Khan Younes, Gaza – To pick up a weak data signal for his phone, Hussein Owda had to stand a little too close to a group of women and girls waiting in line for their turn to use the shared restroom.
The wait for the toilet can take hours some days, Owda told Tel Aviv Tribune via message, but the reward is worth it.
The media producer for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had just returned to his agency’s training center – where he and his family are staying – after spending a week in care intensive care units at Nasser Hospital with his father, who had suffered a serious heart attack.
“I had a horrible week,” Owda said. “You know the horrible situation we live in and the collapse of health services. After a week in the hospital, I needed to shower and shave, and it became quite a mission.
“I started in the morning and now it’s 3 p.m. I had to find the water, then light a fire to warm it, then wait in line for my turn. But you know what? It’s worth it. It’s one of those things we weren’t grateful enough for before this war.
“A return to primitive life”
Owda and her family live among the thousands who have fled to Khan Younis from the north and surrounding towns as Israeli aerial bombardments and ground operations have pushed them into an ever-shrinking area.
Her daughter Lin is eight years old, her son Mahmoud is six and her youngest is Zein, a 16-month-old boy.
At the Khan Younis training center, families are divided: women, girls of all ages and young children sleep inside while men and older boys sleep outside.
“Life is pretty basic here,” Owda said. “We make wood fires so we can cook, sleep outside, travel on donkeys. It’s like we’re going back in time to a primitive way of life.
“But in a primitive life, one would expect to have some privacy or even enough space to lie on the ground and sleep, but that is not the case in this primitive life.”
Owda spent nearly two months sleeping in his car which, he pointed out wryly, did not have all its windows. For most of those 58 days, he was fine. But once the rains started, he had to scramble to find enough large trash bags to cover the gaping sides of the car.
Some moments of this displaced life frustrate him, like having to wait in line every time he or one of the children needs to go to the bathroom.
“It’s a little humiliating and frustrating, yes… but to the point where you might as well laugh about it because there’s nothing else to do.”
Joy and sorrow
For someone who lost his brand-new apartment the day he and his family moved in, Owda remains in good spirits.
“For the past eight years, I have poured my heart and soul into one dream: the dream of building my own apartment in my family’s apartment building,” he said. “My wife and I happily completed the kitchen…and welcomed…a fridge, an oven and a washing machine. »
But the family moved in on October 7, 2023, a Saturday. Before the day was over, bombs fell on their neighborhood, al-Karama, and their new home was damaged.
They ran to her in-laws’ house, hoping to be safe there for a while. It was then that Owda received his first tragic news: his best friend had been killed by an Israeli bombing, along with his entire family.
On October 13, the family was on their way south. One night, while on the road, they settled down to sleep as best they could and Owda began talking to his eldest, his daughter Lin.
Adopting a faux-serious voice, he asked her what she thought of the family’s camping trip and listened to him so seriously that she responded flatly that it definitely wasn’t camping.
“Baba, this isn’t camping, absolutely not,” she said from her perch on a table where she and Mahmoud were sitting. as the constant buzz of Israeli drones filled the night sky. “Look, there’s no nice forest around us, we don’t have a tent, we don’t have flashlights. That’s not how it happens.
“We don’t have a campfire for light or to roast marshmallows,” she concluded, lowering her head so her face was level with her father’s and the phone he was holding. to record their conversation so he can watch it again.
Lose all feeling
At the start of their trip, Owda said, Lin, Mahmoud and Zein were terrified by the sound of bombs and planes flying overhead, but now they don’t seem to react as much.
“Actually, no one really seems to react much, everything has become normal, what we are experiencing. No one can think about the future or even what they want to do tomorrow. We are all in survival mode,” Owda said.
“I cried easily,” he continued. “If I saw a sad child or any other touching moment, I would cry. But I haven’t shed a single tear since this war started.
“We lost our home, I lost 11 members of my extended family, I live this humiliating life that is the furthest thing imaginable from what ‘life’ should be like.
“But I guess if we want to see the glass half full, I would have to say that I lost 20 kg (44 lbs) without a special diet.”
“I’m not hit as hard.”
Owda’s work involves producing media reports for UNRWA, highlighting the plight of other displaced Palestinians and their suffering in light of the lack of security, shelter, food, water and health care. health.
As such, he is always talking to others, framing their lives and trying to capture everything they experience in a few hundred words and a few photos. And what he saw had a profound impact on him.
“Look, I’m not that bad, you know,” he said. “I’m still paid, we can manage. If my kids need fresh fruit, I can afford to pay the insane $30 per apple that is being charged these days.
“So many people around me that I talk to don’t have money. The hunger and despair here is deep and abject. Imagine someone who works for the government or as a day laborer. Imagine what kind of futility they live in.