around 30 displaced people, where some of her nieces had already ended up. "In this war, who doesn't get killed by bombs gets killed by disease, sadness and despair," she said.

But Israel's military is now ordering people in Khan Younis too to leave and Khalil must look for a new place to stay.

The only major town left to run to is Rafah, hard against the border with Egypt. Most Gaza residents are descended from refugees who fled or were forced from their homes in what is now Israel during the war of 1948. Many are terrified they will end up as refugees again, forced from Gaza altogether.

Walking by the border fence, Salim and a friend peered over towards Egypt. She had fled her home in Gaza City, moving first to Nuseirat and later to Khan Younis before finally ending up in Rafah after the Israeli military ordered people to move again.

"For us, this is the last stop. After that, if they want to forcibly displace us we will not leave. They can kill us right here but we will not leave our land and our entire lives. We will not do that," she said.



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."