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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
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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.

 

 

 

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This Ramadan, Relief and Hope Bump against Uncertainty in the New Syria

Residents walk in the market on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, in Damascus, Syria, Saturday March 1, 2025.(AP)
Residents walk in the market on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, in Damascus, Syria, Saturday March 1, 2025.(AP)
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This Ramadan, Relief and Hope Bump against Uncertainty in the New Syria

Residents walk in the market on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, in Damascus, Syria, Saturday March 1, 2025.(AP)
Residents walk in the market on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, in Damascus, Syria, Saturday March 1, 2025.(AP)

Sahar Diab had visited Damascus’ famed Umayyad Mosque previously. But as the Syrian lawyer went there to pray during her country’s first Ramadan after the end of the Assad family’s iron-fisted rule, she felt something new, something priceless: A sense of ease.

“The rituals have become much more beautiful,” she said. “Before, we were restricted in what we could say. ... Now, there’s freedom.”

As Diab spoke recently, however, details were trickling in from outside Damascus about deadly clashes. The bloodshed took on sectarian overtones and devolved into the worst violence since former President Bashar Assad was overthrown in December by armed insurgents led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

This Ramadan — the Muslim holy month of daily fasting and heightened worship — such are the realities of a Syria undergoing complex transition. Relief, hope and joy at new openings — after 53 years of the Assad dynasty’s reign, prolonged civil war and crushing economic woes — intermingle with uncertainty, fear by some, and a particularly bloody and worrisome wave of violence.

Some are feeling empowered, others vulnerable.

“We’re not afraid of anything,” Diab said. She wants her country to be rebuilt and to get rid of Assad-era “corruption and bribery.”

At the Umayyad Mosque, the rituals were age-old: A woman fingering a prayer bead and kissing a copy of the Quran; the faithful standing shoulder-to-shoulder and prostrating in prayer; the Umayyad’s iconic and unusual group call to prayer, recited by several people.

Muslim worshippers pray during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, Syria, Friday March 7, 2025. (AP)

The sermon, by contrast, was fiery in delivery and new in message.

The speaker, often interrupted by loud chants of “God is great,” railed against Assad and hailed the uprising against him.

“Our revolution is not a sectarian revolution even though we’d been slaughtered by the sword of sectarianism,” he said.

This Ramadan, Syrians marked the 14th anniversary of the start of their country’s civil war. The conflict began as a peaceful revolt against the regime, before Assad crushed the protests and a civil war erupted.

It became increasingly fought along sectarian lines, drawing in foreign powers and fighters. Assad, who had ruled over a majority Sunni population, belongs to the minority Alawite sect and had drawn from Alawite ranks for military and security positions, fueling resentment. That, Alawites say now, shouldn’t mean collective blame for his actions.

Many Syrians speak of omnipresent fear under Assad, often citing the Arabic saying, “the walls have ears,” reflecting that speaking up even privately didn’t feel safe. They talk of hardships, injustices and brutality. Now, for example, many celebrate freedom from dreaded Assad-era checkpoints.

“They would harass us,” said Ahmed Saad Aldeen, who came to the Umayyad Mosque from the city of Homs. “You go out ... and you don’t know whether you’ll return home or not.”

He said more than a dozen cousins are missing; a search for them in prisons proved futile.

Mohammed Qudmani said even going to the mosque caused anxiety for some before, for fear of getting on security forces’ radar screen or being labeled a “terrorist.”

Now, Damascus streets are bedecked with the new three-starred flag, not long ago a symbol of Assad's opponents. It flutters from poles and is plastered to walls, sometimes with the words “God is great” handwritten on it.

One billboard declares this the “Ramadan of victory.” On a government building, the faces of former presidents Bashar and Hafez al-Assad are partly cut off from a painting; in their place, “Freedom” is scribbled in Arabic.

Haidar Haidar, who owns a sweets shop, said he was touched that new security force members gave him water and dates while he was out when a call to prayer signaled that those fasting can eat and drink.

“We never saw such things here,” he said, adding that he used to recite Quranic verses for protection before passing through Assad’s checkpoints.

He said his business was doing well this Ramadan and ingredients have become more available.

A boy buys sweets on the first day of Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims, in Damascus, Syria, Saturday March 1, 2025.(AP)

Still, challenges — economic, geopolitical and otherwise — abound.

Many dream of a new Syria, but exactly how that would look remains uncertain.

“The situation is foggy,” said Damascus resident Wassim Bassimah. “Of course, there’s great joy that we’ve gotten rid of the cancer we had, but there’s also a lot of wariness.”

Syrians, he added, must be mindful to protect their country from sliding back into civil war and should maintain a dialogue that is inclusive of all.

“The external enemies are still there,” he said. “So are the enemies from within.”

The war’s scars are inescapable.

Just outside of Damascus, death and destruction are seared into some landscapes littered with pockmarked and ruined structures. Many Syrians grieve the missing and killed; many families have been divided by the exodus of millions as refugees.

Ramadan typically sees festive gatherings with loved ones to break the daily fast. Some Syrians huddle around food and juices at restaurants or throng to Ramadan tents to break their fast and smoke waterpipes as they listen to songs.

But this month’s violence in Syria’s coastal region has stoked fears among some.

The bloodshed began after reports of attacks by Assad loyalists on government security forces. Human rights and monitoring groups reported revenge killings in the counteroffensive, which they said saw the involvement of multiple groups. According to them, hundreds of civilians, or more, were killed; figures couldn't be independently confirmed. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the killed civilians were Alawites in addition to a number of armed Alawites and security forces. Syrian authorities have formed a committee tasked with investigating the violence.

Even before the bloodshed, while many celebrated the new government, others questioned what the ascent of the former opposition forces would mean for freedoms, including of minorities and of those in the majority who are secular-minded or adhere to less conservative interpretations of Islam. The new authorities have made assurances about pluralism.

Sheikh Adham al-Khatib, a representative of Twelver Shiites in Syria, said many from the Shiite minority felt scared after Assad’s ouster and some fled the country. Some later returned, encouraged by a relative calm and the new authorities’ reassurances, he said, but the recent violence and some “individual transgressions" have rekindled fears.