GAZA CITY—Wael al-Masri sits on the rubble of a demolished building watching his teenage sons struggle to secure a plastic sheet to create some kind of meager shelter. Amid Israel’s resumption of its scorched earth campaign that began on March 18, the 52 year-old was forced to flee with his family from Beit Hanoun, on the northeastern edge of Gaza, to Gaza City on March 21.
“We used to live safely in our home, and now we live on top of the rubble of destroyed houses. No electricity, no water, not even a private bathroom,” al-Masri told Drop Site News.
Over the past week, the streets of Gaza City’s western neighborhoods have been transformed into a densely crowded maze of tents, with laundry lines criss-crossing between them and the cacophony of children’s voices filling the air. Over 142,000 people were newly displaced across Gaza, according to the United Nations, between March 18 and 23. Many are now living on the streets and in desperate need of food, drinking water, and basic shelter.
Wael’s wife, Samar, sat in front of their tent, trying to light a small pile of firewood to cook leftover rice given to her by a neighboring family. “We sleep on the ground, with no mattresses or blankets. When it rains, the tent floods,” she said as she struggled to light the fire. “We have nothing to cover the children with except our old clothes.”
She pointed to the sewage water spreading into the streets and around the tents as a result of Israel’s systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure. “The foul smell is suffocating us,” she said. “We just want to feel human—to drink clean water, to let our children sleep with full stomachs. Is that too much to ask?”
The Israeli military has killed over 830 Palestinians in Gaza since March 18, including more than 320 children, according to the ministry of health. The governorate of Gaza, where Gaza City is located, has seen the highest number of casualties—over 250 dead and nearly 500 injured.
Along with the aerial bombardment and shelling, the Israeli military has issued new displacement orders in areas across Gaza—including in Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, Rafah, and Jabaliya—covering a total of 55 square kilometres, or 15 percent of the Gaza Strip, according to the UN.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military issued new orders for people to flee several neighborhoods in Gaza City, including Zeitoun al-Gharbi, Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin—immediately south of the neighborhoods to which the al-Masri family and thousands of others were recently displaced….
Source: Drop Site
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