Letter from Gaza: The Nakba We Are Living Through

DEIR AL-BALAH, GAZA STRIP—The genocide in Gaza is fast approaching 20 months since it began. My family and I have been displaced from our home in the Jabaliya refugee camp several times, but this is the first time we were forced to leave the north and flee south to Deir al-Balah, from where I am writing to you.

Living in Jabaliya had become impossible. By stripping us of our health and money, ongoing displacement has forced changes on us: from being a proud family to one that lives in humiliation. We were pushed south last month, during Israel’s fourth invasion of Jabaliya in mid-May. In preparation for yet another ground invasion, the Israeli military started pounding Jabaliya with airstrikes, leveling buildings to the ground. Israeli troops began advancing from the north and the east, getting closer every day.

I started looking for a home to rent in western Gaza City, where it was somewhat safer and where we could find some kind of shelter. On May 20, while returning from that search, my father called me in a panic to say a quadcopter was firing heavily at our home in the western Jabaliya camp. Our time was up. We had to flee. So we decided to spend the night at my brother’s burned down house in central Jabaliya.