With weeks of Israeli bombardment leaving Palestinians with no other place to go, hundreds of Palestinians flocked to a Gaza prison formerly built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmin al-Dardasi said she and her family passed wounded people they could not help as they walked through a district in the southern city of Khan Younis to the Central Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre.
He spent a day under the tree and then moved to the former prison, where he now lives in a prayer room. It offers protection from the scorching sun, but nothing more.
Dardasi’s husband has a damaged kidney and a lung, but they have no mattress or blanket.
“We are not settled here either,” said Dardasi, who, like many Palestinians, fears they will be uprooted once again.
Israel has said it is doing everything possible to protect civilians in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas, which rules Gaza and led attacks on Israel on October 7, which triggered the latest conflict.
Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times, say no place is untouched by Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
At least 90 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a designated humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area on July 13, the Israeli Health Ministry reported. According to Israel, the attack targeted Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif.
On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said 14 people were killed in Israeli military attacks on areas in eastern Khan Younis.
Entire neighbourhoods have been destroyed in one of the world’s most densely populated places, where poverty and unemployment have long been rampant.
According to the United Nations, nine out of ten people in Gaza are now internally displaced.
He said Israeli soldiers told Sariya Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee to a safe location because tanks were headed their way. The family did not have time to change so they left in their prayer clothes.
After sleeping outside on the sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, amid piles of rubble and large holes in the buildings left by the battles fought there. The prisoners had been released long before Israel’s attack.
“We didn’t bring anything with us. We came here on foot and had children with us,” she said, adding that many women had five or six children with them and it was hard to get water.
She was holding her niece, who was born during the conflict in which her father and brother were killed.
According to Israeli figures, when Hamas-led gunmen crossed into southern Israel from Gaza on October 7 they killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage.
Palestinian health officials say more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli retaliatory air and ground strikes.
Hana al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.
If mediators from Egypt, the United States and Qatar fail to secure a ceasefire, which he has long called for, he and other Palestinians could resort to agitation again. “Where should we go? All the places we go to are dangerous,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
