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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
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Syrian Quake Survivors Shelter in Crumbling Aleppo Homes

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP
Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February. AFP

Sitting by a bed strewn with rubble in Syria's second biggest city, Umm Mounir refuses to leave her home even though the deadly earthquake has torn a gaping hole into the room.

Aleppo, once a major commercial hub, had already been battered by over a decade of war when the 7.8-magnitude quake struck in early February, killing more than 45,000 people across Türkiye and Syria and flattening entire neighborhoods.

The building adjacent to Umm Mounir's collapsed, ripping the rear facade off her own home, but she told AFP that neither natural disasters nor conflict can make her leave.

"Nothing will make me move out of my house except death," said the 55-year-old, who lives by herself on the fourth floor of the heavily damaged seven-story building.

"I will only leave for the grave."

Her city suffered great losses in the February 6 quake that flattened 54 of its buildings and damaged historic sites.

With at least 432 fatalities, Aleppo accounts for nearly a third of all deaths in regime-held parts of Syria, according to state media.

Officials and medics across the war-ravaged country, including in opposition-controlled areas, put the overall Syrian death toll at more than 3,600 people.

"We are people of glory and wealth, but the war changed everything," said Umm Mounir, glancing at the wreckage of her wooden furniture.

"Even in the harshest years of the war we were not displaced," added the woman, whose home in the Masharika neighborhood was near the frontline. "We will not be displaced now."

More than 30 people died in Masharika after the pre-dawn quake brought down two buildings over sleeping residents.

Seemingly incessant aftershocks spooked traumatized survivors, and a 6.4-magnitude tremor on Monday rocked the same areas of Türkiye and Syria.

When the new quake hit, Umm Mounir grabbed her 85-year-old neighbor Amina Raslan, who lives on the first floor, and they rushed out.

"She can't run, so I held her hand and we walked as fast as we could," Umm Mounir said.

Raslan's son, who lives with his mother, said they "got used to the danger because our home used to be on the frontline" where rockets and missiles had rained down.

Puffing a cigarette, 55-year-old Ali al-Bash said he wished they could leave their damaged home, but that "we have nowhere else to go".

Raslan's eyes welled with tears as she recalled the destruction of the home she said her family had lived in for 50 years.

"Everything collapsed," she told AFP as her grandchildren were playing around her.

The family, like many others, did not want to move to a shelter but could not afford to rent a new home, Raslan said.

"I lost two of my children during the war. I don't want to leave my house... I don't want to lose anything else."

Some Aleppo residents, however, have left ravaged homes for tents.

Mohammed Jawish, 63, now lives in a makeshift camp with dozens of families after his building partially collapsed.

"If I still had a house I wouldn't be here," he said, watching his grandchildren -- some of them barefoot in the winter cold -- play with a worn-out football.

Jawish told AFP the quake cost him his belongings and sent him "back to square one".

"My chest feels tight when I'm in this small tent," he said. "I feel I could die from sorrow."

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As Israel Advances in Gaza, Many Exhausted Families Flee Again 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
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As Israel Advances in Gaza, Many Exhausted Families Flee Again 

Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)
Displaced Palestinians arrive in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Sunday, March 23, 2025. (AP)

As Israel orders wide new evacuations across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again. Many are packing a few belongings and trudging off in search of new shelters. Some say they just can’t bear to move.

When ordered out of Jabaliya in northern Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could only grab some food and blankets before making their way south March 19. It was their eighth time fleeing over the past 18 months of war.

"There is no longer any taste to life," said Suliman, a former university professor. "Life and death have become one and the same for us."

Suliman is among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled temporary shelters since Israel shattered a 2-month-old ceasefire on March 18 with renewed bombardment and ground assaults.

Daunted by the notion of starting over, some Palestinians are ignoring the latest evacuation orders — even if it means risking their lives.

"After one year and a half of war that has exhausted everyone, children and their parents, too, are just worn out physically and mentally," said Rosalia Bollen, UNICEF’s communication specialist.

For the past month, Israel has blocked all food, fuel and supplies from entering Gaza, and aid groups say there are no more tents or other shelter supplies to help the newly displaced. On Tuesday, the World Food Program shut down all its bakeries in Gaza, on which hundreds of thousands rely for bread, because it had run out of flour.

Many are fleeing with almost no belongings

Israel’s evacuation orders now cover large swaths of the Gaza Strip, including many areas of Gaza City and towns in the north, parts of the southern city of Khan Younis, and almost the entire southern city of Rafah and its surroundings.

As of March 23, more than 140,000 people had been displaced again since the end of the ceasefire, according to the latest UN estimate — and tens of thousands more are estimated to have fled under evacuation orders over the past week.

Every time families have moved during the war, they have had to leave behind belongings and start nearly from scratch, finding food, water and shelter. Now, with no fuel entering, transportation is even more difficult, so many are fleeing with almost nothing.

"With each displacement, we’re tortured a thousand times," Suliman said. He and his family found an apartment to rent in the central town of Deir al-Balah. He said they’re struggling, with no electricity and little aid. They must walk long distances to find water.

Fleeing from Rafah on Monday, Hanadi Dahoud said she is struggling to find essentials.

"Where do we go?" she said. "We just want to live. We are tired. There are long queues waiting for bread and charity kitchens."

During the two-month ceasefire that began in mid-January, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flowed back to their neighborhoods. Even if their homes were destroyed, they wanted to be near them — sometimes setting up tents on or next to the rubble.

They had hoped it would be the end of their displacement in a war that has driven nearly the entire population of some 2.3 million from their homes.

The war in Gaza began with Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. Since then, Israel's retaliatory offensive has left hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in squalid, crowded tent camps or schools-turned-shelters. Most have had to move multiple times to escape fighting and bombardment.

Shelter is limited

Some shelters are so crowded they have had to turn families away, said Shaina Low, communications adviser at the Norwegian Refugee Council.

Many families are streaming back to Muwasi, a barren coastal stretch of southern Gaza where, before the ceasefire, hundreds of thousands had been packed into tent cities. During the ceasefire, the camps thinned out as people returned to their neighborhoods. Those returning are finding that tents are scarce; aid groups say they have none to give out because of Israel’s blockade.

More than a million people urgently need tents, while thousands of others require plastic sheets and ropes to strengthen fragile makeshift shelters, Gavin Kelleher, NRC’s humanitarian access manager in Gaza, said at a recent media briefing.

For now, people are cramming into tents or moving into destroyed buildings that are in danger of collapse — trying "to put absolutely anything between themselves and the sky at night," Kelleher said.

Relocating and reinstalling health and nutrition facilities amid declining aid supplies has been "absolutely draining" for families and humanitarian workers, UNICEF's Bollen said.

"Our job would be much easier if we had access to our supplies and if we didn’t have to fear for our own lives at every moment," she said.

Khaled Abu Tair led a donkey cart with some bread and blankets as he and his family fled Khan Younis. He said they were heading "God knows where," and would have to set up on the street a makeshift shelter out of sheets.

"We do not have a place, there are no tents, no places to live or shelter, or anything," he said.

Some can’t bear to move

When orders came to evacuate Gaza City’s Tel Hawa district, Sara Hegy and her mother decided to stay. Their original home in the nearby district of Zaytoun is too destroyed to be livable, and Hegy said she was in despair at the thought of starting over again.

"I had a breakdown the day the war resumed. I didn’t leave the house," said Hegy, who had started an online tutoring job a few days before Israel relaunched its assault.

Others dread the evacuation orders that might come.

Noor Abu Mariam said she and her brother and parents have already been displaced 11 times over the course of the war, moving through tent camps and houses around the south, each time starting over in the search for shelter, food and supplies.

Now back in Gaza City, she can’t do it again, she said.

"I refuse to leave the house no matter the circumstances because I am not psychologically prepared to relive those difficult days I lived in the south," she said.