GAZA: Hundreds of Palestinians, with nowhere else to go after weeks of Israeli bombing, have ended up in a former prison in the Gaza Strip built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmeen Al-Dardasi said she and her family passed injured people they could not help as they were evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis toward the central correctional and rehabilitation facility there.
They spent a day under a tree before moving into the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room that offers shelter from the scorching sun, but not much else.
Al-Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and only one lung, but neither a mattress nor a blanket.
“We are not settled here either,” says Al-Dardasi, who, like many Palestinians, fears being uprooted again.
Israel has stated that it is doing everything it can to protect the civilian population.
Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced multiple times, say there is no place free from Israeli bombings that have left large parts of the Gaza Strip in ruins.
At least 90 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on July 13 in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi region, the region's health ministry said. Israel said the attack targeted Hamas' elusive military chief, Mohammed Deif.
On Thursday, the Gaza Strip's Health Ministry said 14 people were killed in Israeli military attacks on areas east of Khan Younis.
In one of the most densely populated areas in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread, entire neighborhoods have been razed to the ground.
According to the UN, nine out of ten people in the entire Gaza Strip are currently internally displaced.
Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family to flee because tanks were on the way. The family had no time to change clothes and left the building in prayer clothes.
After sleeping outdoors on sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, amid piles of rubble and gaping holes in buildings left by the fighting that took place there. The prisoners had been released long before Israel's attack.
“We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, with children in tow,” she said, adding that many women have five or six children and that it is difficult to find water.
She held her niece, who was born during the conflict in which her father and brothers died.
According to Palestinian health officials, more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's air and ground offensive since October 7.
Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived in prison after being transferred six times.
If Egyptian, US and Qatari mediators fail to achieve a ceasefire that they have long promised is near, they and other Palestinians could take to the barricades again.
“Where should we go? All the places we go are dangerous,” she said.
