Dispatches From Catastrophe

* Interviewees marked with an asterisk are not being identified by their full names due to safety concerns.

Ahmed Totah: Life used to be good. We had our homes, we had bread. But since October 7th, there is no life in Gaza. The streets are filled with rubble and garbage. They are not even streets anymore. We’re living in a jungle where the strong eat the weak. They have bombed us back into the Stone Age.

Umm Moin*: I used to live in my home with my family. Why was it bombed? Why was my car bombed? I did not harm anyone. Every day I cry over my home—my memories, my belongings that I loved. Everything beautiful is gone.

Ahmed Totah: My family and I are living in a tent in an area called al-Zawayda. The tent is broken and open on all sides, exposed to the wind. The conditions now in the winter are harsh: The tents flood, and water gets inside. You can’t find mattresses to sleep on, you can’t find bathrooms.

Sameera Wafi: After multiple prior displacements, we had to move to a tent in al-Mawasi in Khan Younis in February 2024. The bombardment never stopped all through that year. Tents near ours were repeatedly targeted, and danger was a daily presence.

With the beginning of the “humanitarian truce” in January 2025, we discovered that our house in Khan Younis was still standing. We worked on repairing it, and last February, two days before the start of the blessed month of Ramadan, we were able to return home. But after only a few weeks, the war resumed. On May 19th, our area was subjected to a large-scale attack by Israeli forces, which included airstrikes and heavy gunfire. We survived by a miracle. Hours later, evacuation orders were issued for our neighborhood, displacing us for the sixth or seventh time.

Later on, Israeli forces advanced and blew up what remained of the houses using robots.^[1] Our home was completely destroyed. I am now in al-Mawasi again, in a tent that is completely unfit for living. It does not shield us from the heat of summer or the cold
of winter.

Saleh*: My family was displaced from the city of Khan Younis to Bani Suheila and then to the sea, where they have been living in thin nylon tents. My grandchildren don’t have warm clothes and now the winter has come. Our house is gone. They don’t have a shekel to their name.

Mohammed Al Khatib: In mid-2024, I managed to send my wife and children to safety outside Gaza. I have now been separated from them for more than 19 months. In that time my overall health deteriorated. I was diagnosed with hepatitis and, later on, with a gastric infection that I am still being treated for. I have lost over 20 kilograms [44 pounds].

Ahmed Totah: I suffer from a heart condition, so I managed to get a referral from the World Health Organization for a medical evacuation back in April 2024. The backlog has been so long that we have not heard anything since.

My son Muhammad has cerebral palsy. When we were displaced the first time, we left his wheelchair behind. He is quadriparetic, so we—my wife, my other children, and I—have had to physically carry him. He requires constant medical attention, but the circumstances have made that impossible. When there is bombing, he starts to scream; he buries his head in the ground. Even the sound of rain now scares him. It’s difficult to say this, but I have wished for death a million times because of his situation.

Mohammed Al Khatib: Since the ceasefire agreement, movement is easier, more aid is coming through the crossings, and my stress levels are lower. But my life at present can still best be described as survival, rather than really living.

Mohammed Zraiy: The food situation has improved a lot. It’s not like it was before the genocide, but it’s much better for a people who were starved to the brink of death.

Ahmed Totah: The main problem is that there’s no work—there is more food, but you need money to buy it.

Mohammed Zraiy: Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes are still ongoing, the cities are still destroyed, and people are still living in tents even in the harsh winter. For them, the war hasn’t ended yet. They’ve simply moved into a new chapter of suffering.

Saleh: At this point, I would want my wife and children to leave Gaza, whether that means going near or far—Egypt or Jordan, England or Belgium, I don’t care. We’ve grown tired of life.

Ahmed Totah: If they opened the borders and I had the chance to start life in another country, I would do so in a second. There’s nothing left here for us.

Adel al-Ramadi: I’m awaiting the soonest opportunity to leave Gaza so I can continue my literary and academic career. During these past two years, I have learned that the true homeland is one that protects the dignity of the person. This doesn’t mean that I’m letting go of Gaza; I will carry it in my heart wherever I go. I will write about it just as I used to.

Sameera Wafi: At one point, I wished to leave simply to survive, but I later realized that survival alone is not enough. Despite the destruction and pain, I discovered that I cannot live outside of Gaza.

I am trying to hold on to my passion for photography. Almost every day, I walk about an hour and a half to the building of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate in al-Mawasi. There, I charge my phone and follow the latest news. Sometimes I photograph emptiness, exhaustion, and worn-out faces. Other times I go to activities organized for children and capture them laughing inside a tent. My job as a photographer is to convey not only the pain of the people of Gaza but also their dignity. I try to tell the world: We are here, and despite everything, we are still living.

Yousef al-Akkad: I left Gaza briefly after October 7th to arrange university matters for my children, but the Rafah crossing was occupied and closed shortly afterward, and I have not been able to go back since. As soon as the crossing reopens and some minimally acceptable, safe level of life returns to the Strip, I will return from Nigeria to my medical work at the European Gaza Hospital.^[2]

Naila*: For the last two years, I have been stuck outside Gaza [in Israel’s Sheba hospital, then in Ramallah]. In 2025, I was supposed to fly to Cairo, where my husband was medically evacuated for back surgery early in the war. But there is no way for me to get there because I haven’t been able to get a travel permit.

These have been the worst years of my life because I am so far away from my family. My children’s lives, in particular, are very difficult with the harsh conditions in the tents in Gaza. I don’t know what to do. I live in a constant state of exhaustion and despair. I have lost hope in everything.

Umm Moin: I am in Egypt now, a country that is not my own, while the rest of my family, my siblings, and my mother—who has cancer—are living in a tent that does not protect them from the cold winter rains. I think about them constantly. I am unable to provide them with anything. My children lost their jobs, and their workplaces were destroyed. Their options have become extremely limited.

Jameel*: I hear the voices of thousands of people who would love to leave Gaza, and I can’t blame them. But life outside Gaza is not as simple as they might imagine. When we arrived in Egypt, we had no residency papers and we could not register the kids for schools. I now receive only 30% of the salary that I used to receive in Gaza, which is not enough to cover our daily needs.

Aisha*: I got to Ireland before the ceasefire, and at that time I couldn’t stop checking the news. If I ever saw that a bombing had happened near my family, I would stay up all night trying to call them, and if I got through I’d ask: “Are you okay? Do you hear heavy bombings or anything? Do you have food? Are you cold?”

When the ceasefire started, I thought, “Okay, now I can rest.” I thought I would feel relief that I’m in a different place, where I have this beautiful life that I always wanted. But that hasn’t happened because my family is suffering in Gaza; Israel is still bombing and I am always nervous. I pray for the border to open so my family can go to Egypt. Only then will I be able to live my life.

Hamza Salha: In August 2025, I got a scholarship to study in Ireland, where I am now. It is such a privilege to leave Gaza, but it hasn’t been easy. I’m physically surviving, but mentally, most of the time I’m still being chased by the trauma. I think of my family. I’m afraid that our house, the skeleton of which remains standing, might collapse at any time.

The people of Ireland are supportive, but they’re not the people I grew up with for 24 years. This is not my home; it’s not my land. Despite their compassion and generosity, I feel so lonely.

Hanady Hathaleen: Since October 7th, every day there are settler attacks here in the West Bank. Whenever someone comes to tell you something, you first ask: “Settlers? Settlers? What’s going on?” All our life is settlers: if they’re here, if they’re coming, if they’re not. The settlers walk from house to house with guns and dogs—in front of our children—to scare us. [The settler] Shimon Attia sits in front of certain houses and refuses to leave; he comes in the middle of the night. One night, my aunt was in the bathroom, and Shimon opened the bathroom door. Whenever he crosses the street into the settlement, he beeps the car horn loudly to scare the children and shouts sexual slurs at the women. We see how they look at us—like we are criminals, or trash they want to remove

Shoug Adra: When my husband Zakariyah was shot by a settler in October 2023, I felt like my life stopped. He was in the hospital through 2024. He underwent many surgeries and was in a lot of pain. I have four children, including twins who were infants then. All the pressure to care for our family was on me alone.

Alhamdulillah [thank God], in the last year, Zakariyah has gained weight and is doing well. Now, he can move, smile, and play with the kids a little. But he’s still very weak; the doctor said it could take 15 years for him to recover. And he is now afraid of us leaving the house, of the kids going to the playground. But he cannot work or run errands anymore, so I must go. When I do, he calls me constantly: “Did you cross the road? What is happening? Are you okay?”

Ghassan Najjar: It has become clear how organized the settlers are, and how much they coordinate with soldiers and police. A year ago, for example, when settlers from Givat Ronen attacked us, the soldiers gave the settlers weapons to shoot. The settlers now have army uniforms, and they are the ones setting up checkpoints, taking IDs, stopping people, beating and arresting them. Sometimes you see a soldier, and just five minutes later, you see him participating in a settler attack. Before, this was happening under the table. Since October 7th, it’s above the table.

Abu Suliman*: Due to attacks by settlers, we were displaced from Ein al-Rashash to the nearby village of Duma on October 12th, 2023. There, we lived in makeshift shelters that did not meet our basic needs. And we still had no protection against settler violence—neither from the law nor any other entity. In our two years in Duma, the place where we lived was demolished four times—in May, June, August, and November of 2024. We moved to the eastern part of Duma hoping that it would be safer, but the attacks have remained continuous; the latest one came just this past Thursday. It’s been very difficult to maintain sumud [steadfastness] as our children are terrorized, our women and elderly assaulted, our trees vandalized. There is terror everywhere here.

Eid Hathaleen: We are besieged from all sides. In August 2025, the settlers built caravans inside our village of Umm al-Khair, isolating its two halves from one another. The goal of these caravans is to make it harder to move around, to access the school. We are also facing a new round of demolition orders from the Israeli army. If these are carried out, a whole part of the village will be fully destroyed; some 100 more people will be homeless.

Abu Suliman: They want the land, barren and burnt—without any Palestinians. They carry out the displacement in stages: kick out the Bedouin first, then the small communities, then the villages, and lastly the big cities. This has been the policy since 1948. My paternal grandfather was expelled from Arad in 1948, and he was displaced again in 1967, then in 2023, and here we are again getting displaced in 2025. The displacement is continuous.

Basel Adra: The village of Khalet a-Daba is full of rubble from the demolitions in mid-2025. The soldiers came back repeatedly to destroy houses and then the tents and makeshift shelters that families had built to protect themselves from the rain. When the community didn’t leave after the demolitions, the occupation forces brought in the settlers.

An attack in late September 2025 was one of the craziest scenes I have ever witnessed. I arrived in the village at midnight. People had been sleeping outside because of the heat, which made it easier for the settlers to attack them. I saw people bleeding from their faces, from their hands. The families are still living there, but I don’t know how much longer they will be able to handle it. We know now that what the West Bank settlers have achieved during the genocide in Gaza will never stop. We are living in the new reality that they have created.

Hanady Hathaleen: All the entrances to the nearby cities are closed. You cannot move around. If Israeli forces see a car, they will confiscate it. As a result, no one is going to work.^[3]

Issa Amro: My movement in my own neighborhood in Hebron has become very restricted. There are more checkpoints, some of which are closed all the time. When they are open, I am repeatedly detained at the checkpoints for long durations. Whenever we leave home now, we are not sure when we will be able to come back.

Mohammad Matar: The checkpoints and roadblocks cause significant traffic—a three-kilometer drive can take three or four hours. That’s how our days are spent: on the road, moving between traffic jams, or changing routes due to settler attacks.

Hanady Hathaleen: My contractions began on a cold night in December 2024, at around 11 pm. I went outside to the bathroom 12 times that night, and each time I was scared because of the settlement that is right next to our village. I refused to wake up my husband Awdah until 6 am because I knew that there was no way he wouldn’t take me to the hospital right away. But driving from here to Hebron at night, it’s like throwing yourself at death, especially because we would have to drive past the settlement of Kiryat Arba. I kept thinking about a close friend of mine who had planned to give birth at the hospital in the city of Yatta, but when she arrived, she found that the Israeli army had closed all entrances to the city. She gave birth in the taxi, with a strange driver, and I was really scared that this would happen to me.

I had a difficult time after I gave birth, especially because a few months later, Shimon Attia attacked our village. He closed his car door on my hand three times. I had to nurse my newborn with a broken arm.

Tariq Hathaleen: Since the ceasefire, things have gotten worse. It was after the ceasefire that the army officially prevented Palestinians from plowing their own agricultural land.^[4] This had never happened before, and it happened for the first time after the ceasefire.

Every day, every month, every year that passes is worse than the day or month or year before. It’s an attempt to erase the community: to delete, destroy, and take away anything that helps us stay.

Ghassan Najjar: There is no ceasefire. It is propaganda. Since the ceasefire was signed, how many people have been killed? Just yesterday in Jenin, two young people were shot and killed for no reason.^[5]This is a ceasefire? Our life doesn’t matter to them—not to the Israeli government, not to the Palestinian Authority, and not to the world.

Jewish Currents spoke with Palestinian student and activist Khalil Abu Yahia on October 16th, 2023. Khalil was killed in an Israeli airstrike on October 29th, 2023.

We interviewed Khalil’s brother Ahmad Abu Yahia on February 2nd, 2025. Ahmad was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his family’s tent on July 2nd, 2025.

Umm Khalil Abu Yahia*: After October 7th, my son Khalil was in touch with his pro-Palestine friends and activists around the world to tell them what we were suffering. But this was a war waged not only against the resistance, but against anyone who dared to tell the truth. Israeli forces bombed my son’s home, killing him and his wife Tasnim and children Elaf and Rital. They took away my heart, the most valuable thing in this world to me. Due to the intense bombardment, I couldn’t even say farewell to them.

Afterwards, my other son Ahmad took it upon himself to continue the path of his brother Khalil, and he started reaching out to Khalil’s friends. But the occupation army assassinated him too. For sharing about the suffering of the Palestinian people, my sons paid with their lives.

Jewish Currents spoke with West Bank educator and activist Awdah Hathaleen on October 17th, 2023. Awdah was killed by a settler on July 28th, 2025.

Hanady Hathaleen: On July 28th, settlers attacked the village, and they killed my husband Awdah. I cannot forget how the settlers were laughing, how the one who murdered him said: “I’m so glad that I killed a person right now.” The Israelis held his body for 11 days. They attacked the village every night, and took 18 of my family members to jail. Meanwhile, the man who killed Awdah was released from jail and even house arrest after a few days, and he came back to the village. The settler attacks continued. They kept working to expand the settlement at the construction site where he was killed. They built new caravans, and they cut off our electricity and water. They didn’t leave us any time for grief.

Awdah’s death opened my children’s eyes to things I didn’t want them to know. My three-year-old Mohammed was with his father when he was shot. When he sees settlers now, he’s not scared—he hates them. And then there is Kenan, who was seven months old when Awdah was killed. He is the luckiest because he doesn’t know what happened. But he is also the unluckiest, because he didn’t have the chance to get to know his dad.

I always used to think about the end of the war, but I never thought that I would lose this much. I had thought, “Okay, a missile might hit our house, one of the kids will lose a limb.” Or we worried that there wouldn’t be food or water. I never thought I would lose Awdah. I was scared when he was denied entry into the US and detained at the border, a month before he was killed.^[7] But afterwards he told me, “I will never leave you again. This is the last time I am traveling.” I have this message in our WhatsApp chat. I look at it every day and think, “Are you really gone?”

Basel Adra: For me, Awdah’s killing is the most hopeless thing that’s happened. Whenever I think about it, my mind refuses to believe it.

Hanady Hathaleen: When they killed Awdah, they killed all of us, the whole community. Awdah loved life the most out of anyone, and he really believed in peace. But they killed the peace. They killed everything.

Tariq Hathaleen: Since the killing of Awdah, for the first time ever, I feel no hope. When I think about my vision, what I want to see politically, all I can think of is that I don’t want to see Shimon Attia. That’s what my dream has become. It’s the first time ever that we see no light ahead of us. They have left us wholly in darkness.

Umm Moin: There are other solutions besides war and destruction to resolve this issue—solutions that do not involve killing people or displacing them. But we have come to see that power is what determines decisions, not justice.

Sameera Wafi: The thing that pains me is the way the world responded to what happened in Gaza. Everything was documented through photos and videos, yet international humanitarian law was not applied to us. The targeting of civilians, the destruction of homes, and mass displacement happened before the eyes of the world, without real accountability or protection.

Ghassan Najjar: Before, we used to say, “Our enemy is the Zionist occupation and capitalism.” Now we can add the Arab governments to that list. They see our people being killed, children being massacred, and do nothing. They just give Israel what it wants. This includes the Palestinian Authority and the Gulf countries as well as Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. I think they are our enemies now, like Israel and like America.

Mohammad Matar: I no longer believe in any political party. We are in a reactionary loop of violence, while what we really need is brave leadership.

Aisha: My political views have changed, but for the worse, because now I hate everyone. The world is responsible for what we are enduring now. Of course, Israel destroyed everything and is the main culprit. But just as much as I blame Israel, I blame Hamas, because they are corrupt and think only of themselves.