Ahmed Ahmed
+972 Magazine / October 2, 2025
After two years of defying Israeli orders, I realized I could no longer protect my family if we stayed put, as bombs fall on every corner of our city.
On Tuesday, I left Gaza City for the first time in two years. Until then I had refused Israel’s orders throughout the genocide to flee to the so-called “humanitarian zone” in the south, even as I was forced at times to move between neighbourhoods within Gaza City to escape Israeli tanks and heavy aerial bombardment.
I was also committed to remain in the north as a journalist. I felt a duty to document the stories of the voiceless in the face of Israel’s ban on foreign journalists entering the Strip and its systematic targeting of local reporters, which has often forced me to write anonymously.
Even in recent weeks, when the army ordered the evacuation of all of Gaza City’s residents and ramped up its attacks on my surroundings, I vowed to stay put. But it soon became clear that this operation is like no other, and I had to take my survival into my own hands.
The assault began in the city’s most densely populated neighbourhoods — Zeitoun and Al-Sabra in the west, where I grew up — before advancing north into Jabalia, Sheikh Radwan, and Al-Jalaa. Residential towers are being systematically levelled to strike fear into people’s hearts and drive families south. Unmanned, explosive-laden vehicles are sent in to demolish entire residential areas in massive blasts.
Still, like thousands of others, I held on in the hope that there might be a breakthrough in negotiations toward a ceasefire, or at least a temporary truce. When Israeli tanks advanced into Al-Sabra in early August, I fled my home and stayed with relatives in Al-Daraj. But it was no safer there. My sisters and their families, who had relocated with me, were terrified.
One of them fled last week to Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where she crowded together with eight of our relatives in a single tent. My other sister clung to the expectation of a ceasefire deal, particularly in light of the much-hyped White House press conference on Monday, only to be disappointed as Israel’s attacks on Gaza City intensified. When news spread of the army’s push to fully reoccupy the Netzarim corridor, severing the city from the rest of Gaza, she also decided she had no choice but to leave.
By the beginning of this week, I too lost hope. For the first time, I realized I can no longer protect my family, and it felt inevitable that I would be killed if I remained as Israel bombs every corner of my city.
‘We left everything behind’
Some 400,000 Palestinians have reportedly fled Gaza City as the military intensifies its targeting of tents, residential buildings, and other infrastructure. Al-Rashid Street, the only evacuation route currently permitted by the Israeli military, is jammed with cars, trucks, and donkeys carrying families and their most essential belongings.
My cousin Shadi and his family of five fled their home in Gaza City’s Al-Sabra neighbourhood after a sudden Israeli ground advance in early September. “We were asleep at 3 a.m. when a series of artillery shells hit right in front of our house,” he recounted. Before long, quadcopter drones were also firing indiscriminately in the vicinity of his home.
“I carried my eight-month-old daughter to the middle room of the apartment, while my wife brought our two other daughters,” Shadi continued. “We had to duck under the window to avoid the quadcopters’ bullets.”
Neighbours living in makeshift tents nearby rushed into Shadi’s home seeking shelter. “When the gunfire slightly subsided, we managed to flee the area in small groups,” he explained. “We left everything behind. My family survived, but two of the neighbours with us were killed by an artillery shell as they tried to flee. I couldn’t stop to help them.”
Shadi and his family eventually found shelter with relatives in a partially destroyed apartment slightly north in the neighbourhood of Al-Daraj. Desperate to find a safer and more stable place to stay, he then undertook a four-hour solo trek on foot to Deir al-Balah. Transporting his entire family would have cost NIS 3,000 (around $900) — far beyond his means.
Shadi searched for a store, a studio, or a plot of land to rent in order to pitch a tent but he found nothing: everywhere was already full or outrageously expensive. “If you find anything available, it costs over NIS 5000 [around $1,500] per month because there’s no functioning government to regulate prices,” he said.
Armed gangs and criminal militias have taken advantage of the security vacuum. When he went that same day to the beach to try and stake out a spot to pitch a tent, strangers came and demanded payment. “They said I had to pay if I wanted to stay, even though it’s a public space,” he added.
Shadi’s uncle, Hazem, who owns a small plot of farmland in central Gaza’s Al-Zawayda, offered to host him. But five families were already crammed into the 23-square-meter plot. “I know it’s a difficult time and we must bear the struggles of displacement, but the plot wasn’t even enough space for one family,” Shaid said. “I had to refuse.”
Feeling defeated, Shadi returned to his family in Gaza City. “Every night my daughters wake up terrified by explosions,” he said. “They cry for hours. I sit helplessly, wishing I could protect them.”
He has a grim plan if their current refuge comes under attack: “I’ll move to my sister’s house in Al-Tuffah. If that’s invaded too, I’ll go to the beach. I’ll keep moving inside Gaza City. I’d rather die here with my family than die homeless in the south.”
Fleeing south, only to be killed
On top of the extreme overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, with tents crammed side-by-side along roadsides, those fleeing south and complying with the Israeli military’s evacuation orders are still at risk of being targeted. Airstrikes, shelling, and gunfire continue to kill dozens of Palestinians every day.
On Tuesday, Israel bombed a carpentry workshop and café in Deir Al-Balah, killing six people. One of them was my fellow journalist and friend, Yahia Barzaq.
At the time of the strike, I was walking with another friend just a few hundred meters away from where Yahia had evacuated. I saw ambulances and private cars rushing the wounded and dead to the hospital, but I didn’t imagine that my friend was among them until I opened WhatsApp and saw the news.
Yahia’s home was destroyed last year during Israel’s attacks on the neighbourhood of Al-Nasser in Gaza City. Since then, he and his family had been sheltering in his studio in the city’s central neighbourhood of Al-Rimal. But with the announcement of Israel’s new military operation, he decided to evacuate to the south in hopes of finding safety. Eventually, he managed to rent a floor of a house in Deir Al-Balah and set up a tent for his family.
Yahia’s brother-in-law, Ibrahim, told me that he often accompanied Yahia in the evenings to a nearby café to upload photos and other work material, as the internet connection in their shelter was unreliable. “Yesterday, I was too busy and didn’t join him,” Ibrahim said. Yahia went instead with his 6-year-old son, Mohammed.
When the strike hit the café, Yahia was struck in the head by flying shrapnel, killing him instantly. Mohammed ran screaming back to his family, before collapsing.
Yahia did everything he could to survive this genocidal war. He helped his parents evacuate to Egypt, and he himself was waiting for the borders to open so he could leave Gaza and continue his photography career; he had made a name for himself here, before the war, for his portraits of newborn babies.
“Yahia was the one who pushed all of us to evacuate because he was afraid of losing anyone,” Ibrahim added. “We never imagined he would be the one we lost.”
Ahmed Ahmed is a pseudonym for a journalist from Gaza City who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal.
