Palestinians near the Nuseirat refugee camp leave using a coastal road after the Israeli Army urged them to head south, in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Gazans, who have had to load up their lives in search of refuge multiple times throughout the war, were forced to flee yet again last week. Photo / Saher Alghorra, The New York Times
Palestinians near the Nuseirat refugee camp leave using a coastal road after the Israeli Army urged them to head south, in the Gaza Strip. Thousands of Gazans, who have had to load up their lives in search of refuge multiple times throughout the war, were forced to flee yet again last week. Photo / Saher Alghorra, The New York Times
On the coastal road heading south from Gaza City, thousands of people have begun an arduous journey to what they hope will be relative safety.
Israel has told them to flee as it prepares to take over the city.
It is a dangerous journey through stifling heat and batteredlandscapes.
Those who own a car or can afford a taxi are at an advantage.
They cram into beat-up vehicles, some of which are missing windows or windshields.
The booms of Israeli airstrikes are never far away.
Israel has been preparing for weeks to mount a full-scale assault on Gaza City.
Since the beginning of September, about 250,000 people have fled the city, according to an estimate from the Israeli military.
The military has issued an evacuation order telling all residents to seek refuge in the southern Gaza Strip.
Nearly one million people have been sheltering in Gaza City, according to the United Nations.
In August, a UN-backed panel of food security experts said the city was experiencing famine.
Many people in Gaza City have been displaced multiple times during the war, which began after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which saw about 1200 people killed and 250 taken hostage.
Israel responded by waging an unrelenting campaign that, over the past 22 months, has left tens of thousands of people dead in Gaza, destroyed its infrastructure and caused famine in parts of the territory.
After they left the city, Omar al-Far, 37, and his family built their tent next to a landfill.
Mountains of rubbish loom over them.
“You think of going back home to look for stuff, but that could be a fatal mistake,” he said. “And you don’t even know if your house is still standing.”
Al-Far worries about insects, rodents and disease. But he said he could not afford to rent a tiny plot of land somewhere else.
“The rents are unbelievably high,” he said. “We have no money to pay.”
Palestinians leave Gaza City using a coastal road south, in the Gaza Strip. Photo / Saher Alghorra, The New York Times
Palestinians with vehicles load up as much as they can. Photo / Saher Alghorra, The New York Times
Other people, he said, had packed as if they expected to never go back to Gaza City.
“When you leave your home, you will probably not return,” al-Far said. “You need to take any pieces of metal from your home so you can use them later to build a tent.”
Everything about fleeing costs money: transportation, plastic to build a tent, the rent for land to build it on, even a few minutes of access to an electrical outlet.
Many of those sheltering in Gaza City had previously fled from elsewhere.
As the eastern part of the city came under Israeli control in recent weeks, people moved to the coastal west side, in some cases having to pitch their tents right up to the shoreline.
Since the evacuation order, Israeli airstrikes have also hit western areas of Gaza City, and people there have begun to flee down the coastal road.
This month, the military began targeting high-rise buildings in the city that it said were used by Hamas, but the group denied that.
Gaza residents said people lived in these towers. And some said they were struck by the way the collapse of the buildings had remade the skyline.
Israel has portrayed Gaza City as a Hamas stronghold. The military says its expanded assault on the city has not yet formally begun but that it is in control of at least 40% of Gaza City.
For weeks, that has left many in Gaza unsure of what the future holds, and how best to plan for it.
Some parts of Gaza City have already felt the full force of the Israeli military.
One neighbourhood, Zeitoun, has been turned into a barren wasteland in just a few weeks, according to an analysis of satellite images by the New York Times.
Many, if not most, of its buildings have been destroyed, and the tent encampments where displaced people once lived are gone.
Around the city, prominent landmarks have been reduced to rubble.
Health officials do not report death tolls by locality, so it is not clear how many people in Gaza City have died.
But health officials in Gaza have said the war has killed more than 64,000 people, including both civilians and combatants.
Al-Far said the future looked grim. But he said he still dreamed of a time when he could send his children back to their school, “if it still exists”, and “we can live a very simple life”.
“I wish this war would come to an end so I could return to the rubble of my house,” he said. “Or at least my neighbourhood.”
