Displaced repeatedly. Forced to live in tent camps or amid the ruins of their homes. Stricken by hunger and deprived of medical supplies.
Now, 22 months into the war, around 1 million Palestinians are bracing for another catastrophe after the Israeli security cabinet’s decision to take control of Gaza City. Such an offensive would force them toward the south of the territory, and an uncertain future.
An aerial image shows smoke rising above Gaza City during an aid airdrop on Thursday.
“Since this morning, after hearing the news of evacuation of Gaza City, I have been feeling anxious and afraid,” said Umm Ibrahim Banat, a 55-year-old mother originally from northern Gaza, who has already been displaced four times. “Where will we go with the children and the elderly? I swear we are exhausted from displacement, starvation, and being driven from one place to another.”
“Now,” she said, “We are the walking dead.”
After a 10-hour overnight meeting, the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced on Friday that his security cabinet had approved a plan to take over Gaza City, marking another escalation of Israel’s offensive that has killed at least 61,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.