MUWASI, Gaza Strip — On his keychain, Hassan Nofal keeps the keys to two houses. One is to his grandparents’ house in what is now southern Israel, where, according to him, his family was. expelled by Israeli forces in 1948 and to which they have never been able to return.
The other is to Nofal’s home in northern Gaza from which he had to flee last year after Israel launched its bombing campaign and offensives in the territory.
In the nearly nine months since then, Nofal and his family have been uprooted four times, forced to travel back and forth across the Gaza Strip to escape the attack. Nofal said he is determined to make sure his key doesn’t become a keepsake like his grandparents’.
“If my house key becomes just a memory as I move on, then I don’t want to live anymore,” he said. “I must return home… I want to stay in Gaza and settle in Gaza with my children in our house.”
Israel has said Palestinians will eventually be allowed to return to their homes in Gaza, but it is unclear when. Many houses have been destroyed or severely damaged.
Israel’s attack on Gaza sparked by the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, has driven some 1.9 million of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the territory before the war from their homes. Most of them have been uprooted repeatedly since then, fleeing again and again along the strip to escape a series of ground offensives.
Each time it has meant a painful move to a new location and a series of overcrowded temporary shelters, whether in extended family homes, UN schools or tent camps. Along the way, families have struggled to stay together and hold on to some possessions. At each new location, they must find new sources of food, water and medical treatment.
In the last exodus, people have been escaping eastern districts of the southern city of Khan Younis after Israel ordered an evacuation there. Nearly all of Gaza’s population is now crammed into an Israeli-declared “humanitarian safe zone” covering about 60 square kilometers (23 square miles) on the Mediterranean coast, centered on an arid rural area called Muwasi.
Despite its name, Israel has carried out deadly airstrikes in the “safe zone.” Conditions are miserable in the sprawling camps of ramshackle tents set up by the displaced: mostly plastic sheets and blankets propped up on sticks. Without sanitation systems, families live next to open sewage ponds and have little access to clean water or humanitarian aid.
Nofal, a 53-year-old Palestinian Authority employee, said he, his wife and six children fled their home in the northern Jabaliya refugee camp in October. They first went to the central city of Deir al-Balah, then to Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza. They had to flee again when Israel launched an offensive there in May and moved into Khan Younis. Last week they fled Khan Younis to a tent in Muwasi.
“Being moved to a new place, it is difficult to deal with insects and live in sandy soil,” he said. “We get sick because it’s hot during the day and a little cold at night.”
But the first step, leaving his home in Jabaliya, was the most difficult, he said. He held up his keychain with the keys to his house and his grandparents’ house in what was once the Palestinian village of Hulayqat, on the outskirts of present-day Gaza. Nothing remains of Huylaqat: the precursor of the Israeli army seized the village and nearby ones in early 1948, expelling the inhabitants.
Those old keys are prized possessions for the descendants of Palestinians who were expelled or fled during the conflict surrounding the creation of Israel. Many in Gaza fear that, like the last war, they will not be allowed to return to their homes after this one.
Ola Nassar also keeps the keys to his house in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahiya. For her they symbolize “security, stability, freedom. It’s like my identity.”
His family had just moved into the house with a newly renovated kitchen when the Gaza war began. He has now been badly burned, along with the clothes and decorations he had to leave behind when they fled in October. She misses a precious set of dishes that was a gift from his brother and that was shattered during an air raid.
She, her husband and three children have been displaced seven times during the war, fleeing from city to city. From Rafah they reached their current shelter: a tent in Muwasi.
“Every displacement we suffered was difficult because it takes time to face it. And when we manage we will have to move again,” she said. Finding food was often difficult due to rising prices. “There were days when we only ate one meal,” she said.
When they ran out of their homes, many left almost everything and took only the essentials. Nour Mahdi said he only took the keys to his house, the deed to his apartment to prove ownership and a photo album of his seven children. Later, the album was ruined by rain, so he said that he used it as firewood for cooking.
“This was very difficult because it was very important to me because it contained memories of my children,” she said.
Omar Fayad kept a photograph of his daughter and one of himself when he was 10 years old. But after multiple moves, “each place worse than the other,” he wishes he had never left his house. “It would have been better for me if I had stayed at home there and died,” the 57-year-old said. he said, longing for his home in Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.
Hamas militants who attacked southern Israel on October 7 killed about 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Israel’s response has killed more than 38,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which Does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in their count.
Muhammed al-Ashqar, also from Beit Lahiya, said he has been displaced six times with his four daughters, four sons and his grandchildren.
Along the way, the family was separated. Al-Ashqar’s brother stayed in the north because his wife was pregnant and she was not healthy enough to move. Shortly afterward, shrapnel from an air raid hit her head and killed her, but her baby was saved.
One of al-Ashqar’s sons went to the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza to stay at his wife’s family home. The son was cooking in the kitchen one day when an airstrike hit the house, killing his wife and four of his children in the living room. The son’s leg was amputated and two of his surviving children now live with al-Ashqar. Another son was killed in another attack in Nuseirat.
After all, it’s not possessions that the 63-year-old misses.
“There’s nothing to cry about after leaving everything behind and seeing all these dead people and all this suffering.”
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Khaled reported from Cairo. Associated Press correspondent Wafaa Shurafa in Muwasi, Gaza Strip, contributed to this report.
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