Qasem Waleed El-Farra
The Electronic Intifada / July 16, 2024
At the end of June, I was wandering down Jalal Street in Khan Younis with my younger brother Khalid.
Jalal Street used to be my favorite street in my hometown. Even if I was just withdrawing money from an ATM on the street, I would take my time to absorb the scenes: the vendors selling their wares, the families eating out at one of the street’s many restaurants.
When the Israeli army invaded Khan Younis in December 2023, they razed Jalal Street to the ground.
No more vendors. No more restaurants. No more life.
My brother and I, during our late June walk, stepped over the piles of rubble that now make up Jalal Street. Every pile of rubble was once a colorful or historic building that I loved.
It was then that we heard a few men talking about news of another Israeli ground invasion, of the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
Indeed, that day, 27 June, Israel would invade Shujaiya, destroying its streets just like it did in Khan Younis.
Where to go
I asked myself, what if the Israeli army again invades Khan Younis? Where would we be forced to evacuate to then?
In Gaza, we are always asking ourselves, where do we go? Yet people outside of Gaza might not be able to fully visualize what this means.
“Where do we go” is barely a question anymore – just an expression of despair.
Where to go when the scale of destruction in Khan Younis is apocalyptic.
Where to go when Rafah is no longer an option.
Where to go when Gaza’s central area is packed, and when Al-Mawasi, a desert region by the sea, is equally packed.
Israel is moving us around left and right like pieces on a chess board.
Another forced displacement
Then, on 1 July, the Israeli army once again ordered a mass evacuation of the eastern part of the city of Khan Younis, including my neighborhood Sheikh Nasser.
When I first saw an Israeli spokesman’s Facebook post announcing the evacuation, I asked myself if this meant we would be going back to square one. This square one, when I imagine it, is featureless – a gray, unidentifiable space of misery.
I took a short walk to the Bani Suhaila roundabout, the main roundabout of Khan Younis, where I saw cars, trucks and minivans stuffed with residents’ belongings.
People were pulling carts, and kids were pushing their elders in wheelchairs. It was a near duplicate of the scene of the first evacuation in December 2023.
At that time, my family and I were forced from our home under a shower of bombs. We walked the distance from Khan Younis to Rafah on foot, over 10 kilometers, carrying all of our belongings when the wheels on our luggage broke.
Now, I looked at my people being forced to evacuate once again. I looked at their pale faces, heavy steps and absent minds.
I saw one of my neighbors standing on the corner of our street. With an uncertain look, he was intercepting each car that passed by him, asking those inside where they were going, in hopes that they would offer him a seat in the car.
He was desperate for a ride.
The sun went down and so did his spirit. He went back home. And so did I.
My family gathered in the living room. We decided to spend the night at home because it would be hopeless to find a ride to west Khan Younis, the designated (and unlikely) “safe” area.
Pieces on a chess board
We stayed in Khan Younis, waiting. Yet nothing “big” happened in Khan Younis.
It was 11 July, and many of those who were forced to evacuate returned, even though Khan Younis is still labeled a “danger zone” by the Israeli army.
I believe that those evacuation orders on 1 July were an Israeli test to see how Palestinians would respond to their orders.
It’s like those horror movies where a psychopath terrorizes their victims with every possible demented method so that, by the end of the movie, they have subjugated their victim.
Yet throughout the beginning of July, the Israeli army continued to move us around like chess pieces.
On 7 July, the Israeli army ordered those in eastern Gaza City to evacuate to Deir al-Balah following its attacks on Gaza City, including a raid of the al-Tofah neighborhood.
“The quadcopter directly targeted numerous people as they fled Yafa school, where many people took shelter inside,” A.W., who was sheltering at the school, told The Electronic Intifada.
“I had to jump over dead bodies that were thrown all over the street as I ran to al-Nasser Street, [west of Gaza City], where the rest of my family had fled.”
The bombing intensified all over Gaza City.
“From midnight till dawn of 9 July, the bombs kept falling all over our street in al-Sabra area, in the southern Rimal neighborhood [of Gaza City],” said Ala’a Sbaih, a young Palestinian writer.
The Israeli tanks opened fire indiscriminately, and the snipers, accompanied by their quadcopters, shot at every moving body in their sight. As with every Israeli ground operation, the Israeli tanks and snipers provided a 500-meter-wide cover for their troops. This is something that has become common knowledge among Palestinians in Gaza.
“My neighbor tried to escape his house that night, but he got shot by an Israeli sniper, and was left to bleed all night long until he was found dead in the morning,” Alaa said.
“It felt as if the war had just started all over again.”
Qasem Waleed El-Farra is a physicist based in Gaza
