Homeless in Gaza: Wandering the Land Amid Displacement and Death

After 600 days of genocide, the inspiration behind Gaza's Great March of Return describes his struggle to survive Israel’s campaign of annihilation.

Palestinians return to their destroyed homes in the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on February 25, 2025.

I found myself homeless early in this war. It had only been 17 days since Israel launched its genocidal campaign against the Gaza Strip when Israeli warplanes bombed my family’s home west of Rafah. Six members of my family were killed in that strike, including my eldest son Abdullah. The rest of us, including myself, were wounded. The house, of course, was destroyed.

I spent two weeks recovering in a hospital bed. When the doctors eventually discharged me to make room for new casualties, I had nowhere to go—especially given my fragile health and the fact that my family had traveled abroad for treatment.

At that moment, some journalist friends who had pitched a tent next to the hospital wall—because their work required them to stay close—took me in. These amazing friends gave me a mattress and a blanket in their crowded tent, which housed more than ten journalists at night and was visited by over 30 during the day. Even in such conditions, the tent felt like a precious asset not to be given up.

When I left the tent to go to the burns unit for treatment, I would see thousands of displaced people occupying every possible space in the hospital—hallways, stairwells—spreading out whatever bedding or blankets they had. These thousands had been forced to flee areas near the border fence or they were from northern Gaza, where the Israeli army had intensified its massacres to pressure residents to move south. At first, people thought hospitals, schools and international organization buildings would be safe zones, protected under humanitarian law. That belief led to these places growing extremely overcrowded.

When the first temporary truce occurred at the end of November 2023, I left the journalists' tent and went south to Rafah, where my extended family was all crammed into a small two-room apartment. My brother had rented it just days before the war. After our family home—three stories housing four families—was destroyed, this tiny apartment was the only refuge we had left.

I stayed with them during the brief truce, which lasted no more than seven days. When the Israeli army resumed its assault, I chose to leave. Journalists and activists, like myself, were being targeted at an alarming rate, so I felt it safer to distance myself from my family.

A friend in west Rafah contacted me and offered to host me in his home. I thanked him and accepted. I stayed with him for three full months. During that time, the Israeli army launched a ground invasion of nearby Khan Younis, cutting off access to my own apartment in the north of the city—a beautiful space I once called home.

Mass displacement

The destruction and consequent mass displacement from Khan Younis toward Rafah intensified pressure and overcrowding. According to press estimates, Rafah’s population swelled to 1.3 million—five times its normal population.

As the ground operation in Khan Younis neared its end, Israeli leaders began escalating threats to invade Rafah. On the few occasions I saw my family, my father spoke of my apartment in Khan Younis as the last refuge if these threats materialized. We all clung to this hope: at least we had one place left.

But in the final days of the Khan Younis operation, Israeli tanks stormed the neighbourhood where my apartment was. They blew up dozens of buildings, including the building that housed my apartment—and 21 other flats. The apartment of course was destroyed. That hope of a last refuge was now gone. My entire family and I were now without any home.

The world issued many warnings against an invasion of Radah, including from the Biden administration. But Israel carried out an elaborate deception in the media to justify annihilating an entire city and displacing all its residents. It began with a supposed "limited operation" in the east of Rafah. Arabic-speaking military spokespeople ordered eastern residents to evacuate. People fled under threat. Then Israel expanded the evacuation to the city center and then to the west. In a few days, the entire city was emptied.

People fled the city to escape death. They left their homes, possessions and lands, carrying only basic utensils and whatever tents or covers they could find. Hundreds of thousands crowded into northern Rafah and the outskirts of Khan Younis—rural, undeveloped lands lacking infrastructure for the provision of basic living conditions.

I headed to Deir al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, carrying a light blanket, my laptop bag, and a wallet. I had no fixed destination, but being alone—without family—meant I had more freedom and fewer burdens.

Upon arrival, I found a tent housing journalists who had been displaced from northern Gaza over six months earlier. They had lost all contact with their families in Gaza City and had been living in that tent since. It was a cramped space with five journalists living there. I asked to store my things in a corner so I could roam the streets and perhaps find a place to stay.

Learning to sleep

While wandering the street, unsure where I’d sleep that night, a young man stopped me—it was Salim, the son of a friend from Gaza City. He said he was living in a mosque with about a hundred other displaced people and offered to help me find a space there.

I had no other option, so I accepted. That first night, I struggled with noise and a lack of privacy. But I had no choice. I forced myself to adapt. Maybe due to exhaustion and lack of sleep, I learned to fall asleep even with all the noise.

I would cover my entire face with my blanket and tell myself with bitter humor: before the war, my private space was a whole apartment—now it’s just the ability to cover my eyes and block out the world.

Another discomfort was the danger. Mosques were frequent targets in this war—most had been destroyed. At any moment, the mosque could be bombed. I decided to leave the first chance I could.

Ten days later, I ran into my friend Khaled. He asked where I was staying. I told him I didn’t have a stable place. He invited me to stay in a tent on his land, where he and his wife were sleeping while two displaced friends from Gaza City lived in another. I could join the friends as a third person in their tent.

I thanked him and accepted. Five months after I left the mosque, it was bombed, killing over 20 displaced people inside.

With Khaled, I finally felt some relative comfort. The space was wider, quieter, and I had good company. Khaled was cheerful and lightened the weight of our situation with his humor. Every day, he would buy us watermelon and ice cream—even though the price of watermelon had quintupled during the war. He was incredibly generous.

Losing hope

Displacement robs you of any sense of psychological stability. You are always anxious. Tents are crammed together, separated only by fabric walls. Every day, you hear arguments—between spouses, neighbours, or mothers and children. The immense pressure people face makes tempers flare for even the smallest reasons. You feel ashamed hearing others private struggles, but you have no choice.

Food was scarce. Most relied on charity kitchens set up by activists or groups like World Central Kitchen. People had to wait in long lines just to get a plate of food.

Water was also a major issue. People queued for hours to fill jugs for drinking or washing. Children were forced to carry loads far too heavy for their small bodies over long distances.

In displacement, even the simplest rights become daily battles. There were no proper places to bathe. I was lucky—an old friend in Deir al-Balah, whose house had survived, offered to let me come once or twice a week to use his shower. I told him, “These days, being able to shower feels like a luxury.”

Three months later, Khaled was killed in an Israeli airstrike while walking down the street. In normal times, such a shock would bring long grief, but in this era of genocide, events move too fast for us to even mourn properly.

Days later after my friend was killed, I left and moved to Khan Younis, staying with a friend in a a still-standing apartment. I stayed there another three months. Then I moved to another friend’s tent in a different part of Khan Younis, stayed for a month, then returned to Deir al-Balah to another tent.

Back and forth between Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah—no stable home. Everything in constant flux, living with the constant feeling that you may be forced to move again at any moment.

What makes displacement even more tragic is the severing of any path back. At first, we fled our homes hoping the war would end in weeks or months and we’d return. But with our homes destroyed, there is no going back. Gaza’s people are now living day to day just to escape death. They see no future. They’ve lost everything—their homes, their property, and their hope.