Mohammad Atteya has been separated from his family in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya for two weeks since being evacuated to hospital with a head wound.
Now, he is torn by regret for leaving them in the epicentre of a massive Israeli military assault.
“They speak to me about their nights of horror, they tell me how every night they pray for their safety and they bid one another farewell. Hell is boiling there, I feel it inside my chest. I wish I hadn’t left,” he said.
While he waits in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, only a few kilometres from home but unable to return, 23 members of his extended family are sheltering in one house with barely enough to eat.
“They are eating what is left of some canned food, no fresh vegetables or fruit, no meat or chicken and no clean water,” he said.
In the month since Israel launched a renewed campaign in the border town of Beit Lahiya, one of the first targets of last year’s ground assault, strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians.
People in northern Gaza were calling for more help on Tuesday after a deadly Israeli airstrike on a building in Beit Lahiya, which witnesses said was sheltering displaced people, including women and children. (Warning: This video contains images showing covered bodies and an injured person.)
A hit on a residential building on Oct. 29 killed at least 93 people, health officials said. Israel’s military said it was targeting a spotter on the roof.
Thousands of Palestinians have been evacuated from Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, as the Israeli military roots out bands of Hamas fighters still operating from among the rubble.
The area has been cut off from Gaza City to the south, communication has been patchy, supplies of food are dwindling and the price of whatever is available has reached exorbitant levels.
It is unclear how many civilians remain in northern Gaza. The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service estimated 100,000 people remain in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, about half the number of people there at the start of the new Israeli campaign on Oct. 5.
The repeated bombardments have destroyed shelters and those remaining are huddled together in whatever structures still stand. “That is why every Israeli hit on a house leads to dozens of casualties,” said Atteya.
The Israeli military has disputed some of the casualty figures reported by Palestinian officials. Top United Nations officials say the situation in northern Gaza is “apocalyptic,” with the entire population at imminent risk of death.
IDF says north incursion expected to last ‘few’ more weeks
More than a year into the war in Gaza, the Israeli military believes Hamas — who led the attacks on communities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages — has been depleted but not extinguished.
“We expect this campaign to last an additional few weeks at least. There is a lot of work to do there in order to dismantle Hamas’s capabilities in this region,” an Israeli military official said last week.
The army says it has killed or captured hundreds of Hamas fighters during the northern Gaza operation, and at least 17 Israeli soldiers have been killed in gun battles and ambushes in the wrecked streets or bombed-out buildings.
On Tuesday, Hamas’s armed wing said fighters in Jabalia had killed five Israeli soldiers at point-blank range a day earlier, in one of several such announcements the group has made in past weeks. The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Access for reporters is restricted and communications are erratic, making independent verification of what is happening on the ground difficult.
Israel accuses Hamas fighters of hiding among civilians. In a night-time raid on the Kamal Adwan Hospital, one of the health facilities struggling to operate in the north, an Israeli military official said around 100 Hamas fighters were captured, some posing as medical staff, along with weapons and ammunition.
Evacuation is ‘worst feeling ever,’ says Palestinian
Hamas rejected the accusations. Eid Sabbah, the hospital’s director of nursing, described a terrifying raid in a voice note to Reuters. “The terrorizing of civilians, the injured and children began as they [the Israeli army] started opening fire on the hospital,” he said.
In advance of attacks, the Israeli military sends out evacuation orders to civilians in leaflet drops and targeted telephone calls.
“Evacuation is the worst feeling ever,” Atteya said. “You are told to run for your life, you try to ask the voice [Israeli caller], how much time do I have, he says ‘run.’ What can you take with you when you go running?”
WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday achieving an initial target of vaccinating roughly 119,000 children in Gaza against polio is “unlikely,” after it was announced the same day that the third phase of the vaccination campaign will pick back up Saturday. The second phase of the rollout was derailed by Israeli bombardments and the complications of mass displacement.
A public servant, Atteya had dreams for his children, aged between two and 15, in Hamas-run Gaza before the war, which health officials in Gaza say has killed more than 43,300 Palestinians.
“I don’t say the Hamas government was ideal. They couldn’t improve economic conditions,” he said. “We had a life, a good one, not good enough, but we didn’t have the [Israeli] occupation’s killing machine tearing us up every day.”
The future is hard for Atteya to envisage. Many Palestinians believe the Israeli campaign is aimed at preparing the way for a return of Israeli settlers to postwar Gaza.
“They are making buffer zones, that’s why they are demolishing and bombing residential districts, and some of their fanatics want to return settlers in Gaza. This is how bad the situation is,” he said.
The Israeli military denies such plans and says the evacuation orders are meant to keep civilians out of harm’s way.
According to recent polls, 66 per cent of Israelis would prefer to see Donald Trump win the U.S. election, while only 17 per cent want Kamala Harris to win. The relationship between U.S. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been tense, strained over the latter’s handling of the war in Gaza and the conflict with Hezbollah.