GAZA: Om Mohammed Mahani, a Palestinian woman from Gaza, finally reached the Rafah city at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, her fifth temporary shelter after the Hamas-Israel conflict broke out two months ago.
“The Israeli army forced us to displace five times, from my house in Gaza City to Dier al-Balah City in the center of the strip, and to eastern Khan Younis, and then to the western Khan Younis until reaching Rafah,” the 52-year-old mother of seven complained to Xinhua.
During her displacement journey, Mahani lost her husband, three sons, two daughters, and ten of her grandchildren in an Israeli attack targeting their residential block in Khan Younis city a few days ago.
“Each time we reached a place, we thought it would be safe, but every time, we found that we were stuck in another dangerous place as the Israeli army attacked the nearby places,” she recalled. “I lost everything,” she added.
Since the Israeli army started its ground operation in Khan Younis city a few days ago, Rafah city has become the last refuge for dozens of thousands under the ongoing Israeli attacks.
Amid the lack of accommodations, thousands of families were forced to establish tents in streets, schools, and open areas without necessary housing requirements.
“No water, no food, no electricity, and no bathrooms,” Mahani complained.
Ibrahim al-Sawwaf, a Khan Younis-based Palestinian man, was busy establishing a tent for his 20-member family in Rafah.
The 56-year-old father of six told Xinhua that he came to Rafah after exhausting all his means to find suitable accommodation for his family.
“The Israeli army sent us from one dangerous place to another without caring about our suffering at all. There are no safe places in Gaza,” he said.
As more and more people flock to Rafah, the shelters available now cannot meet the surging demand, said the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), forcing most of the newly arrived to settle on the streets without a shelter.
It is estimated that about 1.9 million people in Gaza, or approximately 85 percent of the population, have become internally displaced.
Since Oct. 7, Israel has been launching a large-scale attack against Hamas in Gaza to retaliate against a surprise Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 in Israel. The conflict so far has left 17,487 Palestinians dead, and more than 46,000 injured, said the Gaza-based Health Ministry on Friday.
