Gazan Family Uprooted by Renewed War Faces Deepening Hardship

Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
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Gazan Family Uprooted by Renewed War Faces Deepening Hardship

Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud
Displaced Palestinian woman Huda Junaid collects belongings inside her tent as she prepares to flee with her family after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for a number of neighborhoods, following heavy Israeli strikes, in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip March 19, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud

Khader Junaid clambered onto a donkey cart with his family and their belongings and set off through Gaza's rubble, embarking on all-too-familiar escape to safety following the resumption of heavy Israeli airstrikes.

Repeated displacement has become a way of life for Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians since a Hamas attack on southern Israel in October, 2023, triggered a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and reduced the enclave to debris and dust.

"We were fine with staying in a tent next to our destroyed home, and now we are forced to go back into the schools," said the Palestinian father-of-six, referring to shelters set up in school buildings.

Continual displacement means ever more hardship for families, Reuters reported.

Junaid's wife Huda urged US President Donald Trump to stop the Gaza war and to work for reconciliation and peace. "We don't want war, we don't want death," she said. "Enough! We are fed up. There are no longer children in Gaza, all of our children are dead, all of our relatives are dead."

Asked about displaced civilians in Gaza, Israeli Defense Forces International Spokesperson Nadav Shoshani described Israel's Hamas militant enemy as "a murderous, a genocidal terror organization that is hiding behind civilians. It is a very difficult war."

Israel is giving up the element of surprise, "one of the most important elements in the battlefield, to make sure those civilians have a chance to get out of harm’s way," he said.

Israel resumed airstrikes on Tuesday, effectively abandoning a ceasefire put in place in January, killing more than 400 Palestinians that day in one of the war's deadliest episodes. A total of at least 510 Palestinians have been killed in the past three days, more than half of them women and children, Khalil Al-Deqran, the spokesperson of the territory's health ministry, told Reuters.

RISING PRICES, FLOODING SEWERS

In January, Junaid's family returned to their destroyed home in al-Salam district in Jabalia refugee camp and erected a tent next to it, but on Wednesday they were on the move once again after shelling intensified.

"It hasn't been even two months since we returned home and now we are displaced again," said Huda.

Huda says the family is exhausted after living in tight spaces in dire conditions. The family headed to a school-turned-shelter in Jabalia, but could not find a place among the crowds, forcing them to set up a tent next to the bathrooms. "I suffered so much to find a place for our tent and it is next to the school's bathrooms where the sewers are flooding," Khader said. Mopping the floor of their makeshift tent, Huda explained how expensive life has become, with raised prices for sugar, tomatoes and many other items.

With crossings closed and supplies dwindling, families like Junaid's are left to rely on food aid from charities, turning to soup kitchens to survive.

"Due to the recent suspension of humanitarian aid into Gaza, stocks of medical supplies have dropped significantly and on top of this, hospital staff are struggling to manage the sharp increase of casualties," said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a statement.

More than 49,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign on Gaza after October 7, according to Gaza's health authorities. Trump has said the United States will take over Gaza, resettle its Palestinians and redevelop it into an international beach resort, angering its inhabitants and Arab states.

 

 

 



‘Our Children Are Dying Slowly’ Says Father Searching for Food in Gaza 

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip May 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip May 21, 2025. (Reuters)
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‘Our Children Are Dying Slowly’ Says Father Searching for Food in Gaza 

Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip May 21, 2025. (Reuters)
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on a house, in Jabalia, northern Gaza Strip May 21, 2025. (Reuters)

Father of four Mahmoud al-Haw and other Palestinians crowd around a soup kitchen in war-ravaged Gaza, surging forward and frantically waving pots.

Small children, squashed at the front, are in tears. One of them holds up a plastic basin hoping for some ladles of soup. Haw pushes forward in the scrum until he receives his share.

Haw does this every day because he fears his children are starving. He sets out through the ruins of Jabalia in northern Gaza in search of food, waiting in panicked crowds for up to six hours to get barely enough to feed his family.

Some days he gets lucky and can find lentil soup. Other days he returns empty-handed.

"I have a sick daughter. I can't provide her with anything. There is no bread, there is nothing," said Haw, 39.

"I'm here since eight in the morning, just to get one plate for six people while it is not enough for one person."

Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March, prompting international experts to warn of looming famine in the besieged enclave that is home to 2.3 million Palestinians.

Some trucks were allowed to enter Gaza on Monday, after Israel agreed to allow limited humanitarian deliveries to resume following mounting international pressure. But by Tuesday night, the United Nations said no aid had been distributed.

And as well as aid shortages, fighting in Gaza has intensified. Last week the Israeli military announced the start of a major new operation against the Hamas group. Medics in the territory say Israeli strikes have killed more than 500 people in the past eight days.

Israel's stepped-up campaign has strained its relations with much of the world. European countries including France, Germany and Britain have said the situation in Gaza is intolerable, and even the support of its closest ally, the United States, now appears to be wavering.

Israel denies that Gaza is facing a hunger crisis. It has said its blockade is aimed in part at preventing Hamas from diverting and seizing aid supplies. Hamas has denied doing so and accuses Israel of using starvation as a military tactic.

DAILY SEARCH FOR FOOD

Gazans like Haw, living in the epicenter of the war that is now in its 20th month, have no voice in the debate.

Haw's world consists of walking to food kitchens each day, through the destruction wrought by Israeli bombardments in the war that was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, in which gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel's military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 53,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities.

Even before the war - fought intensively around the family home in Jabalia, just north of Gaza City - Haw's family had its struggles. His niece, who lives with them, uses a wheelchair. His daughter has heart disease and bronchial asthma, he says.

Haw climbs the stairs to his one-room apartment, where his children wait, sitting on a mattress. There is no surprise about what he has brought home - soup again.

He puts the soup in small tin bowls and hands them to his four children and his brother's two children.

The children, quiet, eat slowly and carefully.

"Thank God, as you can see, this is breakfast, lunch and dinner, thank God," he said. The day before, he said, his family had had nothing to eat.

"I wish everyone would stand by us. Our children are dying slowly," said Haw.