At the beginning of November, an Israeli bomb disrupted the life of Mona Abdel Raheem in Gaza.
The explosion destroyed her house and killed her neighbor in Jabalia, a densely populated refugee camp in the north of the enclave. Abdel Raheem had no choice but to flee south with her husband, sisters and grandchildren.
They were among 1.1 million Palestinians who obeyed Israel’s order to evacuate northern Gaza, an order that could amount to a forcible transfer of a population, constituting a war crime.
“We left and didn’t have time to take anything home. Everything around us has been destroyed,” Abdel Raheem, 63, told Tel Aviv Tribune from Rafah, a town in the southern Gaza Strip.
Abdel Raheem has lived through several wars, but none have been as devastating as Israel’s current offensive against Gaza. UN experts, rights groups and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) have all warned that Palestinians in Gaza face a real risk of genocide unless Israel ends its attacks against them.
Since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 240 taken captive in Gaza, Israel has responded by punishing the entire population of Gaza, according to experts and Palestinians.
Abdel Raheem recalled his exodus from northern Gaza as well as the death of his loved ones killed by Israeli bombings, which razed almost everything in the besieged enclave.
“The (Israeli) occupying forces bear responsibility for the destruction of all our homes and trees and the murder of our children,” Abdel Raheem told Tel Aviv Tribune. “Why does no Arab or European country care about the Palestinian people? Palestine is being destroyed.
Another Nakba?
Abdel Raheem was not yet born when 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homeland to enable the creation of Israel in 1948 – an event called in Arabic the Nakba, or catastrophe. But, like all Palestinians, she grew up discovering the Nakba and always yearned to return to her family’s village.
She never imagined that she would experience another mass exodus. But as she fled Jabalia, Abdel Raheem felt history repeating itself.
She remembers walking in humiliation with hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – men, women and children – in front of Israeli soldiers. Along the way, she saw dozens of bodies rotting on the road after being killed by Israeli bombing.
Hundreds of people were also arrested at each Israeli checkpoint. The perilous journey lasted for days.
“While we were walking, people were killed by Israeli warplanes,” Abdel Raheem said. “They were being killed right in front of us.”
The expulsion of Palestinians from northern Gaza is the latest chapter in Palestinian dispossession, according to Shatha Abdulsamad, an expert on Palestinian refugees at Al-Shabaka, a Palestinian think tank.
“I think the Israelis are trying to finish the job they started during the Nakba in 1948. What we are seeing in Gaza is no exception. The only exception is that the scale of the destruction is unprecedented,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
Killing aid workers
On November 24, Abdel Raheem learned that Israeli bombings had killed his brother-in-law and his family in northern Gaza.
Osama was an Arabic language supervisor for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which provides health care, education and other services to Palestinian refugees from the Nakba. Osama was killed along with his son, daughter-in-law and three granddaughters.
“He had no relationship with any armed organization or Palestinian movement. He was a civilian,” Abdel Raheem said.
Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 150 UNRWA personnel during its indiscriminate bombing of Gaza. This is the highest number of UN personnel killed in conflict since the creation of the UN in 1945.
The killing of UNRWA employees is emblematic of Israel’s broader attack on the humanitarian organization.
On the same day that the ICJ found it “plausible” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, the Israeli government alleged that 12 UNRWA employees participated in the Hamas attacks on October 7.
But according to Channel 4 News, which obtained internal Israeli intelligence documents, Israel has provided no evidence that UNRWA employees were involved in the October 7 attacks.
Despite a lack of evidence, a number of Israel’s Western allies – such as Canada, the UK and the US – have cut funding to UNRWA even as famine looms due to the Israeli siege from Gaza.
“If UNRWA stops, then everything will collapse on the Palestinians,” said an UNRWA worker in Gaza, who is not authorized to speak to the press.
“All conditions necessary for life will be destroyed, especially for the elderly and children.”
Never leave
In late January, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani traveled to Paris to meet with Israeli, Egyptian and American intelligence officials.
They discussed a possible humanitarian pause through which Hamas would release women and children held captive in exchange for increased humanitarian aid. Steps to secure a permanent ceasefire would follow.
News of the meeting reached Gaza, where rumors spread that the end of the war was imminent. On X (formerly Twitter), videos surfaced of children, elderly men and teenagers dancing and celebrating the news. Abdel Raheem hoped, even prayed, that the rumors were true. But the truce has not yet materialized.
We want to go home! We want to go home!
Palestinians chant and celebrate news of supposed ceasefire deal.
Look at the joy on their faces. Can you imagine how crushed they will be if a ceasefire does not materialize?#casefireNow pic.twitter.com/0pxO7OMg2O
– Sajida Afzal (@mahadabdul36) February 2, 2024
“Every day, every hour, every minute and every second, we all fear dying,” Abdel Raheem said with resignation.
Those fears were further heightened when Israel announced Friday that it would target Rafah, an area near the Egyptian border where around 1.8 million Palestinians like Abdel Raheem have sought refuge.
Most of Rafah’s civilians live in residential buildings or sleep in tents on the cold streets. Abdel Raheem and her husband stay in a girls’ college which is now an UNRWA shelter
Some Israeli intelligence and government officials have long called for all Palestinians in Gaza to be deported to Egypt. However, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has made clear that he will not support any measures that could lead to the permanent displacement of Palestinians from Gaza.
Abdel Raheem said that even if she could cross the Egyptian border, she would prefer to die on her land.
“There is no question of us going to Egypt. This is our country and our land. We are Palestinian,” she said.
“If we die, then we want to die here.”