Qasem Waleed El-Farra
The Electronic Intifada / May 6, 2026
I feel selfish sometimes if I sit in the back seat of a taxi.
The back seat is the most coveted spot in a shared taxi in Gaza, yet it is not one that a man can sit in for long.
As the driver picks up passengers along the way, men are expected to give up the back seat for women and the elderly. This is not a problem, as I also feel the obligation to make female and elderly passengers as comfortable as possible. Yet, while I’m sitting in the back seat, I pray that the driver won’t stumble upon a woman or an elderly person.
My prayers aren’t accepted, though.
As I’m ousted from the back seat, I face the uncomfortable options of either getting into the shared front seat or getting into the aqalah, or trailer, that is hitched to the back of the car.
Sitting next to the driver means being painfully wedged into the center console, my legs squeezed tightly together. When the driver shifts gears, I must also shift and lift my body to accommodate the gear stick.
Sitting on the other side, next to the window, and sharing the seat with another passenger, is a whole other story.
Half of my body is on the seat and the other half is basically out the door, which must be kept ajar to create some space. As we pass passengers and cars in the road, I must continuously open and close the door to avoid a collision.
The driver isn’t immune either from these discomforts, as he sometimes has to share his seat with a passenger.
The other passengers can hop into the open trunk or into the aqalah that is hitched to the back of the car.
Before the genocide, an aqalah would have been used to transport animals, like sheep. Now drivers cover the sides of the aqalah with nylon sheets and have installed long metal benches on both sides.
Up to 16 additional passengers are then crammed into the trailer: two stand on the hitch that connects the aqalah to the vehicle; around 10 to 12 are seated on the metal benches; and another two passengers hang and hold on to the insides of the trailer. Sometimes, to accommodate more passengers from the crowds of people who need a ride, the driver will rearrange people based on their size, gender or age.
Yet the stench and the suffocating heat inside the aqalah are not the worst things about this new method of transportation.
That long metal bench doesn’t absorb the bumps of the roads, so every sudden bump causes a violent upward push that reverberates in the hip bones.
I’ve rode the aqalah several times, and I know that for many elderly people who suffer from chronic pain in the back or knees, this ride feels like physical torture.
So, that’s around 20 to 26 passengers in one vehicle, depending on how many passengers the driver can cram in.
End of the road
Drivers have no choice but to pack their vehicles like this; it’s the only way they can afford to buy fuel, which in Gaza is exorbitantly priced due to its scarcity.
Between 70 and 80 percent of the 80,000 registered vehicles in Gaza have suffered total or partial destruction.
The Gaza Strip needs approximately 15 million liters of diesel and 2.5 million liters of gasoline per month, yet such needs are never adequately met.
According to the terms of the pseudo October 2025 ceasefire, 50 fuel trucks should be allowed into Gaza daily, amounting to at least 8,000 fuel trucks entering the Strip as of March 2026. But the Israeli authorities have allowed only 1,190 fuel trucks to enter, with most of the fuel being used in health and public services.
Even if Israel allowed in more fuel supplies, the roads that remain in Gaza are barely suitable to drive on. At least 74 percent of the road network in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed, while another 13 percent of this network was partially damaged, according to an April 2026 World Bank, EU and UN report.
The over 60 million tons of debris that are scattered across the enclave – the remains of entire blocks of homes and buildings destroyed by Israeli attacks – also obstruct routes in Gaza.
So a road that used to take 10 minutes to travel by car might now require at least an hour.
Small change
The real problem for us passengers, though, is coming up with the small change, especially coins, to pay for the ride.
The first question the driver asks is not about your destination, but rather whether you have change or not.
Some taxi drivers who cover the route between the south and north of Gaza have come to accept online transactions, either via a bank app or the electronic local wallet, PalPay. Still, those who work internally, inside a certain city or area, accept only cash.
It’s a critical moment when the driver rules whether the passenger will be awarded the “privilege” of getting into the vehicle (if they have change) or will continue to their destination on foot (if they don’t).
Every new day in Gaza starts the night before, as people look for and prepare small change for the next day.
On 29 March 2026, my mother got a message from a mutual aid organization to come the next day to their distribution site in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis to receive a food package. But since she has a knee problem, I told her I would go instead.
That night, I stopped by my uncle’s tent, near ours in al-Mawasi, to ask for some change. Five shekels was all I could get.
I woke up at 8 the next morning, mentally prepared, knowing that I would have to walk nearly three kilometers before either waiting in a long line to get the parcel or having to push my way through the crowd to get it.
I walked for around half an hour before reaching the distribution center, where I was greeted by a long line of about 100 to 150 people.
The line didn’t maintain its integrity for long because, nearly an hour later, a dispute broke out between people cutting in line and a man angered at them. It began as an aggressive verbal fight before it escalated into a fistfight. Some people quickly intervened and broke them up, but it was too late – the entire line was in shambles.
I had to push my way through the crowd until I found someone from my area who managed to check my mother’s identity card before handing me the package from another gate.
The package included a 25-kilogram sack of flour and two food parcels comprising canned beans, tomato paste, cooking oil, pasta, rice and sugar. In total, the package weighed about 60 kilograms.
Although it took me nearly an hour and a half to get the parcel that day, this would be considered quick when compared to the usual hours of waiting that people must endure to receive their aid.
Still, getting the package was not the hardest part – it was whether I would be able to get a ride back to the tent.
The trolley kid
I went outside the aid distribution site to find a ride. Several men with donkey-pulled carts and kids with hand trolleys milled about, offering rides to those who had received their aid packages.
A man with a donkey-pulled cart asked for 10 shekels, in cash: five for me and another for the package. I declined.
I haggled with other cart drivers for nearly 20 minutes under the blazing sun before a kid, Khalil, tempted me with a special offer: 10 shekels for the ride, but he would let me pay five via PalPay when we arrived at my tent.
I agreed and asked about his cart. The kid went away for a moment and then returned with a hand-pulled cart.
I was startled, mulling over how he would pull my 60-kilogram package all the way back.
I asked about his age and if he could actually do this.
He said he was 13, but I couldn’t grasp that – he was too scraggly for such an age. His face was skinny with high sunken cheekbones, and his clothes were ragged, powdered with flour.
After we secured the package in the trailer and Khalil began to pull it, I noticed that the sole of his left shoe was cut open. He pressed his foot against the ground in order to control the cart and be able to walk.
The road to my tent is so lumpy, but most of it is covered with fluffy sand that would absorb his trailer’s tiny wheels.
I felt sorry for him, and I kept switching with him to pull the cart. We stopped in the middle of the road to get some fresh water before continuing onward.
After nearly an hour, we reached my tent, and I paid him.
Khalil told me that he is the eldest son. His father is an amputee, and Khalil has taken on the burden to work hard and provide for his family.
The shape of misery
I have been displaced for nearly a year now, and I crave to know the taste of having a break – and I’m sure Khalil shares that same desire with me, probably even more desperately so.
The genocide has turned all of us into walkers; we have been on the constant move since our forcible displacements from our homes.
In December 2023, my family and I were forcibly displaced from our house east of Khan Younis to Rafah’s Tel al-Sultan area, walking under a shower of bombshells.
We didn’t go to Rafah directly. We tried to shelter in downtown Khan Younis, but then that area was issued another mass displacement order.
We roamed the streets looking for a place to shelter until we reached Rafah. We walked nearly 16 kilometers on foot that day, according to my phone’s tracker.
But that wasn’t our only displacement. We were forcibly displaced on 2 July, 16 July, 22 July, 7 August, 22 August and 7 October 2024. Each time the Israeli army withdrew, we returned to our damaged house immediately, trekking multiple times from east Khan Younis to the al-Mawasi area west of Khan Younis.
On 19 May 2025, Israel forcibly displaced all of eastern Khan Younis, and this marked the last time we were able to walk to our damaged house. We haven’t been able to go back to our neighbourhood since then.
As displaced people in tents, we have walked for long distances in winter under the rain and in summer amid the sweltering heat.
Walking is the main expression of our misery in Gaza.
We walk to survive, to swiftly escape the Israeli bombardments and invasions, to provide for our families.
We walk for life.
And we walk because we have no other option but to walk; it is another form of suffering we have normalized.
Qasem Waleed El-Farra is a writer based in Gaza
